The Visit to Philadelphia

167:3.1Ab­ner had ar­ranged for the Mas­ter to teach in the syn­a­gogue on this Sab­bath day, the first time Je­sus had ap­peared in a syn­a­gogue since they had all been closed to his teach­ings by or­der of the San­hedrin. At the con­clu­sion of the ser­vice Je­sus looked down be­fore him upon an el­derly woman who wore a down­cast ex­pres­sion, and who was much bent in form. This woman had long been fear-rid­den, and all joy had passed out of her life. As Je­sus stepped down from the pul­pit, he went over to her and, touch­ing her bowed-over form on the shoul­der, said: “Woman, if you would only be­lieve, you could be wholly loosed from your spirit of in­fir­mity.” And this woman, who had been bowed down and bound up by the de­pres­sions of fear for more than eigh­teen years, be­lieved the words of the Mas­ter and by faith straight­ened up im­me­di­ately. When this woman saw that she had been made straight, she lifted up her voice and glo­ri­fied God.

167:3.2Not­with­stand­ing that this woman’s af­flic­tion was wholly men­tal, her bowed-over form be­ing the re­sult of her de­pressed mind, the peo­ple thought that Je­sus had healed a real phys­i­cal dis­or­der. Al­though the con­gre­ga­tion of the syn­a­gogue at Phil­a­del­phia was friendly to­ward the teach­ings of Je­sus, the chief ruler of the syn­a­gogue was an un­friendly Phar­isee. And as he shared the opin­ion of the con­gre­ga­tion that Je­sus had healed a phys­i­cal dis­or­der, and be­ing in­dig­nant be­cause Je­sus had pre­sumed to do such a thing on the Sab­bath, he stood up be­fore the con­gre­ga­tion and said: “Are there not six days in which men should do all their work? In these work­ing days come, there­fore, and be healed, but not on the Sab­bath day.”

167:3.3When the un­friendly ruler had thus spo­ken, Je­sus re­turned to the speaker’s plat­form and said: “Why play the part of hyp­ocrites? Does not ev­ery one of you, on the Sab­bath, loose his ox from the stall and lead him forth for wa­ter­ing? If such a ser­vice is per­mis­si­ble on the Sab­bath day, should not this woman, a daugh­ter of Abra­ham who has been bound down by evil these eigh­teen years, be loosed from this bond­age and led forth to par­take of the wa­ters of lib­erty and life, even on this Sab­bath day?” And as the woman con­tin­ued to glo­rify God, his critic was put to shame, and the con­gre­ga­tion re­joiced with her that she had been healed.

167:3.4As a re­sult of his pub­lic crit­i­cism of Je­sus on this Sab­bath the chief ruler of the syn­a­gogue was de­posed, and a fol­lower of Je­sus was put in his place.

167:3.5Je­sus fre­quently de­liv­ered such vic­tims of fear from their spirit of in­fir­mity, from their de­pres­sion of mind, and from their bond­age of fear. But the peo­ple thought that all such af­flic­tions were ei­ther phys­i­cal dis­or­ders or pos­ses­sion of evil spir­its.

167:3.6Je­sus taught again in the syn­a­gogue on Sun­day, and many were bap­tized by Ab­ner at noon on that day in the river which flowed south of the city. On the mor­row Je­sus and the ten apos­tles would have started back to the Pella en­camp­ment but for the ar­rival of one of David’s mes­sen­gers, who brought an ur­gent mes­sage to Je­sus from his friends at Beth­any, near Je­ru­sa­lem.