19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” 20 And 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. 21 [But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”]
The story of the young boy’s healing raised two issues. First, as we saw in the previous meditation, it showed the unbelief of the general populace. Second, it showed the limitations of the disciples’ faith, which gave rise to Jesus’ fundamental instruction about faith: it is not the size or amount of one’s faith that matters, but the quality of one’s faith! He teaches this in a most memorable way, by comparing their faith to a mustard seed, which is the smallest of the cultivable seeds at that time. If their faith were that size, it would be greater than what they had then. Yet, that would still be small faith. In other words, the “littleness” of their faith was in reality no faith at all, for it didn’t even measure up to “small” faith.
In the parallel passage to this story, Mark 9:24, the father of the boy had said, “I do believe, help my unbelief.” So the point was not the amount of belief one has, for one either has it or doesn’t have it. One may believe God for one thing, but not have faith in regards to another thing. If one has faith of any size, there is no limitation to what can be accomplished—the concept of moving mountains was a proverbial expression in that day for doing great things.
It needs to be noted that Bible versions differ on the inclusion of verse 21, about the need for prayer and fasting for performing exorcisms—see the brackets placed around it in the NASB above (see also Matthew 18:11). The reason for this is that most of the earliest Greek manuscripts do not contain this verse, whereas later manuscripts do contain it. Scholars, therefore, are divided on whether the verse is authentic or was it inserted by a copyist at some point. However, Mark 9:29, does contain the notion of the need for prayer and fasting, so the concept is authentic.
To the case in point, what was needed to move the mountain in question, namely the cure for demon-possessed boy, required not more faith, but a certain kind of faith—a “prayer and fasting” kind of faith was needed. Little faith accompanied by prayer and fasting can accomplish great things!
Lord, I do believe You in many areas of my life and have seen You do great things. But, in the thing I am facing today, “Help my unbelief.”
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