[Matthew 4:23-25]

I’ve started reading about word of mouth marketing. I think that it’s helpful to understand how to get people talking about what you are offering. If you put up a billboard or run an advertising campaign or mail something to a thousand houses, that is you talking about you. And while talking about yourself can be helpful in providing information, it isn’t nearly as compelling as other people talking about you.

Jesus was teaching and preaching and healing. News about him spread. It went north. It went east. It went south. People were coming from all around to get healed. And to get free.

The news was all by word of mouth. People were talking about what Jesus was doing and saying. And everyone wanted to come to him.

What was the secret? Why did everyone talk about him with such effectiveness that people came from everywhere?

He said and did what people needed.

The people that were coming had no hope for any other solution for their sicknesses. They had no money to afford what care existed. They had no options.

When there aren’t any other options, when there isn’t any reason for hope, the words of Jesus, or more importantly, the actions of Jesus, are incredibly inviting. We go to where we think there will be some healing, some hope.

We often think that our job as Christ followers is to talk other people into thinking that they have holes in their hearts. What was clear from this part of Jesus’s ministry was that people who have holes in their hearts and lives actually go looking for Jesus.

Maybe our job isn’t to convince people of how much they hurt. Maybe it’s to talk about our own story of healing. And that’s word of mouth.