Study Desk

"Listen! A farmer went out to plant his seed.

Then Jesus said to his followers, "Don't you understand this story? If you don't, how will you understand any story?

He always used stories to teach them. But when he and his followers were alone, Jesus explained everything to them.

That evening, Jesus said to his followers, "Let's go across the lake."

Jesus was at the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a cushion. His followers woke him and said, "Teacher, don't you care that we are drowning!"

Jesus said to his followers, "Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Jesus and his followers went to the other side of the lake to the area of the Gerasene people.

They came to Jesus and saw the man who used to have the many evil spirits, sitting, clothed, and in his right mind. And they were frightened.

A leader of the synagogue, named Jairus, came there, saw Jesus, and fell at his feet.

When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his coat.

She thought, "If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed."

His followers said, "Look at how many people are pushing against you! And you ask, ‘Who touched me?' "

But they laughed at him. So, after throwing them out of the house, Jesus took the child's father and mother and his three followers into the room where the child was.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, and his followers went with him.

He is just the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters are here with us." So the people were upset with Jesus.

Jesus said to them, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and with his own people and in his own home."

So Jesus was not able to work any miracles there except to heal a few sick people by putting his hands on them.

He called his twelve followers together and got ready to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

When Herod heard this, he said, "I killed John by cutting off his head. Now he has risen from the dead!"

Herod himself had ordered his soldiers to arrest John and put him in prison in order to please his wife, Herodias. She had been the wife of Philip, Herod's brother, but then Herod had married her.