Matthew 8

Matthew 8 is an amazing account of Jesus's miracles. Something I noticed about the miracles Jesus does in this chapter is that they are for people who would have been discarded by Jewish society. First He healed a leper, then the servant of a centurion (the enemy) - whose faith was greater than anyone in Israel. It says He healed Peter's mother-in-law in Peter's house, so I'm assuming she was a widow. I suppose she could have been visiting, but widows also typically lived with their daughter's family.

Then there's an interlude about the cost of discipleship, which alludes to how we must be willing to give up everything in order to follow Jesus. Followed by the other side of the coin in that Jesus demonstrates how He is able to take care of us in any and every situation when we trust in Him. When we follow Jesus we might appear completely vulnerable by the world's standards, but we are actually in the hands of the almighty creator of heaven and earth and have nothing to fear.

Then Jesus heals demon possessed gentiles, in gentile territory, and casts the demons into a herd of pigs (unclean animals).

This whole chapter would have probably grated against the sensibilities of the entire Jewish culture at the time, and yet Matthew is writing it primarily for a Jewish audience. It must have been a great lesson in humility for his contemporary readers.