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How often does the Bible record accounts of the blind receiving their sight?

Until seeing it in Bruner’s commentary on John (which, BTW, is terrific: you should read it) I don’t think I had ever previously spotted that the only person who brings sight to the blind is Jesus. We have accounts of eyes being opened to see angels (2 Kings 6:17) and of the seeing made blind (Acts 13:11) but no Old Testament prophet or New Testament apostle gives sight to the blind. Only Jesus does that. And more than that, healing the blind is the miracle Jesus performs more than any other.

Huh?

Perhaps we can assume that the blind were healed when the apostles did ‘many’ (Acts 2:43) and ‘extraordinary’ (Acts 19:11) miracles. If so, did Luke simply forgot to record this or is something else going on?

Bruner quotes Barrett’s observation that, “mankind is not by nature receptive of the light. Man is spiritually blind from birth.” Perhaps the fact that only Jesus is recorded as healing the blind is intentional: scripture pointing out – for those who have eyes to see it – that Jesus is the only one who can deliver us from our blindness and bring us into the light.

That seems the likely explanation to me. But it also reminds me that no matter how often one has read it, there are always things in scripture that remain unseen and waiting to be discovered. Jesus, open our eyes!

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