Luke 17:5 Commentary and Bible Study

The apostles – it is the twelve who Christ is speaking to when Luke says ‘the disciples (verse 1) – are immediately aware of the difficulty of what the Lord has told them to do. It is not easy to forgive and to go on forgiving repeated and aggravated offences. The apostles recognise that there is something lacking in them, which is going to make it hard to carry out this instruction of the Lord. They must have talked about it together, and agreed that what they needed was more faith. They don’t think they have the necessary faith to keep showing such forgiveness. Faith they feel is at the heart of the Christian life, and even though Christ is there in front of them and he has said this, they want his help to obey. They therefore come to the Lord and request, ‘Lord, increase our faith.’ They are right in seeing that faith is needed to obey the Lord, and more faith is needed to obey difficult commandments, but there is a problem in the way they ask which Christ’s answer will highlight.