Last month's segment included the mountaintop experience of the transfiguration. However, further lessons on discipleship await Jesus' followers—lessons that will take them from that mountaintop right down to the valley, where they will be confronted with difficult demons and attitudes on greatness.
9:14-29 After the transfiguration, Jesus and the four came down the mountain to join the other disciples. Up ahead Jesus saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. Raised voices, arguments. People were bickering, jostling, demanding answers. What a contrast—from the mountain to the valley! As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. New International Version. The King James Version reads: "And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him." Would he have the answers?
He asked the scribes, What question ye with them? Before anyone could respond, a man from the crowd said, Master, I have been looking for you, to bring to you my son, which hath a dumb spirit, that rendered him mute. This demon taketh him and teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away. This graphic description indicates the seriousness of the situation. And I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. Here was the crux of the problem; the disciples had failed.
