Bethsaida Two-Step

In an episode of the Simpsons, Comic Book Guy questions Lucy Lawless about inconsistencies in episodes of Xena. Her repeated answer is “wizard”. When we question why we weren’t healed, why our faithful tithing didn’t solve our financial worries, why … The standard answer we get is that it’s our fault.

In Mark 8:22-26, Jesus was in Bethsaida and heals a blind man. But it was a two-step process – initially, vision was restored, but it was indistinct; then, it was fully restored. The man was told to go straight home.

An RCG Q&A deals with the “two-step” healing:

Christ could have healed the man by the simple touch of His hand, or even with His words. But He probably realized that the man’s faith was weak.
We find that even after Christ had been resurrected, His disciples’ faith was weak…
Christ healed the blind man in a “step-by-step” manner, rather than all at once, in order to increase the man’s faith, before totally healing him.

This is the type of response we’d expect, the old not enough faith boilerplate. Of course, the verses in question don’t say that.

Many years ago, I heard a talk by Dr Dorothy (Charles V. Dorothy, once a popular WCG minister, AC professor and researcher, several times was relieved of duty, and has a real PhD). The details are now fuzzy, but essentially the two-step healing process was what would be expected for the disease he believed had caused the blindness”.  This reminds me of adding a peripheral to a computer – get the hardware working, get the right driver; a two-step process. Regardless of one’s opinion about healing, I think it appears more acceptable than “not enough faith.

Either the RCG writer was unaware of this answer, or, dismissed it as being from a “liberal” minister (an independent thinker).