TOPICAL STUDY SERIES MARK 11:23-24 The Value of Faith in Prayer or Our Personal Authority? PHILIP NERAT Is Mark 11:23-24 about authority of the believer? It seems as though speaking to our mountains is our right and an authority given thus by God. But is that a correct interpretation? Mark 11:23-24 goes like this: “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. It sounds like it we do have that authority and we can speak to our mountains (our troubles) and get them out of the way by our very words. But that isn’t what this passage is teaching, and that interpretation does not align with scripture. Mark 11:23-24 is not about speaking to mountains as much as it is about prayer. If you look at verse 24 carefully, you can see that: 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. So first of all, Jesus is not teaching on the power of our words, but on prayer itself. Now what is the teaching? If we pray, with faith, and BELIEVE that we have received it, it will be yours. So belief is part of the equation of prayer. Now Jesus didn’t only teach this truth about prayer. In fact, if we are to take the totality of scripture and look at how prayer is taught in different ways, we have a much more rounded picture. Pray to God (Matthew 6:9) Pray for things you need (Philippians 4:19) Pray without doubt (Matt. 21:22) Pray as a seeker (Luke 11:9-13) Pray from a righteous heart (James 5:16) Pray unselfishly (James 4:3) Pray from a grateful heart (Philippians 4:6) Pray according to God’s will (1 John 5:14) Pray in Jesus’ authority (John 16:24) Pray in faith (James 1:6) Pray persistently (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) Forgive first before prayer (Mark 11:25) If you consider the list above, in each one of these books the writer reveals a piece of what prayer means. An aspect of prayer is revealed. This list is found through many New Testament books that that all have different emphasis when they discuss prayer. When we go to the “Ask”prayers, we find a similar theme: 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matt 7:7-8) Aspect: We must be persistent in prayer. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7) Aspect: We must ask with a spirit of thanksgiving. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21) Aspect: We must come to the awesome power of God in humility. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. (Matthew 21:22) Aspect: Belief (faith) is essential for prayer. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-8) Aspect: There must be a faithful belief in regards to understanding your situation (this is a prayer for wisdom) . This is an important way to understand and learn the truth of the bible in a more contextual and rounded way. Even in the very verse that was quoted (Mark 11:23-24), verse 25 is often left out. What is it? 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” So you can see Christ is teaching about an aspect of prayer, not about the power of your words. Prayer that is effective is both bold (Luke 1:37) and when we pray, we are to pray without doubt (James 1:6-8). The Deeper meaning of Mark 11 Christ was speaking to His apostles. If you broaden out the verse and go back all the way to beginning of chapter 11, you get the real content of the verse: Christ is entering Jerusalem for the last time before His crucifixion. This is the beginning of passion week. He spots a fig tree and, because it has no fruit (Christ is hungry), he curses it. Next, Christ clears out the temple of the money changers They pass by the fig tree again, and Peter notices it has withered Christ begins the teaching of Mark 11:23-24 So to present the entire chapter up to this point gives us further insight into what’s going on. Christ, entering Jerusalem, is looking for faith amongst the city. The fig tree represent Israel. Christ is hungry for what? Its fruit. But there is none, so He curses it. Jerusalem, even though it contains the temple, has no fruit left. In the very next story, He goes into the temple court and begins to overturn the tables. Why? Because the house of the Lord, the very place the Gentiles would be able to worship, had been captured by greed and corruption. There is no fruit left in Jerusalem or the temple. When they pass the now withered fig tree, which Christ said would never bear fruit again, that is an allusion to the end of the temple era. There is no real faith in Jerusalem or in the practices of the temple. This is a very real example of the withered faith. The temple itself would be destroyed in 70 AD, 35 or so years later. Because the faith has dwindled. This brings us to the 11:23-25 teaching. But let’s add verse 20-21 on to help us out: 20 In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” This is the connection point. Peter sees that the tree has withered. This again is the concept of faith dying in Israel. 