Spit is Disgusting

Spit is a bit of a contradiction. It’s disgusting outside the mouth, but no one thinks twice about it inside the mouth.

Jesus, like all humans, had a mouth full of spit. No big deal. But then it was disgusting when he took it out, mixed it with soil and put it on some guy’s eyeballs. And allegedly the man could see from that nasty encounter on.

This story has always fascinated me. Not because Jesus healed. Not because a blind man got a new set of eyeballs. Not because putting dirt in someone’s eyes is torturous. It fascinates me because we never stop to question the sanity of the one that thinks it’s acceptable to spit in someone’s face.

So many of the stories about Jesus are like this: we read details that are offensive, shocking, and even revolutionary, and walk right on by as if everything's normal. Medicinal Spittle: And Other Short Stories that Changed Everything I Believed About Jesus is where I stop doing that.

I ran into a problem, though. There were too many stories in the Gospels to all fit in one book. That’s why Medicinal Spittle is the first book in a four book series. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about book #2.