Q: In Matthew 17:17, Jesus speaks harshly of his own disciples when they fail to cast our a demon. He says, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I put up with you?
A: It is not a given that Jesus is referring to His disciples as the faithless and perverse generation. Their attempts at exorcism had failed, but this is attributed (in Mt. 17:20 and Mk. 9:29) to the disciples littleness of faith, and because this kind of demon cannot come out by anything but prayer and fasting, and the disciples, it would thus seem, did not have the requisite spiritual focus which came via prayer and fasting. But that is not the same as being faithless and perverse.
The extra details in Mark indicate an interesting backstory. Putting two and two together, I think that this incident began as a set-up. Some scribes, who had encountered this extremely unusual and inexplicable case of demon-possession, had persuaded the boys father to bring the boy to Jesus -- and they did this not so that the boy would be healed but with the hope that Jesus would fail and be embarrassed. The father of the demoniac boy acted as a pawn of the scribes; his hope for his son was dulled by a sense of despair -- the sort of despair that a patient may feel when a doctor refers him to another doctor whom the first doctor regards not as a colleague but as a rival. Its in this sort of setting -- with the scribes, waiting to celebrate Jesus failure, and with the boys pessimistic father, and with His own disciples failing to cast out the demon, and with the crowd, sure to show their fickleness if He failed to exorcise this demoniac boy -- that Jesus says, O faithless and perverse generation. He doesnt spell out who He means (in , but the description aptly targets those who had sent the boy and his father to Jesus in the hope that the exorcism would fail. And soon after this (in Matthew 17:20), Jesus tells His disciples that they have a small amount of faith, not that they have /no/ faith; this may clarify the picture a little more, to the effect that the disciples were not the target of the O faithless and perverse generation statement (even though the disciples dont get any gold stars from the incident).
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: It is not a given that Jesus is referring to His disciples as the faithless and perverse generation. Their attempts at exorcism had failed, but this is attributed (in Mt. 17:20 and Mk. 9:29) to the disciples littleness of faith, and because this kind of demon cannot come out by anything but prayer and fasting, and the disciples, it would thus seem, did not have the requisite spiritual focus which came via prayer and fasting. But that is not the same as being faithless and perverse.
The extra details in Mark indicate an interesting backstory. Putting two and two together, I think that this incident began as a set-up. Some scribes, who had encountered this extremely unusual and inexplicable case of demon-possession, had persuaded the boys father to bring the boy to Jesus -- and they did this not so that the boy would be healed but with the hope that Jesus would fail and be embarrassed. The father of the demoniac boy acted as a pawn of the scribes; his hope for his son was dulled by a sense of despair -- the sort of despair that a patient may feel when a doctor refers him to another doctor whom the first doctor regards not as a colleague but as a rival. Its in this sort of setting -- with the scribes, waiting to celebrate Jesus failure, and with the boys pessimistic father, and with His own disciples failing to cast out the demon, and with the crowd, sure to show their fickleness if He failed to exorcise this demoniac boy -- that Jesus says, O faithless and perverse generation. He doesnt spell out who He means (in , but the description aptly targets those who had sent the boy and his father to Jesus in the hope that the exorcism would fail. And soon after this (in Matthew 17:20), Jesus tells His disciples that they have a small amount of faith, not that they have /no/ faith; this may clarify the picture a little more, to the effect that the disciples were not the target of the O faithless and perverse generation statement (even though the disciples dont get any gold stars from the incident).
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
