The Bible Study Podcast, episode 591. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of the

book of Mark with chapter 2.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. We have four different stories here in Chapter 2 of Mark, so let's get started. Jesus forgives and heals a paralyzed man. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Copernum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the

door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by

four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the

roof above Jesus by digging through it, and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven.

Now some of the teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves,

why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus knew in his

spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them,

why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, your sins are

forgiven or to say, get up, take your mat and walk. But I want you to know that the son of man

has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I tell you, get up, take your mat,

and go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone,

and they praised God saying, we have never seen anything like this.

This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible and it's my favorite for a number of different things.

I want you to picture this story. You have to know that first of all, we have flat roof houses

and the flat roof house is going to be sticks and wood and then have some sort of waddle or whatever on top of it.

And so these four men come carrying what you have to assume is a good friend of theirs.

We don't know anything about these four men except that they come and they bring this paralyzed man.

And there's at least four of them.

Four of them are carrying this, and it says he came with friends.

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