Daily Bible Reading 21st May 2026 // Luke 5:16-26
16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralysed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’, or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralysed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 25 And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. 26 And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”
The heart of the story, of course, is the man himself, and what happened to him. And the first thing we see in this regard is that he had more wrong with him than palsy. The palsy of sin was on his soul, and Christ went unerringly to the root of his problem. And when we bring others to Christ with their needs - or come to Him ourselves with our own - we must be prepared for the all-wise Physician to probe more deeply than we often care about, for He is more concerned to get to the root of our problems than to cure their symptoms. What we think is the matter with us, and what He thinks is the matter with us may be two very different things. This is why Jesus pronounced forgiveness upon him, before healing his sickness. In this regard we should remember that there is an integral relation between sickness and sin in a number of ways. Some sickness is 'psychosomatic', that is, something in the mind or soul can produce physical symptoms that are quite incontrovertible and genuine. Then, sickness can sometimes be a direct medical consequence of some sin (a drunkard can literally drink himself to death by doing irreparable harm to his liver). Then, sickness can be a direct chastisement from God (cf 1 Corinthians 11:30). But, having said these things, we must beware of making unwarranted assumptions about sickness, and assume that all sickness can be explained in these ways. Not so: true, it is the presence of the tragedy of sin in the world that lies behind all sickness, but there are countless innocent sufferers in the world (not that they are sinless, for all have sinned) of whom it cannot be said that sickness for them has been caused by their own sin. We must beware of being like Job's comforters.