Mark 9.14-29, Matthew 17.14-21, Luke 9.37-42.
First time I was ever taught this story, it was called “Jesus heals an epileptic.” At the time I didn’t know what epilepsy was; now I do. So I object to that description every time Christians bring it up. This isn’t epilepsy whatsoever. The boy was possessed by
Matthew and Luke go so far as to identify it as a
Christians have misidentified this boy as epileptic for centuries… making life miserable for epileptics all that time, and even today. People have accused ’em of being demonized, and in some cases hurt them badly, on the grounds they were trying to hurt the demons within. In so doing, they never bothered to treat the very real medical condition. They simply treated ’em like sinners—much like
Of course now that we know epilepsy isn’t demonization, we’ve often got it wrong in the other direction: Plenty of people now misdiagnose demonized people as mentally ill. There is an actual difference, y’know, and you can usually tell when you treat the patient: Treatment and meds work on the mentally ill. But they won’t work on a demon; only exorcism will.
Here’s the other big problem with the way Christians usually spin this story. Most Christians presume demonization is what happens when people dabble in evil, invite evil spirits into their lives, and the spirits take ’em over. So we tend to figure it’s their own fault for getting possessed; they dabbled in evil,
Again, no. The boy could’ve been ill, so his dad and mom took him to the local witch doctor, who figured a demon might be helpful. And
The faith-deficient students.
After
Mark 9.14-18 KWL - 14 Coming to his students, Jesus saw many crowds with them, and scribes arguing with them.
- 15 Next all the crowds, seeing Jesus, were startled. Running, they greeted him.
- 16 Jesus asked them, “Why are you arguing with them?”
- 17 One of the crowd answered Jesus, “Teacher, I bring my son, who has a speechless spirit, to you.
- 18 Whenever the spirit takes him, it tears at him, and he foams and grinds his teeth and shrivels.
- I told your students so they’d throw it out, and they couldn’t.”
Matthew 17.14-16 KWL - 14 Coming to the crowd, a person came to Jesus, kneeling before him,
- 15 saying, “Master, have mercy on my son!—he’s ‘moonstruck.’
- He has an evil spirit: Often he falls into fire, often into water.
- 16 I brought him to your students, and they couldn’t cure him.”
Luke 9.37-40 KWL - 37 This happened the next day, as they were coming down the hill:
- Many crowds met Jesus and his students.
- 38 Look, a man from the crowd cried out, saying, “Teacher,
- I beg you to look upon my son, for he’s my only-begotten,
- 39 and look: A spirit takes him over and cries out suddenly,
- and tears him up with foaming, and hardly ever leaves him, crushing him.
- 40 I begged your students to throw it out, and they couldn’t.”
A man had a demonized boy, and brought him to Jesus to be cured. Not finding Jesus, he went to Jesus’s students, whom Jesus had taught to do exorcisms;
Since Jesus’s students were so inept, how much
The boy’s father presented his problem to Jesus: He had a boy who was
The crowds weren’t expecting Jesus to show up, so they were startled by his appearance.
Jesus’s response reveals he fully expected his students to be able to handle this situation without him:
Mark 9.19 KWL - In reply Jesus told them, “You untrustworthy kids!
- How long will I be with you? How long will I support you? Bring him to me.”
Matthew 17.17 KWL - In reply Jesus said, “You untrustworthy, distorted kids!
- How long will I be with you? How long will I support you? Bring him to me here.”
Luke 9.41 KWL - In reply Jesus said, “You untrustworthy, distorted kids!
- How long will I be with you and support you? Bring your son here to me.”
Jesus’s complaint regularly gets misinterpreted, because Christians assume the “faithless and perverse generation”
As for being faithless and perverse: Jesus’s kids didn’t lack faith altogether. They did try to cure the boy! But you recall Jesus regularly described them as having little faith, deficient faith.
So “How long will I be with you and support you?”
The faith-deficient father.
