Faith continues..........?

This is the sort of "faith" also exhibited by other people who come to, or are brought to, Jesus for healing. The man with palsy, the woman with the issue of blood, Jairus, the blind man (Matt. 9), the Syrophoenician woman (Matt. 15) -- all came knowing of Jesus' abilities to heal. Their actions were based on evidence and proof.

Of course one may argue that their trust was misplaced and that Jesus was a charlatan, but contextually that is beside the point. Our point is that faith is not "blind trust."

Matthew 17:19-20 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

This passage is one of the leading "make hay" passages for charlatans like our Benny Pophagin. Not healed? You needed more faith!

But understand instead "faith" as loyalty and "unbelief" as disobedience. So what is the implication? Matthew 17:21 ("Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.") is missing from the best mss. of Matthew. The parallel, Mark 9:29, shows textual data indicating that only "prayer" was part of the original (see here). Wherein then lies the disciples' disobedience and disloyalty? It is in lack of prayer, and a false perception that the gift of exorcism was something inherent in themselves rather than being conveyed through them by God.

Note that the exorcism is preceded by a note that the scribes were questioning the disciples [Mark 9:14-16] -- most likely challenging them to perform an exorcism. We find a parallel lesson in Luke 10:17-20: "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

This is a firm caution against pride and focus on self, and a loss of concentration on the real power behind the ability to exorcize demons.

A similar lesson may be drawn from Matthew 21, in which Jesus states, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

This needs to be combined with our comments elsewhere: No Jew would recognize such statements as giving believers carte blanche to ask to have mountains turned over (see more here). This is simply a way of emphasizing God's commitment, as a patron, to bless and show favor to the believer -- who would be expected not to ask for silly or selfish things in the first place, no more so than any client in the Roman world would be foolish enough to ask his patron to give him a million bucks to blow on video games. A person with pistis does not knowingly ask for that which God would not or does not will, and does not ask for something to happen if it is against God's will.

In Jewish thought, God was sovereign. Nothing happened that God did not permit or cause. "Early Jewish teaching did celebrate God's kindness in answering prayer, but rarely promises such universal answers to prayer to all of God's people as the language suggests." [Keener, 245] Only a small number of sages were considered pious enough to ask for and receive whatever they wanted -- and that piety was their key indicates that they weren't going around asking for just anything they wanted (like Hanina ben Dosa, and Honi the Circle-Drawer), but only what they supposed to be in the will of God. "Such a call to believing prayer supposes a heart of piety submitted to God's will..."

Limitations upon what we may receive are clearly set by the context. The Lord's Prayer instructs us to pray for daily needs (Matt. 6:11) -- it does not say, "Give us this day a Rolls Royce." Earthly children ask for bread or fish (7:9-10) which are "basic staples in the Palestinian diet" that were provided to children on a regular basis. We can ask for "good things" (7:11), a term which sometimes referred to prosperity generally, but also "referred to agricultural produce that the righteous would share with others (Test. Iss. 3:7-8)."

Neither the Jewish nor the Roman client-patron background would understand the mountain-moving phrase as literal permission to request wh