The big picture
Mark 5 moves across boundaries that look final until Jesus reaches them. A man living among tombs cannot be restrained even by chains, yet the many spirits within him still have to ask permission. His restoration frightens the surrounding people enough that they ask Jesus to leave. Back across the sea, Jairus asks for help before his daughter dies, and the journey is interrupted by a woman whose suffering has lasted twelve years. Mark braids the two encounters together so that delay, touch, fear, faith, and family language echo between them. The woman is called "Daughter" while Jesus is traveling toward Jairus' daughter. Then death itself arrives as a report meant to end the request. It does not. The chapter closes not on spectacle but on an ordinary command that the restored girl be given something to eat.
Central truth
Mark 5 displays Jesus’ authority across a man dominated by many unclean spirits, a woman made unclean by chronic bleeding, and a child overtaken by death, while fear, faith, testimony, delay, and restoration intertwine in three sharply different encounters.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Mark 5:1: “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.”
Slow down at the turning point
Mark 5:30: “And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”
Keep this word trail visible
Jesus, damsel, swine, besought, chains, country
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Mark 5:1-13
Among the tombs
Cross with Jesus to the Gentile side of the lake. Explain that tombs and swine were both unclean to Jews, so this man lives in the most unclean place imaginable. Read his condition slowly and with care. The name Legion recalls a Roman army unit of thousands. Note that the spirits recognise Jesus and beg him. Explain the swine without trying to settle every question about them; the point is that the destruction shows how many and how destructive the spirits were.
Mark 5:14-20
Restored and sent home
Now the townspeople come and find the man sitting, clothed and sane, and they are afraid. Explain why: they have lost their herd and seen a power they cannot control. They ask Jesus to leave. The healed man asks to come with him, and Jesus instead sends him to tell what the Lord has done. Note that verse 19 says the Lord and verse 20 says Jesus. Teach this as the first time someone is told to tell, rather than to be silent.
Mark 5:21-24
A ruler at his feet
Back on the Jewish side, a synagogue ruler falls at Jesus' feet. Explain that Jairus is a respected man, and his falling down shows his desperation. His request is clear: come and lay hands on her, that she may live. Jesus goes. Teach this before the woman because Mark sandwiches her healing inside this account, and the class must feel Jairus waiting while the crowd presses and time runs out.
Mark 5:25-34
The woman who touched his garment
Introduce her by her twelve years, the same number as the girl's age. Explain the law of uncleanness that kept her apart. She reasons that touching his clothes will be enough, and it is. But Jesus turns, asks, and waits. The disciples think the question is foolish. She comes forward in fear and tells the whole truth. Explain that she is the only person Jesus addresses as “Daughter” in the Gospels. Faith, peace and wholeness are given to her publicly.
Mark 5:35-43
Talitha cumi
The bad news arrives while he is still speaking. Jesus overhears and says, “Be not afraid, only believe”. Explain sleepeth as a way of saying her death is not final in his presence, not a claim that she was only in a coma. The mourners laugh. He clears the room, takes her hand, and speaks Aramaic words the Book of Mark preserves and translates. End on the food, because the scene finishes not with spectacle but with a family meal and a child who is hungry again.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
“The woman's faith worked like magic through his clothes.”
Jesus does not let her leave with a secret touch. He calls her forward and says, “thy faith hath made thee whole” (5:34), naming her trust in him as the point, not the fabric. Her healing is set within a personal meeting where she tells the truth and receives his word. The passage turns any idea of power through objects into a relationship with the one who heals.
“If I believe enough, my loved one will be healed or raised as Jairus' daughter was.”
Jesus says to Jairus, “only believe” (5:36), and some hear a promise for every case. The Book of Mark records this event as a sign of who Jesus is and of the resurrection to come. It does not promise that every sick person will recover now. Be very gentle: someone in the room may have lost a child or a parent despite much prayer. Their grief is not a failure of faith.
“Jesus cared more about the woman than about Jairus' daughter.”
The delay is real, but Jesus does not abandon Jairus. He goes with him from the start (5:24), and the moment he hears the news he speaks to Jairus directly (5:36). The girl is raised. Mark shows that Jesus can attend to an unnamed outcast and to a ruler's child without either being lost. The question of why delays happen is honest; the passage shows what he does within them.
“The man among the tombs was just mentally ill, so there was no unclean spirit.”
The Book of Mark says plainly that he had “an unclean spirit” (5:2), and the spirits speak and leave. Do not explain this away. At the same time, do not teach that mental illness is generally demonic; many in the room may live with it. Mark distinguishes sickness from possession elsewhere (1:34). Teach what this text reports and avoid diagnosing anyone in the room.
Learning objectives
- Trace the changes in the Gerasene man from living among tombs to sitting, clothed, and in his right mind.
- Explain what the name 'Legion' communicates in the dialogue without turning the passage into speculation about an exact demon count.
- Compare the townspeople’s response to the restored man with Jesus’ instruction that the man tell his friends what the Lord has done for him.
