A man brings his son to the One with power to deliver him. Some of the symptoms depicted here resemble those of epilepsy (for example, Alexander 1980:83), which may imply that demons gaining control over the human central nervous system can sometimes cause epileptic-type phenomena. This observation does not, however, mean that epilepsy is always caused by demons; both the differentiation of the two in 4:24 and the numbers of committed Christians who suffer from epilepsy invite us to distinguish the two. Some contemporary accounts of spirit possession tell of spirits seeking to make people burn themselves (Kaplan and Johnson 1964:211).

Jesus accepts the father's faith on behalf of his son. Those who support infant baptism have found in this text a principle they believe supports it (Richardson 1958:359-60); those who emphasize the importance of personal faith at baptism are not persuaded by the analogy. But in either case the principle applies for many other kinds of prayer (compare, for example, 10:8; 18:15-20; 1 Jn 5:16) and encourages us in our faith for others' needs (compare 8:13; 9:2; 15:28).