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你学玩新的游戏时——无论是纸牌游戏或棋盘游戏——你需要玩上一段时间，才能完全掌握规律，别人第一次向你解释时，你开始明白怎样玩，但你并不是立刻就完全驾轻就熟的。

作门徒也是这样，它是一个学习过程，你会渐渐明白耶稣是谁和祂到来要成就什么事。

今天这个关于瞎子得医治的故事，有点像一个教导我们如何作门徒的比喻。这个故事的内容有点奇怪，因为每当耶稣医人时，祂通常都会像在棒球赛中的全垒打那样——只需击球一次便可以跑全垒。然而，在这个故事中，完全的医治需要经过两个步骤，首先完成一部分，就像击球一次后只跑了两个垒——还要再一次击球才大功告成。为什么会这样的呢？

门徒正开始理解耶稣是谁，这就像耶稣在问他们：“你看见什么了？”他们如同瞎子，只看见一部分，但他们仍然不能肯定他们是否已经完全认识了耶稣。我们可以理解，因为我们也只不过读了马可福音的上半部而已。

我们读到了马可福音的中间，现在是时候来衡量一下我们对耶稣究竟有多少认识了，因为前面还会有更多的学习。马可福音上半部主要描述耶稣是谁，而下半部则描述祂来所要成就的事。

When you learn a new game—maybe a card game or board game—it can take a while before you fully understand it. The first time it is explained to you, you begin to understand, but not fully, not right away.

Discipleship is like that. It involves a learning process of coming to know who Jesus is and what he came to do.

Today’s story about healing a man from blindness is a parable of sorts that also teaches us about discipleship. It is a curious story because usually when Jesus heals someone, it is like hitting a home run in baseball—you can run all the way around the bases on one hit. But in this story the healing is done in two stages. It goes part of the way at first, like a hit that gets you halfway around the bases—and then another hit gets the job done. Why is that?

The disciples were beginning to catch on to who Jesus was, and it’s as if Jesus were asking them, “Do you see anything?” Well, they did see in part, but they were still not sure that they understood Jesus fully. And that is understandable because we are only halfway through the gospel of Mark.

We are at the midpoint of the book of Mark, and it’s a good place to gauge how well we see Jesus, because there is much more to come. The first half is mostly about who Jesus is, and the second half will be about what he came to do.