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Little Faith
by Fr. Dr. V.C. Varghese, TX.
Gospel: Matthew 16:5-12
When Jesus' disciples rejoined the Lord on the
east side of of the lake, they had forgotten to take food with
them. Therefore, when Jesus greeted them with a warning to beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducee s, they thought He
was saying "Don't go to those Jewish leaders for food supply."
Their preoccupation with food caused them to look for a literal
explanation where a spiritual lesson was intended.
In Jewish thinking, leaven was a symbol of evil.
Both Pharisees and the Sadducees had infected the religious
beliefs of Israel with false doctrine. The Pharisees were
legalists who taught that only obedience to the Law and
the traditions would please God and usher in His kingdom for
Israel. The Sadducees were liberal in their thinking and denied
that there would be such a kingdom on earth. They even denied the
truth of the resurrection and the existence of angels.
The disciples misunderstood the Lord; they
thought that He was talking about material bread. Often in the
ministry of Jesus , people misconstrued His words by interpreting
them literally rather than spiritually . Nicodemus thought that
Jesus was talking about an actual physical birth (John 3:4), and
the Samaritan woman thought He was referring to material water
from the well (John 4:11). The Jewish crowd in the synagogue
thought Jesus was speaking about eating actual flesh and blood
(John 6:52) when He was describing a spiritual experience (John
6:63).
"Little faith" was one of our Lord's favorite
names for His disciples (Matt.6:30; 8:26; 14:31). Of course,
"little faith" is better than no faith. The disciples had
many lessons to learn before they would graduate to "great
faith." In Hebrew 11 all Christians are called to live by faith.
In it, the writer discusses very important topics relating
to faith. Heb.11:1-3 is not a definition of faith but a
description of what faith does and how it works. True Bible faith
is not blind optimism or a manufactured "hope-so" feeling.
Neither is it an intellectual assent to a doctrine. It is
certainly not believing in spite of evidence. That would be
superstition.
True Bible faith is confident obedience to God's
Word in spite of circumstances and consequences. This faith
operates quite simply. God speaks and we hear His Word. We trust
His Word and act on it no matter what the circumstances are
or what the consequences may be. The circumstances may be
impossible, and the consequences frightening and unknown; but we
obey God's Word just the same and believe Him to do what is right
and what is best. The unsaved world doesn't understand true Bible
faith, probably because it sees so little faith in action in
the church today. The world fails to realize that faith is only
as good as its object, and the object of our faith is God. Faith
is not some "feeling" that we manufacture (as charismatics
adherents). It is our total response to what God has revealed in
His Word. This was the true challenge of faith which
Jesus was expecting from His disciples then and from us
today. Thanks everyone and God bless us all.
See Also:
Sermons and Bible Commentary/Analysis for the 2nd sunday after Sleebo
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