The man and I have crossed paths several times in my Christian walk.  The first time that I remember is a weekly meeting at a rehab unit in Charity Hospital of New Orleans.  I was the speaker and he was my sermon; I compared what he did to what I had been like before I was saved. I got right to the end of my sermon and had to let someone else give the altar call because I was crying so hard.

We meet again a few years later when a fellow teacher gave morning devotions and she focused on Mark 5:15.  He was “fully clothed and in his right mind” there were multiple points received from that message but it is not uncommon to get that as an answer in the morning if you ask me how I am doing.

I guess all of the fellowship over the years came together when I wrote the poem on the next page of this blog.  It is meant to be a witnessing tool as you write your testimony below ours.  It started as a writing contest entry, not sure it ever made it.

But this is a Bible study blog so if I may, I am going to give a few other things I have seen along the way. I will direct the study from Luke 8: 22 to 9:2 it is similar to Mark 5 and Matthew 8 but I like Luke because he had to “study to show himself approved” because he was “not around” like Matthew and Mark had been. Actually, Bible scholars will tell you that Mark wrote his book first and the other two followed and some argue that all three used a common undiscovered document. By the way, if you Google this topic be ready to be bombarded with all kind of things, the one that I found most amusing was the argument that Mark did not know his geography. Gee, he was alive at the time and had probably visited the region with his uncles when they were fishing. (Gerasenes is too far from the Sea of Galilee.)

The reason I start with Luke 8:22 is the phrase “one day.” It frames this as part of the story and the fact that they got hit with a storm as Jesus was about to do this great work is not surprising.  The thousands of whining demons, pigs near a kosher country and Jesus conversing with Legion I will leave those topics to your own Biblical beliefs and backgrounds; I want to focus on other things.

The people of the Gerasenes or the Decapolis were afraid and asked Jesus to leave which he did. I personally feel the reason that they wanted Him to go was that if He could do that miracle what He must be saying is real and they knew they would have to make a choice and a change.  They were probably not Jewish because it was a Roman area, like Lo Debar it was on the east side of the Jordan and perched on a hillside.  According to Wikipedia, it was a very secure place and one of importance.

Then there is Jesus’ reaction to the man’s request to go with Him; Jesus refused, yet in chapter 9 He sends out the Twelve. Jesus had a plan and it seemed that he could be useful for the Kingdom all on his own.

The map is from http://bibleatlas.org/gadara.htm or Biblos.com  if you have never used this website give it a look it is very interesting and useful.