Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Boy (Luke 9:37-45)

Bible reading

³⁷ On the next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met Him. ³⁸ And a man from the crowd shouted, saying, “Teacher, I beg You to look at my son, for he is my only boy, ³⁹ and a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly screams, and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth; and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves. ⁴⁰ I begged Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” ⁴¹ And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.” ⁴² While he was still approaching, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the boy and gave him back to his father. ⁴³ And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.

But while everyone was marveling at all that He was doing, He said to His disciples, ⁴⁴ “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” ⁴⁵ But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement.

Source: Luke 9:37-45 (New American Standard Bible)
Parallel passages: Matthew 17:14-23, Mark 9:17-32

Bible Study summary

The disciples couldn’t drive out the demon because of a lack of faith. A strong faith is described by its completeness and purity, not by its size – as Jesus said in Matthew 20:19, “…if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you”.

Many things can ‘contaminate’ our faith. For example, we may ask earnestly for God’s help upon encountering difficulties, but once the problem is solved, we start to think of it as our own achievement. This mixture of belief and unbelief, as confessed by the boy’s father in Mark 9:24, is often observed. Sometimes we blame God and other people for not doing anything, without realizing first that it was our unbelief that hinders God from exercising His power through us. 

In the incident, the boy’s father blamed the disciples for not being able to cast out the demon in his son. In Luke 9:41, Jesus described this type of behavior as “perverted”.  Perverted, in scripture, means ‘twisted’. In this case Jesus was helping this man’s faith by pointing out to him that he was ‘twisted’ in his thinking because instead of identifying that it was his own lack of faith that was hindering the casting out of the demon, the father was blaming the disciples for their lack of faith.

For our faith to grow to its fullness, we need to continue exercising it. This means constantly seeking for God’s guidance and help in our daily lives, and acting according to His wills. Sometimes it may be contrary to what our human nature wants us to do, but we have to stand firm and do it the Godly way, because that’s how we can experience God’s power. 

With more experiences of God working in our lives, our faith grows, so as our relationship with God. Some people base their faith on their connections to other people instead of a direct connection with God. For example, the disciples of Jesus observed all the miracles Jesus had done; if they based their faith only on these observations, when one day Jesus is not around, their faith could also be gone. Jesus also kept reminding the disciples about His departure in the future (Luke 9:44) to help them realize this fact. 

Faith is a very abstract term, at least to me. Not only because itself is intangible and unmeasurable, but also because it sounds like a big word that entails a lot. Sometimes to ease myself with comprehension, I simply equalized faith as believing, while overlooking the ‘action’ or ‘work’ part of the equation. I would use all my mind power to believe that God would grant me power to achieve some personal goals, then patiently waited for His response, only to receive nothing in the end. This passage reminded me that I received no power from God for a reason: I didn’t reflect on whether the things I tried to accomplish were according to God’s wills.

Although syncing with God’s mind takes a long process, I think we can still start from something. Like whenever we feel conflicted in our minds during a decision making, allow ourselves to come before God and think which option aligns more with God’s ways, instead of calculating which option ‘benefits me the most’. God won’t let us down. And life is just much simpler without all the calculations. 

Bible study by Joanna
Summary by Kylin