The Healing of a Boy With an Evil Spirit
37The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. 38A man in the crowd called out, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. 40I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not."
41"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here."
42Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil[b] spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. 43And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.
While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, 44"Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men." 45But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
Who Will Be the Greatest
46An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. 47Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. 48Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest."
49"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."
50"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."
Dig Deeper
A few years ago I saw a video that has become increasingly popular in certain segments of the Christian community. In this video a leader in the sect of Emergence Christianity captivatingly paints a picture of Jesus approaching a boat in the Sea of Galilee. The boat is filled with his disciples. He recounts the incident where Jesus then urges Peter to come out to him on the water. Peter begins to walk on the water just as Jesus is but then he begins to sink. He had taken his eyes off of Jesus and immediately began to sink. He began to believe the sight of the wind and waves around him more than he believed in Jesus once he took his eyes off of the perfecter of faith. But this teacher doesn’t mention that he. Instead he adds his own interpretation to the event, one not found in Scripture. He claims that Peter’s problem was that he lacked faith in himself. He goes on to passionately describe how God has faith in us and our ability. He urges his watchers to think about that and to dwell on how much God believes in us. He then attempts to demonstrate this point by appealing to the idea that Jesus had faith in the disciples to change the world after he was gone and he points out triumphantly that they did so. If we just have faith in ourselves and know that God has faith in us, claims this leader, then we could change the world as well.
Admittedly, the video is extremely passionate and it is inspiring on some levels. I have personally witnessed a room full of wonderful Christians sitting and watching this video and being initially moved by the inspiring thoughts of trusting in ourselves, having faith that we can accomplish great things, and believing that God has faith in us. The problem with that is that it’s false. The ideas presented by this leader are not just false but actually downright dangerous, I believe. What he presents is thinly veiled humanism, which is the over valuing of human beings. Besides reading into the text of walking on water, the non-existent idea that Peter lost faith in himself, and ignoring the obviously stated problem that he took his eyes off Jesus and begin to worry about the waves, he also fails to mention an infinitely important point about the world-changing activities of the disciples. Jesus did not believe in the disciples at all. In fact he told them clearly to stay put in Jerusalem until they had been clothed in power by the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t have faith in them but he trusted in the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t have faith in us but he trusts in the Holy Spirit. We shouldn’t recklessly and dangerously put faith in ourselves but in the Holy Spirit.
In fact, the problem of putting too much faith in themselves, and not yet fully relying on Jesus and operating by the values of the new kingdom he was unleashing into the present age, is exactly the issue at hand in this section here. The inability of the disciples to work according to their own means and operate according to their own understanding is exactly what Luke puts on display here.
Immediately as Jesus returns from the most incredible communion with God that left him momentarily displaying his full glory rather than just reflecting glory as Moses did, we see that things will be even tougher from now on. The enemies will be fiercer, the opposition stronger, and the need for the disciples to rely on God will be even greater.
Earlier in this chapter, Jesus had sent out the disciples and given them the authority over demons but, evidently, that authority only extended as far as Jesus specifically defined their mission. They should never begin to think that they had authority that was independent from him. They should never begin to have in faith in themselves. When they did, they failed. The demons that they faced in this boy were the perfect object lesson.
In essence, Luke gives us a picture of contrasts. Jesus has been up in the mountain in the very presence of the Father, while the disciples were down at the base of the mountain relying on their own strength and not waiting for a word from God. This contrast brings to mind clear echoes of Mt. Sinai where Moses ascended the mountain to receive God’s word and commune with God while the Israelites engaged in base idolatry and self-reliance at the bottom of the mountain. They could not cast out the demon because they needed to learn to rely on God’s word and Jesus alone. And if they were going to act like the rebellious wilderness generation then Jesus would rebuke them like the children of that generation (Deut. 32:4-5). How long would Jesus stay with them until the One would come who could truly transform their hearts, the Holy Spirit? That would, of course, happen after his death in Jerusalem. In the meantime, they needed to learn in no uncertain terms and until they clearly understood that “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isa. 46:4).
