Matthew 21:12-24:2 - Teaching at the Temple - Part 1

To facilitate worship sacrifices could be bought at the temple itself, but it had to be done with temple currency.  These practices profaned the sacred and in Matthew 21:12-17, Jesus exerts His authority by driving them out!

Then walking on Jesus looks for fruit on a fig tree, finds none, and in ear-shot of His disciples, He curses the tree and it immediately withers.

“May no fruit ever come from you again!”

Matthew 21:18-22 is a difficult passage.  First, Jesus performs a miracle that appears out of character.  We normally want to water and fertilize an unproductive tree.  But a farmer knows it does come a time, when trees become most suitable for firewood.

“Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, . . . whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” 

Then a promise is made.  That with faith (pisteuō), that is if we put our trust in the actions of God, then mountains will move at our request. The truth of this passage has torn at the hearts of Christians as they have prayed earnestly for healing of loved ones to no avail.  1 John 5:13-15 adds the qualification that the request must conform to the will of God.  This is understood, that in prayer we never manipulate or change the sovereign will of God.  And in prayer, we are never the actor.  Jesus, in His humanity, did not wither the tree.  God did in His sovereignty must act so whatever is requested must conform.

The word “whatever” is the Greek hosos, which is a repetition of hos.  This is extraordinarily inclusive.  But it is combined with an, which restricts it to conditions.  Those conditions are “prayer” and “faith”.  

The word “prayer” is singular and is preceded by ho, which is the definite article “’the”.  The verbs, however, are all plural.  So, this is a collective request using “the prayer”.  See Matthew 18:18-20, for the importance of agreement in prayer and, of course, Matthew 6:9-13, for the pattern of prayer.  It is of special note that the Lord’s Prayer never requests more than we need, nor earlier than we need it.  Instead, it is a pattern of daily reliance on God, while living graciously with one another.

However, the parallel verse in Mark 11:23, expands the promise beyond the Twelve to “whoever”.  And unlike this passage, makes the request in a single voice.  So, one must resist the temptation to make this formulaic.  God is not a genie in a bottle from whom we receive wishes if we rub it just right.

So, we remain with two conditions.  We must have faith and God must agree.  No image in nature matches this as well as the slow-motion positive charge reaching up from the ground to meet the negative strike of lightning coming from the cloud (See video).  In the video there are many positive leaders reaching up from the ground, but only certain ones connect.  When they do, the result unleashes unspeakable power.