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23 Jesus traveled around all of Galilee teaching in synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every sickness and disease among the people. 24 His reputation spread throughout all of Syria, and people brought to him all who were afflicted with various diseases or who suffered painful conditions, the demon-possessed, the mentally ill, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. 25 Great crowds followed him, people from Galilee and the Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea, and from the land across the Jordan.

Comments

Jesus travels throughout Galilee preaching and healing. An observant Jew, he regularly teaches in local synagogues. His main theme is the Gospel (euangelion in Greek, whence the Latin evangelium and its English derivatives, e.g. evangelist, evangelize, evangelical, etc.). Today this word is usually understood as a written account of Jesus’ life, but here it is meant in the broad sense of the Good News: The Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near. God is breaking into the world, so that his will might be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Every individual can participate in this Kingdom through repentance and faith, prayer and action.

Jesus manifests the Kingdom by confronting the physical evil experienced by the people who come to him. He heals those who are suffering physically, psychologically, spiritually, or socially. The lines between these categories are blurred in Jesus’ world: misfortune is often perceived as punishment from God, psychological illness interpreted as demonic possession, and community participation hindered by handicap and disease.

Word quickly spreads throughout all of “Syria” (what we would today call the Levant). Crowds flock to Jesus from Jewish areas (Galilee, Jerusalem, and Judea) as well as non-Jewish regions (the Decapolis and the land across the Jordan).

This short but dense passage summarizes the core of Jesus' mission: announcing the Gospel of the Kingdom by teaching and preaching and manifesting it through healing. Starting in the next chapter, Mt will tell the story of Jesus’ ministry in detail through five alternating sections of teaching and action.