In-Depth Study  – We Need Pure Faith Not More Faith

Exodus 19:17:  “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mount.”

Matthew 17:19-21 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? (20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (21) Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

Join us tonight for our Interactive Bible Study where we will be talking more on this topic while taking a look at the Hebrew and N.T. Aramaic: www.HebrewWordStudy.com

I have pondered Matthew 17:19-20 for many years.  The disciples came to Jesus asking why they could not cast the demons out of the boy that Jesus just cast out.  Jesus said because of their unbelief. Some translations render Jesus’s words as saying they had so little faith in NIV or the NLT says they did not have enough faith. Countless books have been written as to how we can have more faith.  If someone isn’t healed or prosperous it is because they did not have enough faith. That not enough faith business seems to be Christianity’s favorite excuse as to why our prayers are not answered.  Thus, there are sermons, podcasts, books, teachings, and whole organizations built on developing your faith. Teachings on how to exercise your faith like you exercise your body. The more you exercise the stronger you become. The more you exercise your faith the stronger it becomes.  

It seems the whole problem with Christianity is that Christians have so little faith. Yet, Jesus follows this declaration by saying all you need is the faith of a mustard seed and you can move mountains. Some gift shop in Israel made a fortune gathering little seeds of mustard and putting them in a little crystal-type ball the size of a pearl, attaching a chain to it, and making it into a neckless so one who visited Israel can return to impress all the people back home by saying: “Lookie here, this is a mustard seed and all you need is faith the size of that seed.” The question that always comes to my mind and surely yours as well, is: “How do you measure something so subjective as faith with something so objective like a seed?” What constitutes little faith as opposed to big faith or whole gobs of faith? 

You have the story of Peter who saw Jesus walking on water and asked if he too could walk on the water and Jesus, “Go for it.”  He did and he actually walked on the water out to Jesus. He could be within arm’s length of Jesus when it dawned on him; “Wait, this is impossible!”  That’s when he began to sink.  Jesus reached out, grabbed and it seemed like he scolded Peter saying; “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”  Matthew 14:38. According to many Bible scholars Jesus wasn’t scolding Peter. He wasn’t condemning Peter: “Peter, Peter, you just don’t get it do you, all this time I have been with you and you have such little faith, shame on you.”  Actually, Peter had gobs of faith.  Would you have the faith to jump over the side of a boat in stormy weather and walk on water?  The translations just don’t express the emotional context.  In the Aramaic, it is much clearer than the Greek and what Jesus was really telling Peter is: “Look at you accomplish Peter with just a little faith. You just had to hang in there.”

I ran across something interesting as I studied the works of Jewish teachers throughout the ages. They often make a reference to paradatha’dacharadal which is the Aramaic for a grain of mustard. It is not a reference to a mustard seed but a mustard grain.  A seed is used to grow a mustard plant or bush but a grain is harvested and used for food. Thus, the emphasis is not on the size but on its use.  The word grain in Aramaic is parad in its root form which means grains as a noun but as a verb, it is used to separate and/or scatter. In one place in the Talmud, I read that a paradatha dacharadal was used ceremonially in the cleansing of a circle of priests. In other places in Jewish literature, I found the grain of mustard was a purifying agent. A grain of mustard is not eaten directly as it has a very sharp taste but is used as a seasoning. Even our Western product called mustard is used to season a hot dog or hamburger, to give it a sharper taste. I even found in the Mishnah that mustard grain is forbidden during Passover because it causes bread to leaven. 

To most of us in the Western world when we think of mustard we think of hotdogs, bratwurst, and hamburgers.  But to the mind of the first century, they had no concept of hotdogs, bratwurst or hamburgers.  What was a grain of mustard to them?  As a Biblical language teacher and amateur linguist, I tried to put what I read in Jewish teachings regarding mustard grains or seeds into a context of the first-century Middle East and what the disciples heard when Jesus said that if they had the faith of a grain of mustard, they could move mountains. 

