The proper way to counter abuse is not to change the meaning of the verse, but to criticize the false teaching where it truly deviates from Scripture. To illustrate, I will raise two points about the teaching in question. The first has to do with the nature of faith, and the second has to do with the source of faith, or how faith is generated. These two points do not cover all the erroneous ideas espoused by the teaching, but our present purpose is to arrive at a correct positive understanding of verse 23, nothing more.

First, this false teaching conceives of faith as a force that is powerful in itself. Sometimes it is less esoteric and amounts to a christianized version of the self-centered doctrine of "positive thinking." Its proponents are not always consistent in this, but when they do speak from such a perspective, they do not refer to faith as a person's belief and reliance on a proper object – as in God, his promises, and so on – but that belief itself is the power that produces the desired effects. Attacking this misconception of faith will at the same time check the abuse of verse 23.

Second, the false teaching appeals to Romans 10:17 ("faith comes by hearing") and asserts that faith is produced by hearing the words of Scripture over and over again. One way to do this is for a person to repeatedly speak some selected biblical verses to himself. For example, a sick person can say, "By his stripes, I am healed" (see 1 Peter 2:24) several hundred times a day. He might doubt the statement at first, but he will eventually become convinced that it is true, and then by the principle taught in Mark 11:23, physical healing will follow.

When they attempt to oppose this teaching, many people end up attacking Scripture itself. They would criticize the principle that a Christian can command things to happen by faith. But this principle is exactly what Jesus teaches. Adherents of the false teaching are right to complain that it is sheer unbelief to suggest that Jesus does not literally mean what he says in verse 23. All Christians should affirm that if we have faith, then we can command a mountain to move, and it will happen. Jesus demonstrated it on the fig tree, and then he said that we can do the same and even more, if we have faith. So unless we are willing to sacrifice the inspiration of Scripture due to unbelief, this principle is not subject to debate.

What is wrong with the false teaching is not their understanding of the principle, but in their understanding of faith. First, they erroneously conceive of faith as a force – that the power resides in belief as such – instead of understanding faith as the belief in divinely revealed propositions that require God's conscious exercise of his power to make good. Second, they falsely conceive of faith as something that they can produce within themselves by repeatedly listening to biblical propositions.

The first misunderstanding makes their definition of faith altogether non-Christian. This point alone is sufficient to refute their doctrine concerning Mark 11:23. But the second point is even more relevant to our main purpose, which is to attain a correct positive understanding of the verse. To review, Jesus teaches the principle, "if we have faith, then we can move mountains." Commentators have focused on qualifying the "we can move mountains" portion of the principle. But I suggest that we should focus on the "if we have faith" portion instead.

(to be continued)

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