WHEN the disciples questioned Christ Jesus concerning a case of illness they had not been able to heal, the Master recommended nothing contrary to his Christly teachings. Adhering to his own counsel' (Luke 12:22), "Take no thought ... for the body," he rebuked his disciples for their faithlessness and unbelief. Herein he implied that any failure to heal resulted from failure to replace the incredulity, distrust, and irresolution in thought with faith and spiritual understanding.
Further illustrating the mental need of his disciples, Jesus said to them concerning the sickness, which he had meanwhile healed (Mark 9:29), "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."
From the obvious tenor of his rebuke and his insistence on prayer, it is apparent that Jesus did not regard a resort to the material means of his day as able to offset the disadvantages of faithlessness and unbelief. This inference was not, however, immediately evident to the writer as he sought through prayer the healing of a paralyzed arm. He had awakened one day to find the arm partially unusable, and it gradually became completely useless.
