New Testament Stories

  The Man Who Was Born Blind

And as He passed by He saw a blind man from birth.  John 9:1

                              One day when He was out walking, Jesus saw a blind beggar. The beggar had been blind all his life.

    "Why is this man blind, Teacher?" asked His friends. "Did he do something wrong? Or were his parents bad, so that God punished them?"

     "No," said Jesus. "He did nothing wrong, and neither did his father and mother. But the world will now see the power of God."

     He took some dirt and spit on it. He mixed it into clay and put this on the man's eyes.

     "Now, go and wash in the pool they call Siloam," He told the man.

     So the man went and washed and when he came back he could see.

     The neighbors and others who had seen him begging by the road side said, "Isn't this the blind beggar? He isn't blind now!"

     "Yes!," said some people. But others said, "It's just someone who looks like him."

     Then the man said himself, "Yes, I was the blind beggar." "What happened?" every one asked.

     "A man named Jesus came. He put clay on my eyes and told me to wash in the pool," he said. "I don't know where He is now."

     The man was taken to the Pharisees. "We know this Jesus," said some of the Pharisees, who thought they kept the law of Israel better than anyone else. "We are sure that He is not from God. It is against the law to do this on the Sabbath."

     "But if He isn't from God, how can He do such things?" someone called out.

     "What do you think of Him," someone else asked the man who was healed.

     "He is a prophet." the man said.

     Then some people said that the whole thing was a lie. "He wasn't ever blind," they said. But they asked the man's parents, who told them that he had been blind since birth.

     "We don't know how any of this can be," the parents said. "We only know that once he was blind, but now he can see. Ask him yourself, he can talk."

     The Pharisees said to the man, "If you are healed thank God. Don't thank Jesus. He is a sinner."

     They argued for hours, and the blind man kept saying, "All I know is this, I was born blind, and now I can see."

     "We follow the law of Moses," the Pharisees said. "We don't know anything about where this Jesus comes from."

     "What?" said the man. "You don't even know where He comes from, but He walked up to me and made me see. You know that God doesn't listen to sinners but hears to people who do His will. Never in all time has there ever been a person who could heal someone who was born blind. Jesus is from God or He couldn't do this."

     "How dare you try to teach us!" cried the Pharisees. They made the man leave the synagogue.

     Jesus heard all about this, and He went to see the man. "Do you believe in the Son of man?" He said.

     "Who is He sir?" 

     "He is speaking to you and you are looking at Him," answered Jesus.

     "Lord, I believe," said the man. And He worshipped Jesus.

     "There is more than one way to be blind," said Jesus. "I came into the world to help those who can't see."