Matthew 8, 14 and 15 · Passage · Faith
Little Faith and Great Faith
Matthew 8, 14 and 15 record Jesus' verdicts on the faith of a Roman officer, a mother from the region of Tyre and Peter.
Jesus called a person's faith great only twice in the Gospels, and both people came from outside Israel.
When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
- The passage
- Matthew 8:5 to 13, Matthew 14:22 to 33, Matthew 15:21 to 28
- Book
- Matthew
- When
- AD 55 to 65 (proposed)
- Hold in memory
- Matthew 8:8, Matthew 15:28
Summary
The centurion and the Canaanite woman each came to Jesus for someone else, a servant and a daughter. His own disciples heard their faith called little, Peter among them on the sea after he had already walked on the water at His word. Set side by side, these verdicts show what Jesus looked for in faith.
- Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion, who asked Him only to say the word, and said that He had found no such faith in Israel.
- Jesus told the Canaanite woman that her faith was great after she answered His saying about the children's bread with a plea for crumbs.
- The Greek word for little faith stands five times in the Gospels, every time spoken to disciples.
Three Scenes in Matthew
Matthew 8 is set in Capernaum, Matthew 14 on the sea in the fourth watch of the night, and Matthew 15 in the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Faith is trust in God and in what He has said, and in these scenes Jesus Himself says how much of it He found. His verdicts speak to every reader whose own faith is strong on one day and failing on the next, because they show what Jesus counted as great faith and as little.
The question these scenes answer is what made the two great faiths great and what Jesus meant by little faith. Matthew alone tells of Peter walking on the water.
And He was amazed at their unbelief. And He went around from village to village, teaching the people.This verse closes the visit to His hometown, where Jesus laid His hands on only a few of the sick, and it names unbelief as what amazed Him there.
The verb for marveled in Matthew 8:10 and for was amazed in Mark 6:6 is the same Greek word, thaumazo, which stands 43 times in the New Testament. Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon A Blessed Wonder (1870), noted that Jesus "only wondered twice, according to the record, and on both of those occasions he marvelled concerning faith".
Great Faith and Little Faith Side by Side
Two scenes of great faith stand beside five sayings about little faith.
Each time, Jesus answered the need with a healing, a rescue or a reminder of God's care.
| Person | The need | What Jesus said of the faith | The outcome | The verse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The centurion | a paralyzed servant at home | I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith | the servant healed at that very hour | Matthew 8:10 |
| The Canaanite woman | a daughter possessed by a demon | your faith is great | the daughter healed from that very hour | Matthew 15:28 |
| Peter on the water | to come to Jesus on the water | You of little faith, why did you doubt? | caught by the hand of Jesus | Matthew 14:31 |
| The disciples, anxious | food and clothing | O you of little faith | pointed to God's clothing of the grass of the field | Matthew 6:30 |
| The disciples in the storm | rescue from the waves | You of little faith, why are you so afraid? | the sea perfectly calm | Matthew 8:26 |
| The disciples without bread | bread for the journey | You of little faith | reminded of the five loaves for the five thousand | Matthew 16:8 to 9 |
| The disciples in Luke | food and clothing | O you of little faith | pointed to God's care for the grass | Luke 12:28 |
The Greek adjective in all five sayings of little faith is oligopistos.
What Made the Great Faiths Great
Both answered Jesus with words of their own, and He answered their words with healing.
The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell one to go, and he goes; and another to come, and he comes. I tell my servant to do something, and he does it.”The centurion asks only for a word and reasons from the orders he gives his own soldiers.
His faith rested on the authority of Jesus' word, so Jesus did not need to come to the house. Augustine, in his Harmony of the Gospels, writes that the centurion "came the more really to the Lord, inasmuch as he believed the more thoroughly".
And a Canaanite woman from that region came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon.” But Jesus did not answer a word. So His disciples came and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”Her first cry already names Jesus as Israel's Messiah, and His silence is the first test of her faith.
The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said. But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”She kneels, asks again, and turns the saying about bread and dogs into her plea.
Her faith held through silence, through the disciples' request to send her away and through the saying about the children's bread. John Chrysostom, in his fifty-second homily on Matthew, writes that "He used the name of a dog, but she added also the dog's act".
Little Faith on the Water
Jesus asked Peter why he doubted, and the verb for doubt in His question stands only twice in the New Testament.
“Lord, if it is You,” Peter replied, “command me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” said Jesus. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?”This is the one place where Jesus says You of little faith to a single person, and every other time He speaks to a group.
Peter's little faith was still faith, for his cry of Lord, save me was a cry to the one he had doubted. The verb distazo, to doubt, returns in Matthew 28:17, where the eleven saw the risen Jesus and "worshiped Him, but some doubted".
Great Faith from Outside Israel
A Roman officer and a woman of Canaan came to Israel's Messiah through the promises made to Israel.
