11 Woman with hemorrhage





Mark 5:24b-34 (NIV)                                                                                     


Luke 8:42-48 (NIV)



Environmental setting   


Look at the details of the bleeding woman.   We must note that Jesus calls her daughter.


Life was hard in those days and she had a continual menstrual flow - for 12 years.


Think of the environment – there was little water in which to bathe, only grass and rags to staunch the flow.  The ongoing cramps and nausea.   The stigma that she would have been ritually unclean for 12 years.    She would have been Smelly…Dirty…She couldn’t touch anybody – She had no friends – no person would touch her.


As a woman she was only raised to cook, clean and keep house.   She would not be allowed to do these things leaving her with no purpose. She would not be allowed into the temple, she was isolated – an outcast.


She knows the law and if she intentionally touches someone – she will be stoned to death.


Society in those days was similar to the Muslim culture of today.    No touching between men and women – unless wife or daughter.   Jesus calls her “Daughter” so that he can touch her.  She is cured as the disease is gone, but he also heals her by accepting her – touching her and restoring her sense of self.  This “healing” is independent of cure.




1.     Identify as completely as possible the person in need (e.g., age, ethnic origin, religion, gender, social status).


2. What was the immediate, obvious need?


3. Who took the initiative in effecting the healing?

      The person in need?

      Others? --. Jesus?

      How was it expressed?

4.     Describe the actions or process leading to the healing; that is, what was said (e.g., questions, requests, com­mands) and what was done (e.g., approaching, following, touching, publicly/privately), and by whom?


5.     Did the person in need or someone else verbally express faith? ~. Non-verbally? ~. Describe how and by whom faith was involved in this healing.


6. What were the evidences that the person was healed?


7. What were the reactions to the healing?


8. What in this narrative led Jesus to minister healing to the person in need?




1. Where did this healing take place?

2. How does Mark (in more detail than Matthew and Luke) describe the woman's life before and after the healing? Did the woman violate Jewish "law?" How?

3. Unlike most healing stories, in this one Jesus is not aware beforehand of the person or her illness. Does this instruct you in any way?

4. What comments or instructions did Jesus express after the healing?

5. In Luke's version, Jesus senses "power" going out from him. Is that a sensation we could experience?

Should we expect it?

6. Also read and discuss Matthew 14:35-36, Mark 6:53-56, Acts 5:12-16 and Acts 19:11-12.

7. Are "healing" and the cessation of "bleeding" identical in this story? If not, what is the difference? When and why did the bleeding stop? When and why was the woman healed? (Note: the Greek word translated in all three Gospels as "healed" is sesoken, a form of sozo which means to be made well, to be made whole, or to be saved.)

8. What role does desperation often play in the healing stories? In healing in general? In prayer? Do we approach Jesus as a last resort, or do we pray before consulting "many doctors?" Is there a balance between doing everything we can do and praying to Jesus?

9. What lesson(s) have you learned about healing from this account?