As Jesus could not talk to the deaf man, touching him was a way to show him compassion, but also a way to identify with the needy and, in other accounts, ritually unclean people.1,2 Love seeks intimacy, and the touch of Jesus is a tangible prelude of the fellowship that believers experience with him through faith
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33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.