<p>4:40- see on Mt. 8:26.</p><p><i>And he said to them: Why are you fearful? Do you still not have faith?</i>- Fear and unbelief are again connected in Rev. 21:8. The unbelief refers ultimately to disbelief in our salvation, fear of condemnation; see on 8:25 'We perish'. The question as to&nbsp;<i>why</i>&nbsp;they had little faith (Mt.) 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.</p>