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Jesus tells his disciples that they don't even have faith as big as a mustard seed:

Τότε προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ Ἰησοῦ κατ᾽ ἰδίαν εἶπον· διὰ τί ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἠδυνήθημεν ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτό; ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐτοῖς· διὰ τὴν ὀλιγοπιστίαν ὑμῶν· ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ἐρεῖτε τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ· μετάβα ἔνθεν ἐκεῖ, καὶ μεταβήσεται· καὶ οὐδὲν ἀδυνατήσει ὑμῖν.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." (Mat 17:19-20 ESV)

If a mustard seed is chosen as the smallest thing/seed they know of, is this a suggestion that "any less would be nothing at all? Or would it have been understood that an ever more minuscule amount was possible?

Is this why in some manuscripts ὀλιγοπιστίαν is replaced by ἀπιστίαν?

Caleb
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Paul Dean
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  • Actually he didn't say they had mustard seed sized faith or less. What he said to them was they could not cast the demon out because they didn't have enough faith. Then he adds, you can move mountains and do the impossible if your faith like a grain of mustard seed. The second sentence was figurative and points more towards the power of God than anything we are or can do. Because it's figurative we might be able to conclude or even ask "How is it that such small faith can do great things?" Everybody starts with mustard seed faith, simply believe... – John Peters Mar 27 '15 at 23:02
  • @PaulDean I love this question-but understand that 2 VTC's have been assigned to it(I'm not one of them). Neither VTC has commented as to why(not the way I do things, but I can't change it). The "Fear" is that any answer would be "prescriptive", and therefore outside of Site Directives. Can you tweak this question to ask for "scriptural understanding"=On Topic, vs "application"=Off Topic, better handled on a Forum site where subjective inferences can be used? Thank you! – Tau Mar 28 '15 at 01:34
  • I think the mustard seed image is used to indicate how every small individual's contribution to the kingdom can be used by God in a big way. http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/4447/640 –  Mar 28 '15 at 06:00
  • See also the related questions: Does Jesus always use the mustard seed to signify the property of “smallness”?, and The meaning of the phrase “mustard seed” (a dupe but it has an answer), and (as linked by Stacey), What does a mustard seed grow into? – Susan Mar 28 '15 at 12:17
  • @All I am at a loss to explain how a question which asks for the scriptural definition of faith as compared to a mustard seed, one that originates from the text and can be answered by the text, descends into a systemic theological discussion. Do you mean there are systematic theologies without faith? I understand the dupe concern-perhaps the OP can clarify whether or not what he is asking has been answered before. But "systematic theology"....Really?????? – Tau Mar 29 '15 at 22:50
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    @Tau The over-dramatization of the normal work-flow for handling questions isn't really necessary. This has not "descended into a systematic theology discussion" at all. It got closed. Closing questions that have scope issues is normal and the normal response would be to figure out a way to fix them. The close reason is a stock thing and not phrased for this specific question. In this case I think it might have been miss-applied, but it's not hard to see where the original title of this question set off the wrong bells in people's minds. – Caleb Mar 30 '15 at 07:03
  • @PaulDean I've tweaked the close reason here as I think the previous one was miss-applied, but it seems this is largely duplicated elsewhere. Perhaps if there is and angle you think isn't being addressed by the other questions you could [edit] this one to be more clearly focused on the aspect that is unique to this question and we could re-open it. – Caleb Mar 30 '15 at 07:06
  • @Caleb I took exception because 1) the OP had put forth effort and edited his original question, which was borderline "prescriptive". There was no attempt on the part of those at that particular time to explain their VTC; I assumed it was because of that reason. 2) Then there are 5 VTC's over "Systematic Theology", a point which had absolutely no bearing and even you admitted was the wrong reason. So, if folks are going to 'throw the penalty flag', A) They should make the OP aware of the infraction, B) They should understand what the infractions are and contribute to a positive outcome. – Tau Mar 30 '15 at 14:53

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