Big Idea: Jesus has unique authority to heal, which extends even to raising the dead.

Understanding the Text

After the controversies of 5:17–6:11 and the collection of teaching on discipleship in 6:12–49, Luke now resumes his account of Jesus’s public activity in and around Capernaum with two instances of Jesus’s spectacular healing power. These two healings are of men, one of whom is already dead; in 8:40–56 Luke will tell of the healing of two women, one of whom is already dead. Luke often likes to balance male and female in the stories he tells. This section also brings together two stories in which Jesus responds to the needs of first a man and then a woman, each facing the loss of a loved one.

Matthew’s account of the healing of the centurion’s servant (8:5–13) emphasizes the centu…