LITTLE FAITH
LITTLE FAITH
MATTHEW 17:9-20 (21)
Nothing that is within Christ’s will is out of the reach of faith.
As on other occasions, secrecy is imposed: not until the resurrection of the Son of Man would the three disciples understand the vision well enough to speak about it intelligently to others (17:9). The question about Elijah (17:10) was prompted by that prophet’s appearance in the vision. The fulfillment in John the Baptist of the prophecy that Elijah would be sent to discharge a special ministry before the coming of the great day (Malachi 4:5f.) has been mentioned already in 11:14. Here it is expounded in greater detail: what the first Elijah’s enemies attempted in vain to do to him (1 Kings 19:2) the second Elijah’s enemies had succeeded in doing to him (14:3ff.). In John’s death Jesus saw his own foreshadowed (17:12).
From the exalted experience of anticipated glory the company now returned to the suffering and frustration of everyday life. The “faithless and perverse generation” (17:17) must be understood here as a reference to the disciples, who for all the length of their companionship with Jesus showed themselves still unable to exercise the authority he had given them (10:1). The phrase is drawn from Deuteronomy 32:5, where the wilderness generation is thus described (cf. 12:45; 16:4). As with several other healing incidents in Matthew, this account of seven verses is greatly compressed as compared with the Markan account of sixteen (Mark 9:14-29). “Jesus rebuked him” (17:18): ie the demon that possessed the epileptic boy. The purpose of the story is to emphasize the all-importance of faith; the “little faith” of the disciples has been reproved before (cf. 6:30; 8:26; 14:31).
The point about the “grain of mustard seed” (17:20) is illuminated by the parable of 13:31f. “This mountain” (17:20) in the present context would be the mount of transfiguration (traditionally Mount Tabor, though some have thought of Mount Hermon); when the saying recurs in 21:21 the reference is to the Mount of Olives. 17:21 (KJV; cf. RSV note) is not an original part of this Gospel: it was added from a later form of the text of Mark 9:29.
Thought Faith: it is not the size of the mustard seed that matters but its ability to grow.