- Show how Mark interrupts Jairus’s urgent request with the woman’s approach and why the delay intensifies the later report that Jairus’s daughter has died.
- Identify the physical, social, and economic dimensions of the woman’s twelve-year suffering that Mark actually states.
- Compare Jesus’ words to the woman, Jairus, and the girl, noting how faith and fear are addressed differently in each scene.
Teacher preparation
- Locate the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and note the uncertainty in manuscript and place-name traditions behind Gadarenes, Gerasenes, or Gergesenes in parallel textual history. Do not let the geography question dominate the unit.
- Review Numbers 19 and Leviticus 15 as background for corpse and blood-related uncleanness. Use them to clarify the social force of Jesus’ contacts without claiming Mark explicitly lectures on ritual law.
- Prepare to explain 'Legion' as a Roman military term suggesting a very large force. Avoid pretending the word gives a mathematically precise demon census.
- Make a two-column time chart for twelve years: the woman has suffered that long, while Jairus’s daughter is said to be twelve years old in verse 42. Mark gives the parallel number and lets the reader notice it.
- Plan to handle the death scene with restraint. Mark reports mourners laughing Jesus to scorn, Jesus taking the child by the hand, the Aramaic words Talitha cumi, her rising, and the practical command that she be given food.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Mark 5:3–5 describes the man’s violent isolation; verses 8–13 describe Jesus’ command and the spirits’ departure; verse 15 shows the man restored. Verses 25–34 report the woman’s healing, and verses 35–43 report the girl’s rising.
Scripture-supported
Leviticus 15 and Numbers 19 provide legal background for blood-related discharge and contact with the dead. Those texts help a teacher explain why the woman and the deathbed scene carry more than medical difficulty.
Strong inference
The interweaving of Jairus and the woman makes the delay narratively significant. Jairus asks for help while his daughter still lives, but the woman’s scene unfolds before the death report arrives, sharpening the demand to trust Jesus beyond the point of ordinary hope.
Possible or traditional reading
Some readings treat the two uses of twelve as a deliberate symbolic code. Mark certainly gives both numbers, and the parallel is worth noticing, but the chapter does not explain a symbolic meaning for twelve in these two lives.
Limit
The passage does not explain the mechanics of demon possession, why Jesus permits the spirits to enter the swine, or why the herd’s destruction occurs. State the questions if raised, but do not present conjecture as Mark’s answer.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. What details show that ordinary restraint had failed with the man among the tombs?
What a good answer contains
Verse 3 says “no man could bind him, no, not with chains”. Verse 4 adds that he had often been bound, but he tore the chains apart and broke the fetters, “neither could any man tame him”. Verse 5: night and day in the mountains and tombs, “crying, and cutting himself with stones”. A strong answer sets these beside verse 15, where he is “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind”. Chains could restrain him only for a while; Jesus restores him.
Show teacher guidance
Use verses 3–5: chains and fetters had been broken, no man could tame him, and he lived crying and cutting himself. Then contrast those details with verse 15.
2. What does the restored man ask Jesus for, and what mission does Jesus give him instead?
What a good answer contains
As Jesus gets into the boat, the man “prayed him that he might be with him” (5:18), which is exactly what the twelve were called to in 3:14. Jesus refuses and sends him: “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee” (5:19). A good answer sees that the refusal is a commission, and that verse 20 shows him obeying throughout Decapolis, the ten Gentile cities, so he becomes the first preacher there.
Show teacher guidance
Verses 18–20 say he wants to be with Jesus, but Jesus sends him home to his friends to report what great things the Lord has done and what compassion he has shown.
3. Why does Jairus’s situation become more severe while Jesus is speaking with the woman?
What a good answer contains
Jairus first says, “My little daughter lieth at the point of death” (5:23). Jesus goes, but the crowd presses, and he stops to find the woman who touched him. “While he yet spake”, messengers arrive: “Thy daughter is dead” (5:35). A strong answer feels the delay as Jairus would have, and sees that the Book of Mark lets the interruption cost something. A weak answer treats the woman's healing as unrelated to his daughter's death.
Show teacher guidance
Track verses 22–24 and 35. Jairus first reports his daughter at the point of death; during the interruption, messengers arrive saying she is dead.
4. What does Mark say the woman has already endured before she touches Jesus’ garment?
What a good answer contains
Verses 25-26 say she “had an issue of blood twelve years”, “had suffered many things of many physicians”, “had spent all that she had”, and “was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse”. Explain that under the law of Leviticus 15:25-27 such bleeding left her ritually unclean, cut off from worship and touch. A good answer gathers the physical, financial and social loss. A weak answer mentions the illness only, missing why she approaches from behind.
Show teacher guidance
Require verses 25–26: twelve years of bleeding, suffering under many physicians, spending all she had, and becoming worse rather than better.