I say to you that many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”The feast is the feast of Israel's patriarchs, and the warning falls on any who presume on birth while others come in by faith.
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”Jesus' mission in His earthly ministry was to Israel, so the woman came to Him from outside its bounds.
In Luke's telling the centurion was commended by Jewish elders, who said that "he loves our nation and has built our synagogue" (Luke 7:5). The Gentile officer of Capernaum came to Jesus as a friend of Israel.
I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.Paul answers from his own descent from Abraham, counting himself proof that God has not rejected His people.
Teachers on Great and Little Faith
Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke and Charles Spurgeon wrote on the centurion, the Canaanite woman and Peter.
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), writes that the centurion was one "who, though not a son of Abraham's loins, was an heir of Abraham's faith, and Christ found it so". He adds, "The thing that Christ seeks is faith, and wherever it is, he finds it, though but as a grain of mustard-seed".
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, writes of the Canaanite woman that "The hinderances thrown in this woman's way only tended to increase her faith". On Peter he writes, "Let us always take care that we do not consider so much the danger to which we are exposed, as the power of Christ by which we are to be upheld".
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon Little Faith and Great Faith (1890), set the weakest believer against the unbeliever. He wrote that "An immeasurable abyss yawns between the man who has even the smallest faith in Christ and the man who has none".
Two Disputed Points, Four Readings
Readers have joined Matthew's centurion to Luke's messengers in two ways and have heard the word for dogs in Matthew 15:26 in two ways.
In Matthew the centurion comes to Jesus himself, and in Luke he sends Jewish elders and then friends. Luke 7:6 to 7 gives the friends his words, "I did not consider myself worthy to come to You".
One approach made through others, told by Matthew in a common way of speakingAugustine, Harmony of the Gospels 2.20; John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists
Augustine writes that "Matthew has simply held by a very familiar mode of expression", by which a man is said to approach another through those he sends. John Calvin agrees that "there is no impropriety in Matthew saying, that the centurion did what was done in his name and at his request". He judges that "it is absurd to make two miracles instead of one".
The objection: Matthew 8:13 has Jesus speak to the centurion and send him home, which reads as a meeting face to face.
The friends first and then the centurion himselfJohn Chrysostom, Homily 26 on Matthew
Chrysostom writes that "it is likely, that after sending his friends, he himself also came and said these things". On his reading the two writers are "filling up the things omitted by one another".
The objection: Luke's account ends when "the messengers returned to the house" (Luke 7:10), with no meeting of the two men.
Kunarion, the Greek word of Matthew 15:26, is a diminutive that stands four times, all in this scene and its parallel in Mark 7:27 to 28. Its lexicon gloss reads a puppy.
A household dog, the small form taken at its wordJoseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon (1889); Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832)
Thayer's lexicon defines the word as "a little dog". Adam Clarke reads the woman's answer with house dogs in view: "The little dogs share with the children, for they eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table".
The objection: the saying still refuses her the children's bread, and the harshness stands whatever the size of the dog.
The common term of contempt, spoken to try her faithAlbert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists
Albert Barnes writes that to other nations the Jews "were accustomed to apply terms of contempt, of which dogs was the most common", and that Jesus "meant to try her faith". John Gill says that Christ "uses the common dialect of the people", and John Calvin writes that He "disdainfully compares the woman herself to a dog".
The objection: her reply works only with dogs fed under a household table, as Mark 7:28 says, and Jesus answers it by praising her faith.
Both readings agree that the word tested the woman and brought her faith into the open. Chrysostom says that Jesus put her off "that He might proclaim aloud this saying, that He might crown the woman".
Faith That Expects Everything from Jesus
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! As you have believed, so will it be done for you.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.Jesus' last word to the centurion makes the measure of the healing the measure of his belief.
The great faiths of these scenes were great because they expected everything from a word of Jesus and would not be turned away. The same Lord who names weak faith is the one who holds it up.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Greek text of Matthew 8:10, Matthew 15:26 and Matthew 15:28, Luke 7:9 and Mark 6:6, with Strong's numbers and morphology.
- STEP Bible TBESG, the brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), entries g2296, g2952, g3173 and g3640.
- Augustine, The Harmony of the Gospels, book 2, chapter 20, translated by S. D. F. Salmond, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 6 (1888)
- John Chrysostom, Homilies 26 and 52 on Matthew, translated by George Prevost and revised by M. B. Riddle, in Philip Schaff's edition of the Fathers, first series, volume 10 (1888)
- John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, on Matthew 8:5 to 13 and 15:21 to 28, in the English translation served by biblehub.com.
- Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889), entry 2952.
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament, on Matthew 15:26.
- John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament, on Matthew 15:26.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Matthew 14:31, 15:27 and 15:28.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Matthew 8:10 to 12.
- C. H. Spurgeon, A Blessed Wonder, Sermon No. 936 (1870), and Little Faith and Great Faith, Sermon No. 2173 (1890), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
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