14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.
-Desperate man needing something from Jesus.
15"Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.
-His son is crazy. Must be a heartache to have your own child be crazy like this. He must be desperate to have him well again.
16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."
-Another interesting twist, the disciples couldn't heal him. Wonder how the disciples felt that they couldn't do something.
17"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me."
-Jesus characterizes the generation as unbelieving and perverse. He seems kind of frustrated at this situation. Is it the disciples/man/generation in general that he's referring to?
-Maybe the disciples were spooked by this guy and that's why Jesus says this.
-Tone is kind of like when peter doubts while walking on water: why did you doubt?
18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.
-Seems so simple for Jesus.
-Reason for child's problem was a demon. Makes you wonder what the parents or child were into as far as idol worship.
-Maybe Jesus's comments were directed at this man and his family for being pagan and getting themselves into this kind of trouble due to demon worship.
19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
-So the disciples ask the obvious question. They were probably having success on the demon exorcising front but had problems with this one.
20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
-Answer is simple: lack of faith. We need to believe in what God can do. Like really believe.
-Statement previous applys to disciples. They should be able to do this by now, but they lack faith.
-Do we lack faith in the same regard? How much should we be doing that we're falling short because of our perversity and lack of faith/unbelief? How often do we unbelieve and say God can't do this?
22When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.
-Kind of a change of topic, but more on his betrayal and death. More clarity to the subject and directness with the disciples about it. They were given plenty of warning.
-All this warning reminds me of the end times. God gives us plenty of warning about it, yet there will be people caught off guard when it comes to pass.
23They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life." And the disciples were filled with grief.
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