Jesus and the Disciples
Perhaps you will find this odd, but, one of my favorite stories about Jesus is found in Matthew 15, where, responding to Peter’s request for an explanation of a parable, Jesus says: “Are you still so dull?”1Matthew 15:1-16. The parallel passage is in Mark 7:1-18, where Mark makes it clear Peter asked on behalf of all the disciples. The parallel passage also contains the same Greek word (asunetoi) translated as “dull” in the New International Version (NIV). It makes me laugh every time I read it.
There are more passages that describe the disciples’ cluelessness—including two in which Jesus again confronts the disciples about their lack of understanding.2For example, Matthew 16:5-12; Mark 4:1-20, 6:45-52, 9:30-32; Luke 18:31-34; John 12:12-16, 16:17-18, 20:1-9 And there are other people who also don’t understand Jesus at times, including Jesus’ parents, Nicodemus, and the crowd.3See Luke 2:41-50; John 3:1-10, John 8:12-30, 10:1-21 But none of those passages use the Greek word translated in the New International Version as “dull.”4While other translations are more generous and translate the Greek word asunetoi as “without understanding” (e.g., KJV and ESV), the connotation of the English word “dull” is certainly within the semantic range of asunetoi. Of this passage, Calvin says: “As the disciples betray excessive ignorance, Christ justly reproves and upbraids them for being still void of understanding, and yet does not fail to act as their teacher,” Calvin, John, “Matthew XV,” in Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol 1, Calvin’s Commentaries, Volume XVI (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, Reprinted 2003) 259. See also Louw, Johannes P. and Eugene A. Nida, et. al., Editors, “asunetos” in Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, Second Edition (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), 386, 32:49, where Louw and Nida include the following in their assessment of “asunetos”: “pertaining to a lack of capacity for insight and understanding.…from a lack of the proper use of mental capacity.” See also Carson, D. A., “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8, General Editor: Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 351. See also “asunetos” in Bauer, Walter, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979) 118c. See also “asunetos” in An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon Founded Upon The Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 127a.