The situation for this father was crucial. If his only son was not healed his family line would come to an end. Once again, though, Jesus, in a now familiar pattern, exercised his authority over the demon with nothing more than a spoken word. Jesus, fresh from powerful prayer and communion with the Father, had done what they could not do on their own.
Jesus didn’t stand around and bask in the glory of praise that came from the crowds, though. He turned to teach his disciples a very important concept. The very Messiah whom they had just seen demonstrate incredible power and authority would be betrayed and eventually killed. They understand his words to a point or they wouldn’t have been afraid to ask. But it had been hidden from them. Not by God, but by their own lack of fully embracing the new kingdom reality and worldview that was the very substance of Jesus’ message. They could not envision a world where marching straight into suffering and shame could actually fulfill the will of God for his servants rather than being a sign that they had drifted from that will. They simply could not yet comprehend how a person that they had just recognized as the Messiah could be betrayed and rejected. God’s servant should be exalted not despised. They had yet to embrace Jesus’ kingdom view of the world and because of that they could not yet fully understand the nature of their own discipleship, as is displayed in verses 46-50.
The later argument amongst the disciples (Luke does not give any indication of how long of a time, if any, passes between verses 45 and 46) is a clear demonstration that the disciples still had to change their worldview and trust in Jesus’ vision of the new reality that was coming rather than operating by the old patterns of the world. It would have been quite normal in the world in which they lived to be quite concerned with the status and rank with the group and appropriate behavior based on that status and rank. It would have been quite logical even, to argue about it. But that is only if they were still operating by the old way of thinking, which they were. The very fact, though, that they were having such an argument was a clear indication that they had failed to fully internalize and embody the turning-the-world-upside-down nature of Jesus’ message. They were not being called to merely follow another great teacher or be really religious and pious. They were being called to embrace, live, and proclaim an entire new reality and way of living that permeated every aspect of one’s life. They were being called to live in the new creation.
Despite their shortcomings, Jesus patiently taught them an incredible object lesson. He took a little child and brought him forward. He put the child in a position of honor and said that he should be welcomed, which meant to extend full status and social relations to someone. To “welcome” someone in that culture meant to treat them with the full measure of hospitality and honor. This would be a strange request because one would normally only welcome someone of equal or greater status, never someone lower, and there was no group lower on the social strata of that day than a child. There was no benefit and no value to welcoming a child or affording them a social status of any kind and it simply would not have been done under normal circumstances. Children might be expected to perform acts of hospitality but never to receive them as the objects of honor. Jesus had just taken the social pyramid of his day and turned it upside down in a shocking fashion. He had undermined the very ground on which the disciples stood when they engaged in an argument over relative greatness and status. Such a concept had no place in God’s new reality, his kingdom. It is important, then, to note that this was an object lesson that Jesus was clearly teaching his disciples about the need to do away with cultural preconceptions of status and greatness. He was not, as some have claimed, demonstrating that small children could enter into the kingdom of God at an age before having reached an appropriate level of accountability and cognizance. To arrive at that conclusion would be to completely divorce verse 48 from the surrounding context. In the kingdom, the least is the greatest, which means that all are the greatest. There is no status hierarchy in the kingdom of God.
John’s question, then, can actually be seen as a challenge to Jesus’ statement that there is no hierarchy in the kingdom of God. How can that be? Surely they are part of the inner circle and have the ability and authority to quiet someone who was trying to work in Jesus’ name but who was an outsider. He did not belong to their community and must be put in his place. The irony was that this man had been successful in the very area that the disciples had just failed. He had cast out a demon in Jesus’ name. Jesus’ response should not be taken out of context and applied to every false teacher, effectively giving anyone a pass on their behavior, regardless of the truth of their teaching. Jesus’ point was that the kingdom of God would not be limited to the Twelve or the small band of insiders. There would be many would be sent out to carry on the work of reconciling the world to the kingdom of God. This would be an important lesson years later as an outsider named Paul would seek to be welcomed by the apostles as one of their own.
Devotional Thought
Take an honest look at your own heart. Do you fully rely on Jesus for everything you do or have subtly began to trust in your own strength and have faith in yourself? What do you need to do today to return to full reliance on Jesus Christ?
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