The desired end is a benefit not in the category of salvation as narrowly considered, but in the category of healing, or deliverance from demonic power. It is not, or not only, a deliverance from ethical influence, but from the demon’s mental and physical control over the boy. When the text is applied, this aspect of the event cannot be removed by appealing to its place in God’s plan of redemption or the progress of revelation. The event is what it is, and what Jesus says in verse 23 applies to the need specified in this same context, even if it also applies to other things. Otherwise, the alleged respect for the history of redemption would become an excuse to practice allegorical interpretation. And since the principle is tied to the nature of the need, to deny one is also to destroy the other.

Along with verses like Mark 11:24, John 16:23, and a few others, Mark 9:23 is one of those texts that preachers and theologians spend more time to explain away, and to expound on what they cannot do and do not mean, than to assert their truth and encourage belief in them. Those who refer to them without also destroying them with a thousand qualifications are branded as heretics, as those who instill “false hope” in people. But why should the main thrust of an exposition of a text be to avoid abuse of the text? And what they consider abuse is often clearly within the natural, even undeniable, meaning of the text.

Indeed, our interpretation would be man-centered and merely psychological if we were to ignore the history of redemption and the majesty, the grace, and the power of God that scream for attention in all the verses. However, if we are so theologically acute that we no longer see the troubled father who wishes deliverance for his son, not so that the son would be converted and attain heaven, but so that he would no longer burn or drown himself, then we are so theologically acute that we have become illiterate.

We reject the positive thinking of self-help psychology. Yet there is a biblical faith, which indeed produces a positive outlook, and constitutes a spiritual and psychological power in the Christian. The two are different, and it requires some misunderstanding of both to mix them up. If you reject Budda, do you have to renounce Jehovah? What does one have to do with the other? And if there is any superficial likeness, where do you think the non-Christians stole the idea from in the first place? They desire the power apart from the source. So theirs is a “faith” without a proper object, and an optimism without a proper basis. Theirs is a counterfeit strength. Theirs is a false hope. When biblical faith is thrown out as if it is self-help psychology, Christians become weak and ineffective. This is why there is so much fear and depression in the church.

Read the Gospels and notice how Jesus behaved. What confidence! What power and composure! What finesse in speech and movement! “But that was Jesus.” Yes, but Jesus became impatient and rebuked his disciples when they did not possess the same outlook, and even when it came to casting out demons and walking on water. He expected them to think on a similar plane. He never praised unbelief. There are some Christian books on how doubt helps us grow. Now, that is false hope. The Bible calls it sin. Faith helps us grow, and to grow so that we will not doubt.

Therefore, let us take a revolutionary approach to Scripture – let us believe it and be strengthened by it. When we expound on it, let us spend more time telling people that it means what it says instead of explaining to them why it means something else, or spelling out the hundreds of ways that people can abuse it, so that when we are finished they are more depressed and more discouraged than when we started. And when we are unable to assert the plain truth of the text, let us not pretend to be heroes who rescue people from fanatics, or “false hope,” or “insensitive” preaching. Rather, let us be as honest as the father, who in response to Christ’s challenge cries, “I believe; help my unbelief!”