Greetings, dear people.
I had better get out there and attempt my old man jog before the rain kicks in again. Then I had better stir up some dust—like sawdust. There is the need to generate some sign work dust too. What kind of dust do you plan to stir up?
May the Lord add His blessing to whatever dust we make.
In Christian love—Ray.
This passage, for me, is in the category of a PROBLEM TEXT—because I have such a hard time figuring it all out so as to see it make good objective sense. It seems like it raises more questions for me than it answers. For one thing, I don’t clearly understand why Jesus so harshly reprimanded His disciples because they weren’t able to pull off the healing of the epileptic boy. Nor do I clearly understand how something so intangible as faith can be measured by size or volume and be compared to a tiny seed. Nor do I clearly understand what’s up with moving mountains. To be sure I have never in my life encountered anyone demonstrating their faith by removing or relocating mountains. I don’t even want to have anyone exercise so much faith that they mess around with Mount Hood and remove it from the Cascade Range. I like it right where it is.
Although I am afflicted with so many understanding shortfalls, I have to believe that there is meaning here beyond a literal application. Just to take a stab at reconciling some of it, allow me to suggest that “mountain” in the text can represent something as big and ominous as the NATURAL SIN NATURE—or, as Hebrews 12:1 puts it, “Let us throw off (or remove) everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Let me now give some attention to “prayer and fasting,” and suggest that “prayer” can represent a lot more than a bunch of pious words, rather a real personal RELATIONSHIP with God through Christ And “fasting” can represent a lot more than a period of not eating, but rather the whole dimension of SELF-DENIAL, along with the reality of being “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11, NIV).
To be sure, these qualities are of crucial importance if we are to avoid one of the most despicable sins defined in Scripture—and featured in this very passage. This is very sobering. And what sin is that? It is the crime of influencing (perhaps by example, faith, or lifestyle) people AWAY from God rather than attracting people TO God. Here’s how Jesus states the warning: “Misery will come to the one who lures people away into sin. Troubles and obstacles to your faith are inevitable, but great devastation will come to the one guilty of causing others to leave the path of righteousness!” (v. 7. The Passion Translation). He goes on to punctuate the warning with words to describe the scary consequences—“eternal fire” (v. 8), and “hell fire” (v. 9). Then He adds, “Be careful that you not corrupt one of these little ones” (v. 10).
How can I avoid repeating this overarching conclusion?—that is, the absolute safest posture to nurture is a genuine personal HEART AFTER GOD.