A Woman with an Issue

Research in the last 50+ years regarding the mind and body connection has exploded.

Vital

A Woman with an Issue. We all know one and about half of us are one.

Recently I had an issue. Not that having an issue is a rarity in my life. This is one of those recurring issues. One I think I've worked on, resolved, gotten over or decided it is most definitely not an issue for me anymore.

Having exhausted a number of solutions to this issue, I got quite in my quite time one morning. I wonder what Jesus would say about this issue. Immediately, the well-known story of the Woman with An Issue of Blood came to mind.

Maybe this story is not so well-known. Or maybe it's simply not well-understood. For some context and to experience empathy for this woman, I highly recommend The Chosen: Season 3 for a dramatization.

Dallas Jenkins and his team did an outstanding job of giving us so much insight into her culture, her status in the community, her rejection, her hopelessness. (When Jesus said to her, "You must be exhausted” —a phrase virtually every woman in the world can relate to in dozens of seasons of her life—I think I exhaled about 10 years of exhaustion right then.)

That morning, I highlighted the story’s passage in my Bible in all three of the New Testament accounts. It was glaring how much yellow was now in the book of Mark compared to the yellow in Luke or Matthew. Hummm???

Mark, do tell!

Why was there such an obvious difference in the amount of yellow highlighting? The first thing I noticed was variation in number of verses.

• Matthew 9:19-22 - Three (3) verses

• Mark 5:25-34 - Nine (9) verses

• Luke 8:42B-48 - Five and a half (5 1/2) verses

Word count? I looked at four of the most commonly used word-for-word translations in Protestantism: New International Version (NIV), King James Version (KJV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and English Standard Version (ESV). I took word count for the passages in each of these versions and got an average.

• Matthew: 83.75 words

• Mark: 269 words

• Luke: 171 words

Mark told us 40% more than Luke and 69% more than Matthew.

If you grew up learning about the Bible or if you’ve done some study as an adult, you might have learned Mark is the shortest New Testament gospel. Luke writes more about women. Matthew is all about Jesus The Messiah.

Welp, not in this story. Mark, who wrote the 1st century equivalent of the Cliff Notes version, wrote the most about it.

Mark, what happened the others didn’t see? Or thought so irrelevant as to leave out?

Before the Bible-version purists or scholarly critics arrive in the comments, these different versions of the same event do not constituent errancy. This is simply the same as me (someone who loves to hear herself talk and wears her feelings on her sleeve) telling you about an event and my middle son (someone who listens more than talks and rarely reveals his feelings) telling you about the same event. Both our versions would be true. The version you get depends on how long you have to listen to the version-bearer and how much detail you like.

I also understand there are debates among scholars and historians about who actually wrote what in the New Testament. Got it!

Matthew relays the information: And the woman was healed at that moment.

Luke adds what the crowd heard:  She told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.

But Mark includes her experience: She felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

NIV translations

All four translate Mark’s use of two Greek words into these five English words: "She felt in her body"

• "She felt" ginosko (Strong's #G1097)

• "In her body" soma (Strong's #4983)

I'm going somewhere with this so stay with me.

Ginosko. To know. Knowledge that goes beyond information. (1)

The Greek word ginosko is used 225 times in the New Testament. Another Greek word translated to see or to know as an observation is oida, used 318 times. (1)

Ginosko means to know in an entirely different way from observation. (1)

• It’s the word used for sexual relations between a husband and wife. (1).

• Jesus used it when He said “I never knew you.” and “the good Shepherd knows his sheep.” (1)

The word implies a deep intimate understanding. Mark tells us she knew in herself. She had deep understanding of what was happening to her body. She knew in her mind what she felt in her body.

What is so fascinating about this?

Research in the last 50+ years regarding the mind and body connection has exploded. Not only in terms of sheer volume of research, but the change in how the mind-body connection is perceived. Heck, even the fact there is a mind-body connection is revolutionary compared with the way we thought when I was a child in the 50s and the 60s. These were years when my mother was a young woman experiencing trauma, experiencing monumental shifts in society, experiencing normal hormonal changes in her body. Things which could not be discussed in open nor in private.

Although there is so much more in this story, I wrap up by stating the possibly not-so-obvious. For those who think the writers of the New Testament didn’t care about women, please consider this story. The New Testament Cliff Notes writer, possibly scribing for Peter, the most impetuous, ADHD disciple among the twelve, wanted us to know we could know past observation, beyond information. He wanted readers to know this woman experienced a mind-body connection. He was not simply an observer.

Changes in our physical body result in changes to our emotions, our perceptions of our reality, and our knowing of ourselves.

The writer of the book of Mark somehow understood that moment for this woman. Luke and Matthew tell us what happened. Mark tells us her experience in two words: ginosko soma.

This woman suffered an incurable condition for 12 years. She spent all she had on the experts. How she even managed to make a living in that society 2,000 years ago—without a husband, without being able to go to the temple and worship, being an outcast in her community. Anyone reading this on a phone or laptop cannot begin to comprehend that world.

But in a moment, she extended her faith and hope into a Man walking down the street, surrounded by people pressing in about him.

She had an issue her best efforts could not address.

At once, she knew herself to be healed. (2)

These three writers tell us immediately, straight away, this Man understood (epi-ginosko-a compound word of the same word describing her experience of feeling and knowing) virtue and energy had left him.

And at once she felt she was healed in her body.

I had a solution to my issue. A solution which was not new when it came to me that morning, When I’ve consulted the experts, and spent all the money I have on my issue, I can lean into Jesus with faith and hope. Not that my efforts count for much of anything except as the vehicle to deliver my faith to Him. Even if it’s countercultural and risky, I can come away with a deeper knowing and perception of the issue and the healing, in my body as well as in my mind.

1 The Ezra Project. Ginosko: Knowledge beyond information.

2 All the Women in the Bible. Mastro, M.L. Del. Castle Books, pp. 140–140.

Other “Women with a…” stories from the Bible I’m working on:

• A Woman with a Community

• A Woman with a Business

• A Woman with a Worry

• A Woman with a Brain

• A Woman with an Army