The Bible is replete with stories of characters from one end of the social spectrum to the other—from the rich and important to the impoverished and outcast. These stories have become part of the Bible because of their important spiritual messages—of courage, hope, healing, and guidance for human survival and progress.
One such example is actually a combination of two stories interwoven together: the story of Jairus, a synagogue official and man of high status, and the story of a woman with an issue of blood, untouchable because of her longstanding disease of hemorrhaging.
In constructing narratives, sometimes Biblical writers chose to use literary devices popular during that time. In the case of this story, the literary device the writer employs is known as an "inclusion" story, sometimes called a "sandwich" story, where one story is embedded within the other. The Jairus story starts along a main story line and is soon interrupted by the story of the woman. Finally the original story resumes and concludes.