5. Why does Jesus stop after power has gone out of him when the woman is already physically healed?
What a good answer contains
Her body is healed in verse 29, but Jesus asks “Who touched my clothes?” and looks round for her (5:30-32). She comes trembling and tells “all the truth” (5:33). He calls her “Daughter”, names her faith, and sends her in peace (5:34). A strong answer sees that he wants to restore her before others as well as in her body: an outcast is publicly called family. A weak answer thinks he stopped because he did not know who touched him.
Show teacher guidance
Use verses 30–34. The scene moves from hidden touch to public encounter, truthful disclosure, Jesus calling her 'Daughter,' and his statement concerning faith, peace, and healing.
6. What does Jesus do after the mourners laugh him to scorn?
What a good answer contains
He puts the mourners out, takes in only the parents and Peter, James and John (5:37, 5:40), takes her by the hand and says “Talitha cumi” (5:41). She arises and walks. Then two quiet commands: that no man should know it, and “that something should be given her to eat” (5:43). A good answer notices the gentleness and privacy of the scene, and the practical care of food, which shows she is truly alive and still a child who needs her supper.
Show teacher guidance
Verses 40–43 give the sequence: he puts them out, takes the parents and three disciples in, takes the girl by the hand, speaks to her, she rises and walks, and he orders food for her.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Ask the class to compare fear in verses 15, 33, and 36. Identify what each person or group has just witnessed and how Jesus addresses or redirects fear.
Relationships and community
Examine restoration as return to community: the formerly isolated man is sent home, the woman is publicly addressed as daughter, and the child is returned alive to her household.
Earned by this passage
Build a three-row chart for the man, woman, and girl with columns for initial condition, barrier, Jesus’ action, response, and final condition. Let the contrasts carry the lesson.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
45 minutes
Read and divide
Read 5:1-43 aloud, briefly. Name the three people who meet Jesus and ask the class to keep them in mind.
The man among the tombs
Read 5:1-20 again. Take questions one and two, and address confusion four with care.
Jairus and the delay
Read 5:21-24 and 5:35. Take question three.
The woman
Read 5:25-34 and take questions four and five. Handle confusion one about the garment.
The girl
Read 5:35-43 and take question six. Address confusion two gently, with time for silence.
Handout
Read the key verse together, give out the sheet, and pray.
90 minutes
Who gets to come close
Ask the group what kinds of people are kept at a distance in their community. Hold the answers for later.
Legion
Read 5:1-13. Explain tombs, swine and Legion. Take question one and confusion four.
Go home and tell
Read 5:14-20. Take question two. Ask who in their own life might need to hear what the Lord has done for them.
Twelve years
Read 5:21-34 with Leviticus 15:25-27. Take questions three, four and five and confusion one.
Only believe
Read 5:35-43. Take question six and confusions two and three. Give space for any who are grieving.
The three together
Return to the opening question. Compare the man, the woman and the girl: unclean place, unclean condition, death.
Application
Use the second application. Ask how the church might call the outcast daughter and son.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together, hand out the sheet, and pray for the sick and the grieving by name if appropriate.
Adapting the lesson
Children
Tell the three healings simply. For the woman, let a child reach out and touch the hem of your coat while you are walking through a crowd of children, then stop and ask who touched you. For Jairus' daughter, use the words Talitha cumi and let them say it. Leave out the swine drowning and the cutting with stones for young children.
Youth
Begin with the woman: twelve years of being sick, broke and avoided. Ask what it is like to be the person no one touches. Let them notice that Jesus stopped for her. Treat the man among the tombs with care; self-harm is real for some teenagers, so speak of Jesus' compassion and make sure they know who they can talk to.
Adults
Explore the sandwich structure and how the woman's healing interprets the raising of the girl. Discuss uncleanness in the law and how Jesus' touch reverses it. Let adults speak honestly about delays in prayer and losses that were not reversed. Avoid promising healing; point to the resurrection that this passage anticipates.
One to one
Ask which of the three people they feel closest to: the man in torment, the woman who is worn out, or the father who is waiting. Read that part slowly together. If they are grieving or ill, let them talk and do not rush to verse 42. Pray with them for peace, using 5:34.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Mark 5
The passage in brief
On the far side of the lake Jesus frees a man who lived among tombs, tormented by many evil spirits. The spirits enter a herd of pigs, and the man is found calm and clothed. Jesus sends him home to tell what God has done. Back across the lake, a synagogue ruler named Jairus begs Jesus to heal his dying daughter. On the way, a woman who has bled for twelve years touches his clothes and is healed. Jesus calls her daughter. Then news comes that the girl has died, but Jesus raises her by the hand.
A verse to keep
As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.
Mark 5:36 · King James Version
Questions to take home
What did the healed man want to do, and what did Jesus send him to do instead (5:18-19)?
Why do you think Jesus stopped to find the woman when she was already healed?
What did Jesus say to Jairus when the bad news came, and what does it mean for you?
This week
Tell one person this week, in a sentence or two, something the Lord has done for you.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