Mark includes this bit about the boy’s father further explaining the situation to Jesus.
Mark 9.20-24 KWL - 20 They brought the son to Jesus, and seeing Jesus,
- the spirit next tore at the son, and falling to the ground he rolled, foaming.
- 21 Jesus asked his father, “How long has it been like this with him?” He said, “From childhood.
- 22 Often it even throws him into fire and water, so it can destroy him.
- But if you can, help us!—have compassion on us!”
- 23 Jesus told him, “If you can. For believers, everything’s doable!”
- 24 Crying out, the boy’s father next said, “I believe!—help my unbelief.”
Many a modern translation has Jesus’s discussion with the boy’s father sound more like this:
Mark 9.22-23 NLT - 22
B “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” - 23
A “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked.
They interpret Jesus throwing the man’s “If you can” right back at him. Some translations even make Jesus sound like he’s mocking the man, or responding with sarcasm. And yeah, Jesus isn’t beyond pushing our buttons when he’s trying to make a point. But that’s not what this is.
The father’s statement is
Hence the Good News Translation’s much better rendering,
Mark 9.23 GNT - “Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”
Why do we Christians keep misinterpreting Jesus with such a bad, faultfinding attitude?
We must never interpret Jesus apart from
The Holy Spirit
Keep praying and fasting.
Of course Jesus cured the boy. You think he wouldn’t?
Mark 9.25-27 KWL - 25 Jesus, seeing the crowd running to him, rebuked the speechless spirit,
- telling it, “Speechless, deaf spirit, I order you: Get out of him. You may never enter him again.”
- 26 Crying out and tearing him some more, it came out.
- The boy became like the dead; hence many were saying that he died.
- 27 Jesus, grasping his hand, lifted him up and raised him.
Matthew 17.18 KWL - Jesus rebuked the demon, and threw the demon out of him,
- and the child was cured from that hour onward.
Luke 9.42 KWL - As the boy was still coming to Jesus, the demon broke him, and he convulsed.
- Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and cured the boy, and gave him back to his father.
Later, privately, Jesus’s students came to him to ask him about why they couldn’t cure the boy. Rightly so, it bothered them. Bothered ’em in a way it doesn’t bother a lot of Christians nowadays, because too many of us figure, “Well of course Jesus could cure the boy and the disciples couldn’t;
Jesus’s explanation differs between Mark and Matthew.
Mark 9.28-29 KWL - 28 Entering the house, Jesus’s students privately asked him this: “Why couldn’t we throw it out?”
- 29 Jesus told them, “This kind can’t be thrown out unless you’re praying and fasting.”
Matthew 17.19-20 KWL - 19 Then the students, coming to Jesus privately, said, “How come we couldn’t throw it out?”
- 20 Jesus told them, “Because of your insufficient trust in God:
- Amen! I promise you when you have faith like a mustard seed, you’ll tell this hill, ‘Move from here to there!
- And it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
In Mark it’s because the students should’ve been praying and fasting, and in Matthew it’s because they didn’t trust God enough.
To a number of Christians this looks like
Matthew 17.21 KWL - [“But this kind doesn’t come out unless you’re praying and fasting.”]
Which alters the meaning of Matthew: The students shoulda had more faith… but even if they had more faith, this is a tricky sort of demon, so faith itself wouldn’ta been enough.
Which is the right answer? Well, both. (Without altering either gospel to eliminate any “difficulty,” thank you very much.) Jesus’s students regularly had deficient faith, so of course that topic needed to come up: They needed to stop thinking, “This is way too big for me; let’s have Jesus do it instead.” They needed to step up and fight this devil themselves. Like Jesus said, he wasn’t always gonna be around; and now that he’s currently with his Father, we need to fight such beings—and win!—without him doing the exorcisms for us. We can do it. So let’s do it.
And at the same time, fighting evil spirits isn’t a task for
The holistic Christian lifestyle has to include both practices: A deep trust in God, and the regular spiritual discipline of
