Increase Our Faith

In our lives as Christians, we’ve probably all thought at some point that we’d like to have more faith. We look at the heroes of faith in the Bible and read Hebrews 11, and we think it’d be nice to have faith like that. Jesus’s disciples had a similar desire.

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” So the Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Luke 17:5-6, NET

At first, it seems like Jesus didn’t give them a helpful answer. They asked for more faith, and He said if you had faith you could do this and this, but didn’t actually tell them how to get that faith. But then, as He so often did when teaching, He proceeded to tell them a story.

“Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’? Won’t the master instead say to him, ‘Get my dinner ready, and make yourself ready to serve me while I eat and drink. Then you may eat and drink’? He won’t thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he? So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Luke 17:7-10, NET

The disciples asked for more faith, and Jesus gave this enigmatic response. First, He told them what they could do if they had faith. Then, he told them this story about the slave and the master. Finally, He gave them an instruction: “So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’” It’s this story and concluding instruction that serve as the answer to the disciples’ plea, “Increase our faith!”

Master and Slave

When we read the word “slave” with modern eyes, we become very uncomfortable. We think of involuntary subjugation and mistreatment. In many English translations, they use the word “servant” or “bondservant” to avoid using “slave.” However, “δοῦλος (doulos) … does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another” (NET footnote on Matt. 8:9). “Bondservant” is a pretty good translation, since doulos “often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another,” but it’s not a word that most modern English speakers are familiar with. That makes “slave” the best translation option even though our modern sense of what that means is a little different than what doulos meant in the ancient world.

It’s important that we understand doulos because the master-slave relationship is one that Jesus and New Testament writers frequently use to explain how God and His followers relate to each other. Jesus has multiple parables about the kingdom that compare us to slaves and He and/or His father to a master (Matt. 24:45-51; 25:14-30). While Jesus did say, “I no longer call you slaves … But I have called you friends” near the end of His human life (John 15:15), Paul, Timothy, James, Peter, and Jude all call themselves slaves of God the Father and Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Tit. 1:1; James 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:1; Jude 1:1). In the sense that Biblical writers use the word, we don’t have a choice about whether or not we’re slaves. All people either serve sin and the devil as their master, or serve righteousness and the one true God (Romans 6). We just get to choose whom we serve. With that in mind, let’s look at Jesus’s response to His disciples again.

“Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’? Won’t the master instead say to him, ‘Get my dinner ready, and make yourself ready to serve me while I eat and drink. Then you may eat and drink’? He won’t thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he? So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Luke 17:7-10, NET

First, Jesus asked His listeners to put themselves in the master’s role. You wouldn’t think it was a remarkable thing, He points out, if your slave did as they were told and served you. Like the slave in this story, we have a master that we’re expected to serve. When we do everything God has commanded us to do, we shouldn’t think we’ve done something amazing. That’s just what’s expected of us. It is our duty to obey God in everything. And somehow, that is connected to faith.

Doing What We Hear

Paul tells us that “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17, NET). As we talked about last week, a Jewish writer like Paul would have connected the idea of hearing to the action of doing. If you really hear or listen to something God says, then you’re going to act on what you hear. Faith follows from hearing God’s word and, as we talked about the week before last, that faith involves obedience to what God says.

When I read, “when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty’” I think of the difference Jesus drew between people who made a show of righteousness and people who lived genuinely righteous lives. Usually, this came up in relation to the Pharisees, who prided themselves on keeping God’s law to the letter and even adding more laws on top of it.

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place. So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!”

Matthew 5:17-20, NET

Clearly, the true righteousness Jesus talks about here has something to do with keeping the commands of God but it isn’t confined to just being an expert in the law or keeping that law as strictly as possible. In the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus continued talking about taking God’s law to the next level. Our righteousness has to go beyond the letter of the law to obeying God in the spirit and intent of His law. For example, it’s not enough to avoid murder; Jesus also expects us not to despise or condemn others (Matt. 5:21-22). It’s not enough to refrain from cheating on our spouses; we’re not even to lust after someone who doesn’t belong to us (Matt. 5:27-28). If we’re only keeping the letter of the law, then we are servants who have merely done our duty. If we want to be deserving of “special praise,” we need to demonstrate a higher degree of commitment to God than what He expected under the Old Covenant.

Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Corinthians 2:4-6, NET

Paul explains “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” more fully in Romans, especially Romans 7-8. The law gives knowledge of sin, but it can’t save us from the death penalty that comes from breaking God’s law. We need Jesus’s sacrifice for that, and when we have a relationship with Him we’re “free from the law of sin and death” and under “the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2, NET).

The Law That Gives Freedom

Many people think of God’s law as something restrictive, demanding, and confining. But when we’re in a New Covenant relationship with the Father and Jesus, the law becomes something else. It’s not so much that the law of God changed, but that our relationship with it changed.

But if you fulfill the royal law as expressed in this scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show prejudice, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators. For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law. Speak and act as those who will be judged by a law that gives freedom. For judgment is merciless for the one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 2:8-13, NET (bold italics mark quotations from Lev. 19:18; Ex. 20:13-14)

While Paul often emphasized how we don’t rely on the law for salvation (even though we still owe God our loyalty and obedience), here, James emphasizes the continuing importance of God’s law. If we really love our neighbors as ourselves, then we’re keeping God’s whole law the way He intends us to (Rom. 13:8-10). But if we break one of the more detailed commands summed up by “love your neighbor as yourself” then we’re guilty of violating God’s law. He’s merciful, though, and the law is there for freedom not condemnation. It lets us know what kind of works we should produce when we have faith.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that—and tremble with fear.

But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? You see that his faith was working together with his works and his faith was perfected by works. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And similarly, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

James 2:14-26, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Gen. 15:6)

Belief that acknowledges God’s nature then does nothing based on that knowledge is the same kind of “faith” that the demons have. Faith that’s linked with righteousness takes action. Active faith does good works, not because works will save us but because our salvation links us with God the Father and Jesus Christ. A real relationship with them inspires change, growth, and goodness in us. As we follow Jesus’s example and obey God in the spirit of the law, not just doing our duty to obey in the letter of the law, our faith continues to grow.

---

Featured image by Pearl from Lightstock