Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Feed back!

Matthew 17:17-20
17And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."

18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?"

20And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.


I just wanted to know some of your opinions on this text. Feel free to share your comments.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

last time i checked this was a pissed off jesus passage. tired of having his disciples misunderstand or not believe him jesus goes off on the disciples in v17. it works for us today aswell because we still suffer from the same lack of faith. the message is kinda echoed by yoda in the empire strikes back when he tells luke that size matters not. likewise we only have but to lay ourselves before jesus and size will matter not.
( not that faith is an easy concept to grasp)

Ps nice to see that im back in the good books.
love rh

shinbone #4 said...

I just want to post someting right now so that you know you're not forgotten... I will get down to really commenting when I have more time.
Love you so much! G

Keller said...

I don't think Jesus was "pissed off" per se, the word "perverted" makes us think that he was upset, but remember "perverted" is not necessarily implying that they were sexually sick, but that they had been twisted by someone/ideology/philosophy.

I agree with Ryan that faith is not an easy concept to grasp though, and his analogy with Yoda does echo the passage... but I think Jesus' temperment was closer to Yoda's than PO'd.

Glad to see you have a new blog posted up.

shinbone #4 said...

You know what I get from this... Jesus gets frustrated with them, and with their unbelief and perversions of truth, because he loved so much. I know I get much more frustrated and speak much more strongly with people I love that consistantly seem to be going down a wrong path - on purpose. I think if it was all just lovey dovey, please don't it hurts me when you hurt yourself etc.. that's not love, that's a play at manipulation... maybe originally driven by love, but love of self jumped in, to save you from coming across as harsh or angry. Harsh and angry is never a flattering light - It looks for some reason, a little less than "Christian", but I think sometimes, we need to call a spade a spade, whether we look good ourselves doing it or not... Do you know what I mean... If so can you explain what I just said to me - rereading this it seems a lot more jumbled than it was in my head...

shinbone #4 said...

Here's a great qupte from Joy's blog that seems applicable to these passages..."He loves the sinner so much that He cannot forgive him in any other way than by banishing from his bosom the demon that possesses him, by lifting him out of the mire of his iniquity." George McDonald (?)

Desiree said...

Well, I don't think that I know who you are, but I linked you from Haugans site, and when I read your question, I couldn't help answer, because this is the very thing that I have been thinking about lately. I am not certain in what I am about to say, however, I am looking for answers on this myself. Thinking along the lines of healing lately, and never having been a 'pentacostal' I haven't delved too deep into it before, however, could it not be pointed out that the disciples couldn't heal this man? We are quick to critizise people who pray for others for healing, (especially when they are labelled radical charasmatics) and the person isn't healed. So we come to God in a very "I doubt that you will heal this person" attitude, and with that kind of faith, we pray for healing. Just a thought along with a hundred others on the subject. One day I read Acts (for the hundreth time, my favourite book of the Bible). And I noticed that only AFTER the disciples gathered daily praying together, and meeting together, did they 'perform' miracles. The other day I was listening to K.P. Yohannan. He was talking about the healings that take place in India when people are freed by Christ. Then I couldn't help pray, "Why don't we have that on this side of the world Lord?" I believe that God led me to the scripture that talks about - if you ask for a fish, will your father give you a stone....How much more will your Heavenly Father give the SPIRIT to him that asks. I never saw the part about the Spirit before. Could it be that we don't ask for the Spirit, for without Him, we are really powerless.

gospeloflove said...

Thank you very much Ryan, Grace, Kyle, and Des for the feed back. You made some excellent points and I really appreciate your response!
They've given me a lot to think about and I trust the Lord will use them in furthering my understanding of His word here.