Matthew 17:14-21: A boy with seizures is healed
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Matthew 17:14-21
I recently came across a sermon by Bill Johnson (the lead pastor of Bethel Church, Redding, California - a church know for its healing ministry). The sermon was titled "Faith to Heal the Sick," and in it Johnson made the observation (based primarily on James 5:13-15) that the onus for faith is on the person praying for healing, not the sick person. As I read Matthew's account of the healing of the demonized boy, this same implication seems clear—that it is incumbent upon the person ministering to have faith rather than on the person asking for prayer. This, of course, flies in the face of the all too common teaching that the sick person must the have faith to be healed (or, more perniciously, that their lack of faith is at the root of their lack of healing).
Not that long ago, someone told me they believe that God sometimes makes us sick to mature us as Christians. When I asked him if that was really what he meant, he immediately corrected himself and said instead that God allows sickness in our lives and can use it for our good. I can't help but think his first words betrayed his actual belief, that God causes sickness because sickness is good for us.1 I suspect this theology was arrived at honestly and was the outcome of having prayed for people who were not healed. The truth of the matter is we all tend to build our theology on our experience. And, actually, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing—we just need to have better experiences (see my blog post, "The Necessity of Miracles").
However, we don't all have experiences that lead us to conclude God wants to heal the sick person we are praying for. And while it makes no sense to ignore our experience, I also don't think we should ignore the Bible. The challenge, of course, is deciding what to do when the two seem to contradict one another.
When the disciples asked Jesus why they had failed to drive the demon from the boy, he said it was because of their insufficient faith (Matthew 17:20), not the boy's or his father's, both of which must surely have suffered due to the disciples failure. That, however, did not prevent Jesus from setting the boy free.
Matthew 17:20 is another place we see a theological division. Depending on which New Testament manuscripts your translation of choice favors2, there are two differing statements. Some of the extant documents have the Greek word ὀλιγοπιστος (oligopistos: "little faith") while others have ἄπιστος (apistos: "un-faith," translated as "unbelief" because unfaith is not a word in the English language). This means we have Jesus potentially saying either, "Because of your little faith," or "Because of your unbelief." The latter has allowed for a strain of teaching that identifies unbelief as a thing in it's own right, an idea not supported by the Greek word's formation or by the use of the two words interchangeably in the Synoptic Gospels. For example, in Marks account of the calming of the storm, Jesus is presented as using the word ἄπιστος while Matthew has ὀλιγοπιστος. The reality is that both words are used to indicate a notable deficiency of faith, to the extent of being—to all intents and purposes—without faith.
We can, however, be encouraged by what Jesus says next in Matthew 17:20. There is a difference in tense between "if you have faith as a mustard seed" and "you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move." The first is present tense and the second is future. In essence, Jesus says here that if you have tiny faith it will not always remain tiny, but will grow until it is big enough to move a mountain. It is noticeable that the Greek says nothing about the size of faith in this. It does not say, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed," so while the NIV and the NASB both make reference to size in there translations, the ESV is closer to the Greek here when it says, "faith like a grain of mustard seed" (although "a grain of" seems redundant to me). While the size of a mustard seed is notably small, the fact that it grows is missed by emphasizing the size alone. Tiny faith can grow very big. In fact, Jesus says it will.
So, don't abandon the faith you have if it fails to do what it should. John Wimber3 famously said, "Faith is spelled R-I-S-K."
FOOTNOTES
1. Both by his actions (we have no record of him ever refusing to heal someone) and his words (Mark 3:4-5), Jesus apparently disagrees with that perspective.
2. For a brief explanation of texts on which New Testament translations are based, see the article "What is the Critical Text?" on the Got Questions website.
3. John Wimber was, in many ways, the defacto founder of the Vineyard Movement, and had a profound influence on the charismatic renewal in Europe, most noticably in the U.K. His teaching on healing is currently available in YouTube, and links to it are listed on the "'How to' Videos" page of this blog.
