A Missionary to the Gentiles

Paul, my friend in Tennessee, recently texted me saying that his church baptized 400 people. I was thrilled – this message is contrary to Christian organizations’ claim that churches are in decline in the United States. The secret to his church’s growth is his pastor’s life. He was a drug user, dealer, and smuggler before accepting Jesus as his Lord. His changed life and constant witness to grace draw other druggies to the Lord.

From one side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus and his disciples sail through a whirlwind and get to the other side. There, they had an unexpected reception: a naked man sitting among the tombs with broken chains on his ankles and hands and cuts and bruises all over his body (Luke 8:26–27). Seeing Jesus, he had the most unexpected reaction.

“Falling before him, he cried in a loud voice: ‘Why? Why you and me, Jesus, son of the highest? I beg you: Don’t interrogate me.’” (8:28)

Those weren’t the words of a man but the unclean spirit that possessed him. That spirit knew its place (to prostrate), Jesus’s identity (son of the highest), and Jesus’s ability – to interrogate him to drag the truth out or torment him (vasanizo).

(In Greek, the verb vasanizo referred to the process of rubbing gold on a touchstone to purify it or cross-questioning a witness to draw the truth. Metaphorically, it referred to strenuous situations, such as illness [Matt 8:6] or waves beating up against a boat to the point of tearing it apart [Matt 14:24]. Whether the unclean spirit referred to interrogation, torment, or both is unclear.)

Jesus ignored his request and exercised his power. First, he wanted to call him by his name, just as the evil spirit called him by his name: ‘Jesus, son of the highest.’

Jesus asked: ‘What is your name?’

He answered: ‘Legion’ (8:30)

Luke explained Legion meant ‘many,’ as if many demons were in him. Was this true or prideful? Could we trust an unclean spirit to tell the truth? Perhaps he had an exaggerated self-esteem.

The evil spirit(s) knew they had to leave the man and had a request – not to be sent to the abyss. In the Greek/Roman world, an abyss was the great depth, a bottomless pit, where evil spirits stayed. In the Hebrew world, it was where the dead people (including Jesus) went until their resurrection (Rom 10:7). Wherever that place was, the evil spirit(s) didn’t want to be tossed there. Instead, he/they chose a herd of pigs. The Lord Jesus granted his/their wish, which resulted in the pigs’ demise.

The result of Jesus’s encounter was a purified person. The villagers came and saw the demon-possessed man sitting at the feet of Jesus, cleansed from the demons that oppressed him, clothed, and in his right mind (8:35). Such a sight frightened them, and they wanted Jesus to leave.

Jesus listened to their request and left their villages and cities but left the formerly demon-possessed person as a witness. He said to him,

“Return to your home and tell everything GOD has done for you.” (8:39).

The pastor in Tennessee could draw 400 people to baptism because he knew the power of Jesus – to heal, deliver, transform, and change a person – From nakedness, demon possession, bondage, and living among the tombs to sitting at Jesus’s feet, clean, free of demons, clothed, and in one’s right mind. That’s what happens when one encounters the Lord Jesus!