22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 2“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. This part begins telling the disciples what verse 22-25 are all about. It is first about faith and secondly about the power of faith. Here Christ is using hyperbole. He’s also using a very ancient-world phrase that was common in that time, the moving mountain phrase. This spoke to insurmountable problems in one’s life. But you see, what Christ is teaching is that the problems in one’s life requires faith, and faith requires belief and trust. It also requires a number of other things: Faith is having confidence in the word of God and trusting the promises of God found in the word We must have faith to follow and seek with a sincere heart Salvation by Faith is a biblical concept from the very beginning Faith is embracing the promises of God Faith is dependence on God Faith is our response to God’s gift of mercy (obedience) God supplies the grace for us to breathe in faith Faith connects us intimately with Christ These components of faith are essential for connecting with God in a real and rich way. So what Christ is saying is that the difference between Israel’s relationship with God and true relationship with God is the dependence on God through faith and that dependence is realized in believing trust. That is confidence and assurance in the things we hope for and those things we do not see. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. This is biblical truth, but it isn’t the only truth about prayer. Yes we are to ask, of course (Philippians 4:6). But what Christ is relaying here is the assurance of asking and believing (trusting) that it is given to you. That doesn’t mean we get whatever we want if we believe hard enough. It means we have to be in a loving and abiding relationship with God and if we are, then our desires are not going to be for our own selfishness but aligned with the kingdom of God. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” This sums up what Christ is saying about prayer. Again this is not about the power or authority of our words. It is about coming to God authentically, in supplication, believing and trusting in him, and in that humility, we align ourselves with Him and there is power in our prayer. This second part also teaches that when we come in prayer, we must come fully to God. There are things that can hinder our prayer. One of them is the unforgiveness in our hearts. Matthew 5:23-24 says this: 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. This shows us an aspect of God which we may not readily understand: that God is more interested in our relationships than He is with our offering. It also show that the offering is hypocritical if we are harboring strife in our life. In the same way, Matthew 11:25 echoes the point: when we pray, we need to have the relational part straight. This could affect our prayer life. Moving Mountains When we get off track with authority, we often conflate more importance on ourself and the importance of our own actions. Humility is where God wants us to be (2 Chronicles 7:14, 1 Peter 5:6, 1 Peter 5:5, Philippians 2:3). This is a common thread in false teaching. False teaching and teachers always reduce the sovereignty of God and elevate the authority of man. In this case, one way to see the folly of the authority argument is to ask some simple questions: Who is Christ talking to in Matthew 11:23-24? Answer: His disciples How would they (the disciples) have understood this teaching? A. Did the disciples go out and speak to their mountains? B. Did Paul speak to his mountains? Did any mountains actually move? A. So if there are no moving mountains, how would the disciples have interpreted this teaching? By thinking through these questions, we can come up with some important answers that will give us firmer ground. How would the disciples have understood this teaching? They first would have known that “moving mountains” was a local colloquialism. So by understanding the faith component, they would have realized this teaching was about prayer, not about the power of words. How many of the apostles spoke to their mountains? None of them. In fact, each of them went to their deaths, poor and abused, without moving their mountains from their paths. Most famously, Paul prayed for his thorn (mountain) to be prayed away, but God instead supplied him with grace in it (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). What did the apostles do? They moved forward in faith. They were the true believers. So it can’t be a measure faith they didn’t have, because they already believed. The teaching of faith that Jesus is giving them shows that faith in prayer is the key. The faith in communion with God is what moves obstacles in our life. The obstacles that come are sometimes seemingly insurmountable, but through faith and prayer, we are told time and time again in scripture, that we can overcome. That we can persevere. Because God is building something bigger and better in you: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. –1 Peter 1:3-9 Peter teaches that there is a design behind how we suffer, and the strategy of suffering is to build us stronger and to refine us. So there’s no reason to speak mountains out of existence because those very mountains that are in our life are there