Faith to Move Mountains?
Matthew 17:14-23 recounts the story of Jesus healing a boy with a Demon. The disciples try to cast the deomon out and can't, then they bring him to Jesus, he rebukes the demon, which comes out and the boy is healed.
The disciples then ask: "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
Jesus tells them it's because they have so little faith. "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Questions:
1) Jesus told his Disciples they didn’t have enough faith. What changed in your opinion between this story and the stories of Acts, where they apparently had the faith to do these things?
2) Is there a similar transition that is necessary in believers today that is not happening enough?
3) Jesus talked to inanimate objects--telling fevers to leave and fig trees to whiter... should we be talking to inanimate objects today as Christ-followers – or is that just for crazy people and TV preachers?
4) If Jesus was, in your opinion, doing things we are not to do, then what do you make of his frustration about the disciples lack of faith and his commands to do likewise?
5) If Jesus was, in your opinion, doing things we should do and even greater—then how should we go about it?
posted by David Drury @ 10:19 AM
5 Comments:
I suppose the easy answer is "Pentecost" stands between (thinking canonically now to think of Acts after Matthew). This is a point of hypocrisy in my life, for I affirm strongly that we can do almost anything that Jesus or the apostles do in the gospels or Acts. But I've never raised anyone from the dead or had the faith to try.
These sorts of scriptures and stories are, of course, at the root of the Pentecostal movement—I think it was John Wimber? who tells it like this: “After conversion I said, Now when do we get to do the stuff Jesus did here in the Bible?”
Pentecostals take these things seriously expecting to even overshadow the miracles of Jesus “doing greater things than he.”
And all kinds of miracles do happen among Pentecostals (along with many pseudo-miracles).
But both of us have lots of explaining to do. Pentecostals have to constantly back-pedal explaining why God does not always perform miracles (often they claim it is our inadequate faith and do not honestly face the issue of what sort of world we’d have if all miracles we wanted we got).
And non-Pentecostals have to explain why miracles are seldom or never present in the church (which some often dismiss as something limited to the time of Jesus in a dispensational way).
I am not a “miracle-monger” when it comes to bad things from cancer to loosing my keys. Yet “I believe in miracles” just the same. Here is my approach usually:
a) Act to correct it the best I can. When I have a cavity I go to the dentist and don’t even think of saving the money and time visiting the dentist by seeking healing.
b) Submit and learn. I treat many other difficulties as evidence of sin and a fallen world—I express my hopes for healing or deliverance –usually by “crying out but not demanding” -- when it “can’t be fixed”(medicine, rest etc.) but basically I submit to the pain and see what I can learn or how God or others might be glorified through it.
c) I do not recall any time I have demanded a miracle in full faith knowing the authority I supposedly have. This smacks of using God, or presumption to me. I marvel at how Pentecostals can demand healing, success, wealth or whatever else from their God and He seems to sometimes respond. It is like the friend I had as a college student who was in his dad’s home on break with me and he started going through the house (his parents were gone) taking a lamp, a chair, a coffee pot and loading it in his truck for our dorm room. I marveled and said, “Can you take these things without asking?” Ed replied, “Of course, what’s their’s is mine.” (Ed was an only child.) I have never had this sort of faith/presumption with God. I’ve wondered why and the only reason I’ve found yet is I deeply believe that God wants the best for me and my demands or faith or even requests are always more faulty than his desires. I cannot fathom a father who knows what is best for his child and withholds it because they have not demanded it in faith. I CAN imagine a father holding in reserve “extra things” that, if asked for, he would give. But as to the core needs of a person—I can’t imagine a [good] father withholding any good thing. So I tend to trust him to do what is right and best for me without being commanded to do so in full faith. When I see a mountain I tend to think of that mountain as put in exactly the right place by God—and thus I am never tempted to try to cast it into the sea and change the landscape of the Sierras by subtracting one mountain from the chain. If I really believed this I would order one to be cast to Indiana for my convenience. I would love to have mountains in Indiana but I submit to God’s creation “as it is” and learn to love the plains (and figure out how to travel to the mountains) in the process. I consider it presumption to command God to move a mountain to Indiana for my greater pleasure and convenience. Even Jesus apparently had inadequate faith to cast mountains into the sea—or he didn’t want to.
So I guess I seldom move to stage three where the Pentecostals live so often. But they are always having to explain why their people die and don’t live on to age 200. And they have to explain that for every single Pentecostal—every one of them dies-why? But I have to explain these verses (along with the “ask anything” verses) as hyperbole, or theoretical potential and accept my fix-it-or-submit-to-it approach has some quality to it.
What’s my bottom line? I’d like to see more evidence among the church of God’s presence. Either a [spiritual] “moving” of God or an [undeniable, profound, testable] miracle. By that I don’t mean a “cheap miracle” of “God helped the doctors” or “I found my keys.” I mean God growing a new leg for the VietNam vet who has none. THAT kind of miracle that no doctor on earth could attribute to natural processes or psychological positive healing. THAT kind of miracles are even rare among Pentecostals. I think they are rare in history too. I also think they are rare in the Bible. So I hope for mountains-into-the-sea miracles…I believe God could do this…but I don’t command it by faith. But if any Pentecostal reading this will use their great faith to move Mt Whitney (or even a smaller mountain) from California to Indiana I will leave The Wesleyan Church and join their fellowship next Sunday. ;-)
Wow. Great thougts from you three so far.
To further the discussion:
Ken (and others) - I see what you say about "Pentecost" being "between" the two. But that's not what Jesus inferred in his reply. The disciples couldn't cast the demon out and Jesus doesn't say, "It's because you don't yet have my Spirit in you or groovy tongues of fire on your head." He doesn't say, "You'll do this after I'm gone", or even "That is not for this dispensation" :-). He says: "It is becaue you don't have enough faith." As much as I struggle with Pentecostal "you don't have enough faith" caveat/excuses... this is what Jesus said to them.
Keith/Nate (and others) - thanks for giving the fuller picture of the miricles/pentecostal movement issues. The most facinating part of your discussion together is the "authority" issue. There seems to be a great dynmic of "speaking" these things not just "inwardly hoping" when it comes to this faith. That's why I asked the question about "speaking to inatimate objects"
Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say, "commanding in animate objects" becuase that's what Jesus did with the fig tree and the fever and also spoke of with the mountain. Likewise, Nate, the fig tree and the fever were not "figurative" - the tree was real and the fever was too. So was the demon.
Then Jesus says, "You guys could have done this with more faith."
I have enough theological education to locate other resons I might not be able to do miracles. But the reason Jesus gave his disciples still bothers me.
Does it bother anyone else?
I believe in miracles. I yearn to see them more. I expect them...and if n.a.t.e were nearer I suppose I'd see more of them. I accept your chastening Nate... I do believe, help thou my unbelief.
Do you think it was Pentecost when the disciples finally "got it?" Was that the defining "ah ha" moment that let them finally figure out who Jesus was and what He had taught them? Or was it the death & resurrection of Christ that finally enabled them to see beyond the temporal and enabled them to suddenly have faith and believe in the eternal that gave them the amount of faith they needed to perform miracles.
What does this mean for us today? I'm not sure - but in a footnote in my bible it lists verse "21 - but this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting." This is collaborated in Mark 9:29. The only text that does not make any reference to prayer is Lukes account in 9:41. So then we must ask ourselves - what does faith have to do with prayer and fasting (or any of the spiritual disciplines for that fact).
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