Q: In Matthew 17:20, Jesus told His disciples, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you. Is this not absurd and unrealistic?
A: Some interpreters dismiss this objection by explaining that Jesus is simply using hyperbole, and thats that -- this verse is just a way of saying that true believers will have the ability to do amazing things, acts which they could not do, and would never dream of doing, without their belief that Gods unlimited power was working through them. (A similar saying, in which faith results in the movement of a sycamore-tree, seems to have a similar sentiment.)
Other interpreters have taken Jesus words literally, and simply conclude that while the apostles had faith, and while modern-day believers have faith, none of us has faith as big as a mustard seed (or, if someone /has/ had such faith, he hasnt used it to move any physical mountains) and it is for that reason that Christians have not re-arranged any more physical mountains than non-Christians.
Both of those interpretations relieve the objection.
But Id like to explore this text a little further, if only for technical and devotional consideration. I think theres a little more to the picture. If you compare Matthews account with Marks account, youll notice that the entire content of Jesus words in Matthew 17:20 are absent from Mark. And I dont think Mark would have omitted this statement if it had been present in Peters report of the incident; Marks account of the whole incident is much more detailed than Matthews. This indicates to me that Matthew has drawn the statement from his collection of Jesus sayings and placed it here, out of its historical chronological sequence/setting, as a commentary -- a sort of and the moral of the story is sort of thing.
The reference to this mountain is historically appropriate, since Jesus and Peter, James, and John were recently on the Mount of the Transfiguration; thats a point in favor of the This-is-really-about-physical-mountains interpretation. But when I consider this verse as a free-standing statement, the motif of a moving mountain reminds me of Zechariah 4:6-7, where the removal of a great mountain is a poetic description of the task of the removal of rubble from the ruined site of the Temple (which had been destroyed). The language of Matthew 17:20 and Zechariah 4:7a is undeniably similar. If Jesus intended for His disciples to think of Zechariah 4:6-7 too, then the picture in their minds of mountain-moving faith would not be what modern readers tend to picture. We like to imagine a Christian Jedi, reaching out with faith and picking up a multi-ton mountain and tossing it around. But the mountain-moving scene in Zechariah was not that. It was a task performed with the faithful hope that God would bring it to completion and honor it with His presence. It was also a lot of hard work, involving the systematic removal of rubble and a thorough cleaning of the ruined Temple site, in preparation for the rebuilding of the Second Temple. To those who were sensitive to this precedent, Jesus saying here in Matthew 17:20 might not have elicited visions of a Christian Jedi, but it might, instead, be understood as a framed-in-hyperbole description of the accomplishments of monumental tasks which, without faith that God would add His power to our own, we would never begin to undertake.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: Some interpreters dismiss this objection by explaining that Jesus is simply using hyperbole, and thats that -- this verse is just a way of saying that true believers will have the ability to do amazing things, acts which they could not do, and would never dream of doing, without their belief that Gods unlimited power was working through them. (A similar saying, in which faith results in the movement of a sycamore-tree, seems to have a similar sentiment.)
Other interpreters have taken Jesus words literally, and simply conclude that while the apostles had faith, and while modern-day believers have faith, none of us has faith as big as a mustard seed (or, if someone /has/ had such faith, he hasnt used it to move any physical mountains) and it is for that reason that Christians have not re-arranged any more physical mountains than non-Christians.
Both of those interpretations relieve the objection.
But Id like to explore this text a little further, if only for technical and devotional consideration. I think theres a little more to the picture. If you compare Matthews account with Marks account, youll notice that the entire content of Jesus words in Matthew 17:20 are absent from Mark. And I dont think Mark would have omitted this statement if it had been present in Peters report of the incident; Marks account of the whole incident is much more detailed than Matthews. This indicates to me that Matthew has drawn the statement from his collection of Jesus sayings and placed it here, out of its historical chronological sequence/setting, as a commentary -- a sort of and the moral of the story is sort of thing.
The reference to this mountain is historically appropriate, since Jesus and Peter, James, and John were recently on the Mount of the Transfiguration; thats a point in favor of the This-is-really-about-physical-mountains interpretation. But when I consider this verse as a free-standing statement, the motif of a moving mountain reminds me of Zechariah 4:6-7, where the removal of a great mountain is a poetic description of the task of the removal of rubble from the ruined site of the Temple (which had been destroyed). The language of Matthew 17:20 and Zechariah 4:7a is undeniably similar. If Jesus intended for His disciples to think of Zechariah 4:6-7 too, then the picture in their minds of mountain-moving faith would not be what modern readers tend to picture. We like to imagine a Christian Jedi, reaching out with faith and picking up a multi-ton mountain and tossing it around. But the mountain-moving scene in Zechariah was not that. It was a task performed with the faithful hope that God would bring it to completion and honor it with His presence. It was also a lot of hard work, involving the systematic removal of rubble and a thorough cleaning of the ruined Temple site, in preparation for the rebuilding of the Second Temple. To those who were sensitive to this precedent, Jesus saying here in Matthew 17:20 might not have elicited visions of a Christian Jedi, but it might, instead, be understood as a framed-in-hyperbole description of the accomplishments of monumental tasks which, without faith that God would add His power to our own, we would never begin to undertake.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
