Luke 9:37-42 Trouble at the Foot of the Mountain
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: August 17, 2018 Luke 9:37-42
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
(Understanding the Text) Jesus had left the other disciples at the foot of the mountain, and either a lot of people came to them as they waited for Jesus, or the crowd had already been following them, and Jesus left the disciples at the bottom for crowd control while He and the three others snuck out and climbed the mountain. The day following the transfiguration, Jesus and his three companions rejoined the group on the plain below the mountain. The SDA commentary says that they were probably either at the plain of Gennesaret or the Valley of Esdraelon. Both of these are in Galilee and to be one day’s journey away would be impossible for Mt. Hermon, so I think the SDA commentary is assuming that the mount of transfiguration was Mt. Tabor or another mountain near there. This would make sense with the scribes and crowds being present where they might not be up in the area of Caesarea Philippi. On the other hand, the narrative seems to say that the mount was near Caesarea Philippi. If so, the plains mentioned in the SDA commentary are deductions based on guesses that may be wrong. The location of the mount of transfiguration is unclear and Tabor and Hermon are mere guesses.
The disciples had already healed and cast out demons, so they must have been doing this with the crowd also. However, they failed with this boy. Why? I think the key is in Jesus’ exclamation. Why faithless and twisted? Jesus always said that faith was required for healing, so someone had so little faith that the healing was not possible. I think that it is not the disciples without faith for two reasons. First, the disciples had already cast out demons, so they would have just assumed that the power to do this was available to them. However, they may have started to lose faith when they did not succeed at first. The second reason is found in Mark. “And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them” (Mark 9:14). The scribes had come and were part of the crowd. I think that the father had come with some faith, but as he overheard the remarks of the scribes, he started to lose faith. Then, when he saw that Jesus was not there, only disciples and not the three top ones, he lost more faith so that by the time it was his son’s turn to be healed, the father was going through the motions.
With no faith from the father to work with, the disciples’ own spiritual issues interfered with their ability to heal. Were they resenting being left behind with the crowd? Were they feeling insecure without the top four leaders in faith there? I have speculated before that one reason that Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him on special occasions was because they not only worked well together as a team, but they also had faith. They totally trusted Jesus and followed His orders. Did the nine other disciples have trust issues? Were they not used to taking charge?
Why twisted? Was it because the boy’s father said he wanted one thing but believed differently than he said? Was it because the scribes were there trying to discourage people from coming to the very God that they claimed to serve and revere? Was it coming from the top of the mountain communing with heaven and reaching the bottom full of sin, bitterness, and fighting? Was it the knowledge that all too soon, Jesus would be gone and His disciples would have to work without His physical presence to bolster their faith? I’m not sure why Jesus used the term “twisted.”
(Revelation of God) Jesus knew that His time walking the earth as a man was soon to be finished. He worried that He would fail to save humans. He worried for His disciples and their choices. It was for this reason that He went up on the mountain to speak with the Father. During the transfiguration, the disciples were exposed to the glory of God, and so now just a day later on the plain, there were still traces of that glory on them, just like Moses. This is why Mark says “And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him” (Mark 9:15). The crowd was greatly amazed because of something about the appearance of the four men. When Jesus heard the reason for the commotion, His worries resurfaced that His disciples weren’t ready yet to meet the obstacles that they would soon face.
(Understanding the Text) In the SDA commentary’s discussion on demon possession, it points out that having a demon possess your mind in order to control your body, is hard on a human. Some people reacted with seizures as this boy did. Thus, when Jesus cast out the demon, the boy’s seizures would stop as the cause was no longer present. Most likely, there was some brain damage that Jesus healed before giving the boy to his father.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is to not be discouraged when I try to serve Jesus and do not perform well. I need to pray and draw close to Jesus, then try again. The problem may be my own lack of faith that needs to be bolstered. Or I may be facing a strong adversary who is invisibly working against me, and I need to pray for extra angelic reinforcements to be with me. I am forgetful of prayer and need to be reminded. Please remind me. I do not have much faith, but You said that the quantity is not the problem. Instead, it is the person that I trust. Help me to see that You are trustworthy always.