<p>8:25 <i>And he said to them: Where is your faith?- </i>See on Lk. 7:8. They so often feared (Lk. 8:25; 9:34,45; Mk. 4:40; 6:50; 10:32); despite the Lord repeatedly telling them not to be afraid (Lk. 12:4,32; Jn. 14:27). The Gospel writers use their records to bring out their own fickleness. After having been awed by the Lord&rsquo;s stilling of the storm, they are soon almost mocking Him for asking who had touched Him, when hundreds of the jostling crowd had touched Him (Lk. 8:25 cp. 45).</p><p>The question as to&nbsp;<i>why</i>&nbsp;they had little faith echoes to us. Why is it that faith is so hard for us? The track record of the Father and Son as rewarding faith is clear and without question. This&nbsp;<i>why</i>&nbsp;question drives each individual into personal introspection, reviewing our history, past and present influences upon us, the nature of our personality.&nbsp;<i>Why</i>&nbsp;do we not believe very strongly... ? The records of the Lord&rsquo;s words to the disciples in the sinking ship are significantly different within the Gospel records. Luke&rsquo;s record has Him upbraiding them: &ldquo;Where is your faith?&rdquo;, as if He thought they had none. Matthew and Mark have Him commenting: &ldquo;O you of&nbsp;<i>little</i>&nbsp;faith...&rdquo;. Putting them together, perhaps He said and implied something like: &lsquo;O you of little faith, you who think you have a little faith, in my view you have no&nbsp;<i>real</i>&nbsp;faith. Come on, where is your&nbsp;<i>real</i>&nbsp;faith, not the little bit which&nbsp;<i>you&nbsp;</i>think you have...?&rsquo; (Mt. 8:26 cp. Mk. 4:40). The Greek for &ldquo;little&rdquo; faith is also translated &lsquo;almost&rsquo;; as if the Lord is saying that they almost had faith, but in reality, had nothing. The Lord spoke of how just a little piece of real faith, like a grain of mustard seed, could result in so much (Mk. 11:12,13)- as if He recognized that there was pseudo-faith, and the real thing.&nbsp;<i>Oligopistos&nbsp;</i>(&quot;little faith&quot;) is used five times by Matthew (Mt. 6:30; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20); it never occurs in Mark and only once in Luke. Perhaps Matthew's Gospel record was written to challenge those whose faith was small, and he encourages them that the disciples likewise started with &quot;little faith&quot;.&nbsp;</p><p>It seems to me that all the Lord's servants are taught by increments, progressively, being given tests as to the degree to which they have grasped what the Lord has sought to teach them previously. And the Lord Jesus used a similar structured approach with the training of the twelve disciples. When the Lord commented &ldquo;Have you not yet faith?&rdquo; (Mk. 4:40 RV) it becomes immediately apparent that He was working with the twelve according to some program of spiritual development, and He was frustrated with their lack of response to it and slow progress. He surely has a similar program in place, and makes similar patient efforts, with each one of us. It is apparent to any reader of the Greek text of the Gospels that Jesus almost always left the verb &ldquo;believe&rdquo; without an object (e.g. Mk. 4:40; 5:34,36; 9:23). The question naturally arose: &lsquo;Believe&nbsp;<i>in what or whom</i>?&rsquo;. And seeing the speaker of the words, the answer was there before their eyes.&nbsp;</p><p><i>And being afraid they marvelled, saying to each other-</i> A word so often used about the response of people to miracles. The Lord had marvelled at another's faith, and now men marvel at His faith. A very positive mutuality is suggested here between the Lord and His followers.</p><p><i>Who then is this- </i>What&nbsp;<i>sort</i>&nbsp;of man is this (Gk.&nbsp;<i>potapos</i>), they asked themselves. They felt very much their own humanity (hence they are called &quot;the men&quot; at this time), and their awe was because they sensed that Jesus too was a man. Accepting the humanity of the Lord Jesus is relatively easy on one level, as a matter of theology, exposition or logic. But then comes the far harder part- the awe at the fact that One who was like me could actually do so much and be so much. And this can lead to our feeling a kind of gap between Him and us, although we know He shared the same nature, this in a sense means that we feel the spiritual distance between Him and us very keenly. In later spiritual maturity, Peter seems to have reflected upon this gap and realized that it was bridgeable- for he uses a similar word in saying that because of God's grace, &quot;what manner of persons (<i>potapous</i>) ought we to be...&quot;. Just as Jesus was human and yet different from unbelieving men, so that same element of difference can be seen in us. The whole consideration is an essay in His humanity and representation of us as humans.</p><p>&quot;What manner of&nbsp;<i>man</i>&nbsp;is this?&quot; was maybe said on perceiving that His actions were in fulfilment of the prophecy that&nbsp;<i>Yahweh&nbsp;</i>would still the waves of the sea. And in the context of stilling another storm, He comments: &quot;Fear not, it is I&quot; - not 'it's&nbsp;<i>me</i>'. He was surely suggesting they connect Him with the essence of the Yahweh Name, I am that I am. But the connection was only for those who would truly meditate and connect things together. As our Moslem friends have correctly pointed out many times, Jesus Himself never in so many words claimed to be Messiah. When others said this about Him, He replies by describing Himself as the &quot;son of man&quot;. Indeed, this was His preferred self-image. He was intensely conscious of His humanity, His solidarity with us, and it was as if He directed us who later have believed to image Him first and foremost as a&nbsp;<i>man of our nature</i>. Of course, He was and is so much more than that. But because we are human, we have to image ourselves around a perfect human- Jesus, the real and full humanity as God intended. Here those who believe Jesus was God Himself place themselves at a distinct disadvantage- our understanding that Jesus did indeed come &quot;in the flesh&quot; ought to be a tremendous inspiration to us to be like Him. The power and compulsion of His life and example are surely diminished by relating to Him as God Himself.</p><p><i>That he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?</i>- The disciples spoke of the wind and sea as if they were conscious entities, able to be obedient to the word of Jesus. The same word is used to describe the marvel of the people that &quot;even the unclean spirits... obey Him&quot; (Mk. 1:27). Just as wind and sea are not actually living entities, so unclean spirits likewise don't actually exist. But the disciples clearly had the idea in their head. Yet the scale of the Lord's power over such entities in fact showed their effective non-existence in practice.</p>