“The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.” “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.” Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the impure spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at the greatness of God…”
Luke 9:37-43a NIV
A perverse generation! What did He mean?
“In the Bible, “perverse” means a deliberate, twisted turning away from God’s moral standards, involving crooked speech, corrupt actions, and a hardened heart that rejects what is right, often linked to distorting justice or truth, and seen as contrary to divine wisdom, with Hebrew terms like iqqesh (crooked/twisted) and Greek diastrepho (distort) highlighting this deviation from God’s upright path.”
A perverse generation, in this context, seems to refer, not to that particular generation in general but to that particular group of people who had turned around…that is, away from faith to unbelief…In this circumstance, why was Jesus’ rebuke so meaningful?
First, to whom did Jesus address this harsh rebuke? To the crowd? No. They were merely onlookers. To the father of the boy? Not likely, since he had brought his son to the disciples in good faith that they could help him. Obviously, He was addressing His disciples because they were the ones who were supposed to be doing the healing.
Did Jesus really mean that His disciples had turned away from the revelation He had given them of Himself as the Messiah? Were they really perverse in their attitude to His Word and His kingdom?
Let’s examine the context of Jesus’ rebuke.
Luke records, in the previous chapters, a plethora of situations in which the disciples had either taken part in Jesus’ miracles or witnessed Jesus’ power. For example, He had sent them out to announce the kingdom with power and authority to demonstrate the nature of the kingdom. They returned with stories of miracles that had accompanied their preaching.
Jesus had fed five thousand plus people with the lunch of a small child. At Caesarea Philippi, He had assured them of the power of His yoke that would transform people from idolaters to members of His church…and much more.
Now, faced with a demon that was particularly stubborn and vicious, as reported in Mark 9:17-27, the disciples were intimidated and powerless. Why had they retreated?
Jesus chided them for turning around, from faith to unbelief. They had been influenced by the circumstances. They had been facing the wrong way. They had forgotten the witness of the power of Jesus and the power of the kingdom within them. They were deceived and overwhelmed by the demonstration of the demon’s antics and had turned around.
After the upheaval had quietened down, the squatter demon evicted, and the disciples alone with Jesus, the guilty ones inevitably asked why? Where had they gone wrong?
Jesus’ response might seem surprising to us. Luke didn’t bring closure to this incident, so, we must turn to Mark’s record for completion.
“After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
Mark 9:28-29 NIV
Although Jesus’ reply may seem broad and incomplete, what He said was loaded. What did He mean by “prayer”? Were the disciples meant to pray before they dealt with the demon? I think His reply went much deeper than that.
Prayer is, in essence, the communion with the Father, through Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, that allows us access into the very circle and heart of the Trinity. Prayer is much more than getting God to do things. This idea is distortion of the Father/child relationship Jesus has made possible through His atoning death.
It is in the intimacy of this relationship that we have fellowship with the triune God. The more we gaze at God’s glory in Jesus, through prayer and contemplation, the more we grow in confidence in the authority and power of the Son.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV
This is the pinnacle of prayer. Armed, then, with this conviction, no demonic resistance or any other adverse circumstances can defy the power of that name. Focusing on circumstances diminished faith. Focusing on Jesus despite circumstances releases invincible power.
Without the prayer that seeks greater intimacy and greater fellowship that bonds us to Jesus, prayer and faith remain flabby and ineffective. By communion with God in prayer, and contemplation of the glory of Jesus, we grow in the conviction of who He is and commitment to the power of His word to do what He has promised.
How often Jesus’ accusation can apply to us when we are so intimidated by what is happening that we turn around and look the wrong way. Jesus called this “perverse”. Faith in the authority of the one who has spoken defies all odds and releases heaven’s resources to do what His word has said.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Hebrews 11:6 NIV
To be continued…