In Exodus 19:17 we learn that the people of God assembled at the foot or base of Mt. Sinai to receive the law.  But wait, it does not say in the Hebrew that they stood at the foot or base of Mt. Sinai, it says they stood bethchethith beneath or underneath it.  This comes from the root word tavach which means underneath.   Of course, no Christian translator worth his PhD is going to translate that as standing beneath or underneath the mountain.  I mean God would literally have to pick the mountain up and hold it over the people.  That is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as having the faith of a grain of mustard seed and telling a mountain to be cast into the sea.   I wonder, could Jesus have been making a reference to this event?  Naturally, translators will not translate the passage as the people assembled underneath the mountain, they will say at the foot of the mountain. I mean that makes more sense even if the word that is used is tavach and clearly means underneath.  Who is going to be foolish enough to believe God actually picked up a mountain and held it over the heads of the people declaring that if they followed the law they would have the faith to say to this mountain be removed?  In declaring their faith by agreeing to follow the Torah or the law they were able to command the mountain to be removed from over their heads.  Of course, it is ridiculous to think that two thousand years later the Messiah would reference this crazy event under Mt. Sinai by saying in Mark 11:23:  “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Or again in  Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Surely Jesus was only giving an illustration, He could not have been referring to a real event. Or could He?  You explain to me why the writer used the word tavach underneath and not the word yalad which means at the foot of or beside? The ancient sages and rabbis don’t try to explain it away like we Christians of little faith try to do.  They actually teach in the Talmud that God picked up the mountain and held it over the heads of the people until they showed their faith to command it to be removed and that the disciples and other Jews around Jesus who heard His teachings on moving mountains actually believed that such an event took place in their history.

That brings us to the question as to why would God dangle a mountain over the heads of his people to get them to ratify the law.  I mean isn’t that coercion? That is literally saying, “Ok, you’ve got faith as the grain of mustard seed right now but you had better use it or I will drop this mountain and the nation will be nothing but a grease spot.”  That would be like threatening someone with hell and saying; “Well, you have enough faith to believe in a hell, how about using that faith as a grain of mustard seed that sparks a belief in hell to accept Jesus as your personal Savior?”   The Talmud teaches that God had to put them into a fearful situation to exercise their faith at this early stage of their development as a nation of God.  One thousand years later we find that in Esther 9:27: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their [appointed] time every year;” The Talmud interprets this as the Jews reaffirming their divine law and the faith they exercised to accept it was established and accepted, not out of fear but out of love for God.  Just as someone accepting Jesus because they are afraid of going to hell will one day mature to accepting their relationship with God out of love and not fear of going to hell. Here is where we come close to what I believe Jesus was teaching about a grain of mustard seed. 

In the Aramaic, Jesus did not say it was their lack of faith or no faith, but it was a lashaimanutha which could mean no faith but as used in Jewish literature it is often rendered as an impure faith. It would then make sense for Jesus to use the grain of mustard as an illustration for in the mind of the disciples of the first century they would be thinking not of the size of their faith but of the purity of their faith. Now this was a big deal for the Jews as it is today and should be for Christians. 

The disciples had faith, gobs of faith, whole bunches of faith. But Jesus said they could not cast out the demons because they did not have pure faith.  Pure faith is faith that has no hidden agendas, faith that has no distortion.  It is a faith that believes in the pure truth of God that He is a God who loves, cares, nourishes, and through the redemption of His Son Jesus Christ He lives inside of us. It is a faith that is not dependent upon reason, just a total trust in the love of God that He has your back.  You are not alone, you have been bought and purchased by a price, the blood of His Son Jesus, and as His personal, precious possession He is hanging onto you tightly. 

How do we get this pure faith? Jesus told us in verse 21: “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”  Prayer in both Hebrew and Aramaic is palal which in its Semitic root refers to the notch in a tent peg. The tent peg securely holds the tent to the ground but without that notch in the peg, the loop cord of the tent will slip off the peg when the storms come.  Prayer is what secures us to God so when the storms of life come, we are not blown away. Pure faith is attaching yourself securely to God. This comes through fasting which is denying your physical body of its demands. In fasting you take your eyes off yourself and focus your full attention on God.  When that happens, you have no agenda but the agenda of God’s heart. No motives but the motives of God’s heart and when securely attached to God you have a certainty of His lovingkindness and caring protection.  In a word, you will have pure faith.  Pure faith does not come from clinching your fist and repeating over and over: “I believe, I believe.”  It is attaching yourself to God and focusing your full attention on Him. 

Join us tonight for our Interactive Bible Study where we will be talking more on this topic while taking a look at the Hebrew and N.T. Aramaic: www.HebrewWordStudy.com

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