4 HEALINGS

I have often heard that the Gospel according to John is quite different from the other three gospels. In fact, scholars refer to Matthew, Mark and Luke as the "Synoptic Gospels" - the term "synoptic" employing the Greek syn meaning "together" and opt "to see". Matthew, Mark, and Luke share a "common view" of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. 

Although in some places John's Gospel does share common ground with the Synoptics, he often skips over their stories and relates his own, not found elsewhere. 

This is obvious in the accounts of the healings Jesus performed. The Synoptic Gospels tell of many miraculous physical healings:

• A man with leprosy
• The Roman centurion's servant
• Peter’s mother-in-law
• A paralyzed man lowered through the ceiling
• A Canaanite woman's daughter
• A boy with a demon
• A woman with chronic bleeding
• Various demon-possessed men
• A deaf mute
• A man with a shriveled hand
• Ten men with leprosy

Strangely enough, John's Gospel doesn’t mention any of these.

John focuses on just four particular healings and each is a story found in no other Gospel:

1. The official’s son at Capernaum – who is healed from some non-descript disease at a distance
2. A sick man at the pool of Bethesda - who is described only as an invalid who cannot move himself. 
3. A man born blind - whom Jesus heals with a blend of dirt and spit. 
4. And Lazarus raised from the dead. 

Now, obviously, Jesus healed many people during his 3 and a half years of public ministry, so all the Gospel writers had plenty of material to choose from. 

As John himself points out towards the end of his Gospel (21:25), "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

So he had to pick and choose carefully. 

So why do you think he chose those particular 4?