Daily Bible Reading 13th August 2026 // Luke 9:37-45
37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
But while they were all marvelling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
We come now to the story of the healing of the demoniac boy at the foot of the Mount. The important words here are 'and they could not' (40). The powerlessness of the disciples is underlined implicitly, and is explicit in Matthew's account (17:14-20). The reason why they could not cast the demon out is that they were not the right kind of men. They had not grasped the principle that Jesus had unfolded at Caesarea Philippi, namely that the path of suffering was the road to power. Jesus Himself had embraced that path and made it His own; but they, in their lack of understanding of it (45 - but who shall say that there was not at least some element of willing blindness in them?) had not; and it was because they had not - which means that there was a death that they were refusing to die - power was withheld from their lives. In Matthew, Jesus is recorded to have said they could not cast the demon out 'because of your unbelief' (Matthew 17:20); but faith has a moral content, and it is associated with obedience to the will of God. For Jesus, that obedience meant walking in the way of the Cross, the acceptance of the Cross as the basic principle of His life; and it could not be otherwise for His disciples. It was precisely this that was lacking in the disciples at this point in the story. They had yet to learn that the faith that moves mountains and casts out demons lies on the other side of the Cross. The power of Christ's resurrection in the experience and testimony of believers is the fruit of the fellowship of His sufferings.