Matthew 17:14-23; Mark 9:14-32; Luke 9:37-45;
Matthew 17:24-18:9; Mark 9:33-50; Luke 9:46-50
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to Him and, kneeling before Him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.
Matthew 17:14-18
So, despite the fact that the Lord previously gave the disciples the power and authority to heal and to cast out demons (Mt. 10:8; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1) the disciples cannot quite manage it with this case. And when Jesus arrives, we get to the heart of the problem.
“Bring him here to Me.”
It seems evident from everything else that Jesus says here that the disciples’ problem is one of unbelief. (Mt. 17:20) I expect that the disciples’ prior experiences on their mission trip(s) gave them a good deal of confidence, so I don’t think we can equate “unbelief” with a lack of confidence. But there is every chance that the unbelief amounts to misplaced confidence, relying perhaps too much on themselves, and not on Jesus.
“Bring him here to Me.”
This, of course, is essentially what Jesus said about the loaves in feeding the 5,000. Perhaps we should listen.
“Bring him here to Me.”
See also: