Matthew 9 Bible study: According to your faith

Three times in this chapter Jesus sees or speaks of someone's faith (tap faith). They bring him a man "who was paralyzed, lying on a bed" (9:2), and "Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, cheer up! Your sins are forgiven you.”" (9:2) (tap cheer up, forgiven). A woman comes behind him and touches the fringe of his garment, "for she said within herself, “If I just touch his garment, I will be made well.”" (9:21), and he says to her, "Daughter, cheer up! Your faith has made you well." (9:22) (tap well). Two blind men come to him in the house, and he asks, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They answer, "Yes, Lord" (9:28), and he touches their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you." (9:29). Here is what almost everyone misses: Matthew has already ended one healing this way. To the centurion Jesus said, "Let it be done for you as you have believed" (8:13), and Matthew says, "His servant was healed in that hour" (8:13). Here, after "Your faith has made you well", Matthew says, "And the woman was made well from that hour" (9:22). Matthew tells what Jesus said and did for these people. These notes make none of it a promise about anyone's health today.

Exodus 18:18→leads toMatthew 9:37-38

Moses judged the people "from the morning to the evening" (18:13), and Jethro told him, "You are not able to perform it yourself alone" (18:18); able men were set over the people to "share the load with you" (18:22). When Jesus saw the crowds "like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36), he said to his disciples, "The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38). Then "He called to himself his twelve disciples, and gave them authority" (Matthew 10:1). Jesus doesn't cite Exodus 18, so setting the two side by side is a reading: some hear in his words the same need for more hands that Jethro saw; others read them on their own.

πίστιςpistissay PEES-tis

Strong's: "persuasion, i.e. credence". Thayer places this chapter's three uses (9:2, 9:22, 9:29) where faith is "with the predominant idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ". Jesus sees "their faith" (9:2), tells the woman, "Your faith has made you well" (9:22), and tells two blind men, "According to your faith be it done to you" (9:29). Matthew's Greek has the word eight times (counted in RP2018, the Byzantine text the WEB translates), and three of them are in this chapter. The first is in what Jesus says of a centurion: "I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel" (8:10), where Favor's Matthew 8 studies it. Favor's Mark 4 studies it at Mark 4:40.