Superstitious? (Matthew 9)
The woman with the flow of blood who thought that she would be healed if she could only touch the tassel on the hem of Jesus’ garment was, according to D. A. Carson’s commentary, “superstitious,” though Jesus heals her anyway. Granted, she was in fact healed when she touched that tassel. But, says Carson, Jesus “said that it was her faith that was effective, not the superstition mingled with it” (Carson, Matthew, 230).
But … what was superstitious about her belief? What definition of “superstition” can Carson be working with?
How much better to say with Gibbs:
With regard to the woman with the hemorrhage, Jesus flatly declares that she had faith to be made well, and he in no way criticizes her for being superstitious. It is just as easy to interpret her desire to touch the hem or tassel of Jesus’ robe (the datum that leads Carson to accuse her for “superstition”) as a sign of her remarkable faith; she knows that she only needs the slightest contact with Jesus to be healed and saved (Matthew 1-11, 484).