Mark 1:31 commentary: healing the sick

31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

Notice that Christ’s healing allows her to jump up and get moving. This is a parallel or type of what happens to a person when they trust Christ and He saves them. They are immediately saved. It is not a gradual process. The saved person then should right away begin in their own personal service for Christ, seeking His will, reading His Bible, and in prayer, offering up the sacrifices of praise (Jeremiah 17:26; Hebrews 13:15.) Notice she wasn’t ordered to do it. She wasn’t guilted into doing it. No one tried to emotionally manipulate her into doing it. No one screamed at her. She just did it. The passage doesn’t say how she ministered unto them. She must have done it in the way she knew how to minister, as she had been doing for Simon Peter, Andrew, and Peter’s wife, out of response to her own gratitude and thankfulness.

This is also a picture of what happens to you when you are mired in a particular sin and through God speaking to you through His words in His Bible He plucks the sin out of your heart. It is immediate. Suddenly, and I mean, in an instant, in the “twinkling of an eye” I had no desire for alcohol. One day when I went back to look at some ads for a new horror movie I found that I was no longer interested in horror movies. It was sudden, quick, instantaneous. It comes from reading God’s words and believing them and expecting God to change you in whatever way He wishes through them. God does and can do certain things quickly. If you read His Bible believing and expecting Christ can deliver you from a sin.

It’s important, therefore, that this verse says “and immediately.” Most modern version of the Bible remove those words. This is done on the authority of a handful of corrupt manuscripts like Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, two “ships” of Alexandria (they are called Alexandrian manuscripts by scholars) taking the Christian back to Rome. (Read about Paul’s journey in the latter part of Acts around 27:6 and 28:11 to understand this reference.) Perhaps they would want you to believe your salvation is a gradual process that comes after you have climbed many steps to heaven, which is not a Biblical idea.