for the reason of refinement! Also, moving the mountains in our life isn’t something we do. It is something we have to rely on God for. When we come to God in faith, we have to rely on his power and strength in the situation and trust that he can and will move the impossible from our life. Through God all things are possible (Matthew 19:24). It is his power we must rely on and come into alignment with, not drawing on our own power to move things out of our life by our own will. Going Deeper If we are to establish good doctrine in our search for truth, we must draw on the whole bible teaching, not take verses out of their context and design our own truths from it. This can get us into trouble. Here’s an example: “There is no God.” – Psalm 14: 1 This is in the bible. So if we are to take this at face value, it can drive our entire thought process and bring us to a place that is incorrect. It could shipwreck our entire life. But if we read the entire verse, we get a much more rounded concept of what the verse is teaching us: The fool says in his heart,“There is no God.”They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;there is no one who does good. – Psalm 14: 1 Do you see how the meaning completely changed? If we read more, we get a better understanding of where the passage is going: 1The fool says in his heart,“There is no God.”They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;there is no one who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heavenon all mankindto see if there are any who understand,any who seek God. 3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;there is no one who does good,not even one. 4 Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread;they never call on the Lord. 5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,for God is present in the company of the righteous. The difference is staggering. This is the beauty of reading passages in context. When we take a passage and twist the meaning to derive something about it that is not there, we will misinterpret. Sometimes this is accidental, and based on our growing understanding can be course-corrected. Other times it can be intentional. If you really want to believe it, you can formulate a theology and sustain it. When we do that, we form opinions that are even further from the truth. In other words, we begin to fashion a God of our own liking. What we believe does not control things to happen. Faith does not shape our reality and our words don’t possess magical or miraculous power. God controls what will happen (Psalm 115:3, Proverbs 19:21, Romans 8:26-30, Ephesians 1:5-14, Proverbs 16:1-9, Psalm 135:6, Daniel 4:35). These are just a few of the passages about God’s sovereign nature. God controls this universe. It is his will that is done. This is a difficult truth, but it is the truth of scripture, and we must bend to it and not attempt to bend it to our own likings. Isaiah 46: 9-13 says it very well: Remember the former things, those of long ago;I am God, and there is no other;I am God, and there is none like me. 10 I make known the end from the beginning,from ancient times, what is still to come.I say, ‘My purpose will stand,and I will do all that I please.’ 11 From the east I summon a bird of prey;from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.What I have said, that I will bring about;what I have planned, that I will do. 12 Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted,you who are now far from my righteousness. 13 I am bringing my righteousness near,it is not far away;and my salvation will not be delayed.I will grant salvation to Zion,my splendor to Israel. If God is in control, as the bible teaches (there are over 100 verses in scripture that verify this), then we have to submit to that truth. We have to submit to his sovereignty, His Will , His leadership, His plan, and take comfort in it. What is our authority then? Our authority is to make disciples (Matthew 28:16-20) and to share the gospel, but it is sourced in Christ’s authority. We have the “authority” or “right” to be called a child of God (John 1:12) and to approach God with confidence (Hebrews 4:16). We should be reminded of five things when we are trying to establish authority in our life: We are under authority (1 Timothy 6:15, Luke 17:10) Our life is about dependence on Christ, not independence, as modeled by Christ (John 5:30) The model of submitting to authority is biblical (Ephesians 5:22-24,6:1,Romans 13:1-7, Acts 4:34-35) Believers are to operate in meekness (Titus 3:1-2, James 3:13) We are to preach the word of God boldly (Titus 2:15, 1 Peter 4:11), with confidence and authority So our authority comes from Christ, but it isn’t to speak things into existence. Our authority is to share the gospel and to pray boldly, believing, if we are aligned with God, then what we pray for will be within God’s Will. The authority of the believer comes from God and His word. As we teach and preach his word, that authority, to speak the truth in love and humility, can be done in confidence and authority. Copyright 2024 , P. Nerat, All Rights reserved