When Was Peter’s Moth­er in-Law Cured ?

Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

In Mark 1:16 — 31, we read that Jesus(P) had made his call to his dis­ci­ples before he cured one of his dis­ci­ple’s (Simon Peter) moth­er in-law :

16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his broth­er cast­ing a net into the sea : for they were fishers.
17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fish­ers of men.
18 And straight­way they for­sook their nets, and fol­lowed him.
19 And when he had gone a lit­tle fur­ther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his broth­er, who also were in the ship mend­ing their nets.
20 And straight­way he called them : and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired ser­vants, and went after him.
21 And they went into Caper­naum ; and straight­way on the sab­bath day he entered into the syn­a­gogue, and taught.
22 And they were aston­ished at his doc­trine : for he taught them as one that had author­i­ty, and not as the scribes.
23 And there was in their syn­a­gogue a man with an unclean spir­it ; and he cried out,
24 Say­ing, Let us alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
25 And Jesus rebuked him, say­ing, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.
26 And when the unclean spir­it had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, inso­much that they ques­tioned among them­selves, say­ing, What thing is this ? what new doc­trine is this ? for with author­i­ty com­man­deth he even the unclean spir­its, and they do obey him.
28 And imme­di­ate­ly his fame spread abroad through­out all the region round about Galilee.
29 And forth­with, when they were come out of the syn­a­gogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 But Simon’s wife’s moth­er lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.
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.

How­ev­er, in Luke 4:31 – 5:11, the oppo­site is true. Jesus (P) cured his dis­ci­ple’s moth­er in-law after Jesus had made his call to the dis­ci­ples, includ­ing Peter :

4 : 31 And came down to Caper­naum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sab­bath days.
32 And they were aston­ished at his doc­trine : for his word was with power.
33 And in the syn­a­gogue there was a man, which had a spir­it of an unclean dev­il, and cried out with a loud voice,
34 Say­ing, Let us alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art ; the Holy One of God.
35 And Jesus rebuked him, say­ing, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the dev­il had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.
36 And they were all amazed, and spake among them­selves, say­ing, What a word is this ! for with author­i­ty and pow­er he com­man­deth the unclean spir­its, and they come out.
37 And the fame of him went out into every place of the coun­try round about.
38 And he arose out of the syn­a­gogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s moth­er was tak­en with a great fever ; and they besought him for her.
39 And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever ; and it left her : and imme­di­ate­ly she arose and min­is­tered unto them.
40 Now when the sun was set­ting, all they that had any sick with divers dis­eases brought them unto him ; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
41 And dev­ils also came out of many, cry­ing out, and say­ing, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuk­ing them suf­fered them not to speak : for they knew that he was Christ.
42 And when it was day, he depart­ed and went into a desert place : and the peo­ple sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them.
43 And he said unto them, I must preach the king­dom of God to oth­er cities also : for there­fore am I sent.
44 And he preached in the syn­a­gogues of Galilee.

5:1 And it came to pass, that, as the peo­ple pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
2 And saw two ships stand­ing by the lake : but the fish­er­men were gone out of them, and were wash­ing their nets.
3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a lit­tle from the land. And he sat down, and taught the peo­ple out of the ship.
4 Now when he had left speak­ing, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
5 And Simon answer­ing said unto him, Mas­ter, we have toiled all the night, and have tak­en noth­ing : nev­er­the­less at thy word I will let down the net.
6 And when they had this done, they enclosed a great mul­ti­tude of fish­es : and their net brake.
7 And they beck­oned unto their part­ners, which were in the oth­er ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, say­ing, Depart from me ; for I am a sin­ful man, O Lord.
9 For he was aston­ished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fish­es which they had taken :
10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were part­ners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not ; from hence­forth thou shalt catch men.
11 And when they had brought their ships to land, they for­sook all, and fol­lowed him.

So which is the cor­rect ver­sion, was Peter’s moth­er-in-law cured before or after Jesus (P) had made his call to the dis­ci­ples ? This behooves for the mis­sion­ar­ies to pon­der upon and give us an answer !

Inter­est­ing­ly, this obvi­ous con­tra­dic­tion between the dif­fer­ent gospels was not­ed by Brown, who wrote that

…Luke’s sense of ​“order” is often log­i­cal rather than chrono­log­i­cal. For instance, in 4:31 — 5:11 he revers­es the order he found in Mark 1:16 — 31 : the Mar­can Jesus called four dis­ci­ples and then healed Peter’s moth­er-in-law ; but Luke seems to have thought it more log­i­cal to have the mir­a­cle pre­cede the call, so that the dis­ci­ples would have a rea­son to fol­low Jesus.[1]

And only God knows best !

Ref­er­ence

[1] Ray­mond E. Brown, The Birth Of The Mes­si­ah (Cas­sell & Col­lier, 1977), p. 239