Matthew 17:14-21
I recently came across a sermon by Bill Johnson (the lead pastor of Bethel Church, Redding, California - a church know for its healing ministry). The sermon was titled "Faith to Heal the Sick," and in it Johnson made the observation (based primarily on James 5:13-15) that the onus for faith is on the person praying for healing, not the sick person. As I read Matthew's account of the healing of the demonized boy, this same implication seems clear—that it is incumbent upon the person ministering to have faith rather than on the person asking for prayer. This, of course, flies in the face of the all too common teaching that the sick person must the have faith to be healed (or, more perniciously, that their lack of faith is at the root of their lack of healing).
Not that long ago, someone told me they believe that God sometimes makes us sick to mature us as Christians. When I asked him if that was really what he meant, he immediately corrected himself and said instead that God allows sickness in our lives and can use it for our good. I can't help but think his first words betrayed his actual belief, that God causes sickness because sickness is good for us.1 I suspect this theology was arrived at honestly and was the outcome of having prayed for people who were not healed. The truth of the matter is we all tend to build our theology on our experience. And, actually, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing—we just need to have better experiences (see my blog post, "The Necessity of Miracles").
However, we don't all have experiences that lead us to conclude God wants to heal the sick person we are praying for. And while it makes no sense to ignore our experience, I also don't think we should ignore the Bible. The challenge, of course, is deciding what to do when the two seem to contradict one another.
When the disciples asked Jesus why they had failed to drive the demon from the boy, he said it was because of their insufficient faith (Matthew 17:20), not the boy's or his father's, both of which must surely have suffered due to the disciples failure. That, however, did not prevent Jesus from setting the boy free.
Matthew 17:20 is another place we see a theological division. Depending on which New Testament manuscripts your translation of choice favors2, there are two differing statements. Some of the extant documents have the Greek word ὀλιγοπιστος (oligopistos: "little faith") while others have ἄπιστος (apistos: "un-faith," translated as "unbelief" because unfaith is not a word in the English language). This means we have Jesus potentially saying either, "Because of your little faith," or "Because of your unbelief." The latter has allowed for a strain of teaching that identifies unbelief as a thing in it's own right, an idea not supported by the Greek word's formation or by the use of the two words interchangeably in the Synoptic Gospels. For example, in Marks account of the calming of the storm, Jesus is presented as using the word ἄπιστος while Matthew has ὀλιγοπιστος. The reality is that both words are used to indicate a notable deficiency of faith, to the extent of being—to all intents and purposes—without faith.
We can, however, be encouraged by what Jesus says next in Matthew 17:20. There is a difference in tense between "if you have faith as a mustard seed" and "you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move." The first is present tense and the second is future. In essence, Jesus says here that if you have tiny faith it will not always remain tiny, but will grow until it is big enough to move a mountain. It is noticeable that the Greek says nothing about the size of faith in this. It does not say, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed," so while the NIV and the NASB both make reference to size in there translations, the ESV is closer to the Greek here when it says, "faith like a grain of mustard seed" (although "a grain of" seems redundant to me). While the size of a mustard seed is notably small, the fact that it grows is missed by emphasizing the size alone. Tiny faith can grow very big. In fact, Jesus says it will.
So, don't abandon the faith you have if it fails to do what it should. John Wimber3 famously said, "Faith is spelled R-I-S-K."
FOOTNOTES
1. Both by his actions (we have no record of him ever refusing to heal someone) and his words (Mark 3:4-5), Jesus apparently disagrees with that perspective.
2. For a brief explanation of texts on which New Testament translations are based, see the article "What is the Critical Text?" on the Got Questions website.
3. John Wimber was, in many ways, the defacto founder of the Vineyard Movement, and had a profound influence on the charismatic renewal in Europe, most noticably in the U.K. His teaching on healing is currently available in YouTube, and links to it are listed on the "'How to' Videos" page of this blog.
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