How can I have more faith, or make my faith stronger?

Key facts

• In Luke 17:5 the apostles ask, literally, "add faith to us" (πρόσθες ἡμῖν πίστιν), using prostithēmi, "to add". [Luke 17:5, NA28; BDAG, s.v. προστίθημι]
• Jesus' reply in Luke 17:6 compares faith to a grain of mustard seed (ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως) rather than describing a larger amount of faith. [Luke 17:6, NA28]
• The core sense of pistis is trust, reliance and confidence placed in a person. [BDAG, s.v. πίστις; Thayer, s.v. πίστις]
• In Matthew 17:14–20 the disciples fail an exorcism although Jesus had already given them authority over unclean spirits (Matthew 10:1). Jesus gives the reason as their oligopistia, "little faith". [Matthew 17:20, NA28]
• D. A. Carson reads oligopistia as faith that is poor in quality rather than small in quantity. [Carson, Matthew, EBC rev. edn, vol. 9, on Matthew 17:20]
• R. T. France reads the disciples' failure as overconfidence in the authority Jesus had delegated to them. [France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT, on Matthew 17:14–20]
• In Proverbs 3:5, "trust" is batach (בָּטַח), "lean" is sha'an (שָׁעַן), to support oneself on something, and "understanding" is binah (בִּינָה). [BDB, s.v. בָּטַח, שָׁעַן, בִּינָה]
• In 1 John 1:9, "confess" is homologeō (ὁμολογέω) and God is called pistos (πιστός), faithful or reliable, the adjective of the pistis word group. [1 John 1:9, NA28; BDAG, s.v. πιστός]
• Romans 10:17 links faith with hearing the message about Christ (ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς). [Romans 10:17, NA28]

Key terms

pistis πίστις

trust or reliance placed on a person judged reliable; the New Testament noun translated 'faith'

oligopistia ὀλιγοπιστία

'little faith'; from oligos (little, poor) + pistis (Matthew 17:20)

prostithēmi προστίθημι

to add; used in the apostles' request 'add faith to us' (Luke 17:5)

aman אמן

to be firm, reliable; the root of Amen; recognising that something will bear weight

batach בָּטַח

to trust, to rely on, to feel secure (Proverbs 3:5)

homologeō ὁμολογέω

to confess; literally 'to say the same thing as' (1 John 1:9)

pistos πιστός

faithful, reliable; used of God in 1 John 1:9

Explanation

Why "more faith" is the wrong measure

Many people assume faith is a kind of inner force: something to be generated, strengthened like a muscle, or summoned by concentrating. The Weight of God describes this assumption and rejects it, asking whether you are meant to "believe harder" and "squeeze your eyes shut and really, really mean it this time". The book's answer is no. Because pistis means trust, its strength lies in the reliability of the one trusted, not in the feeling of the one trusting. A frightened person on a sound bridge is safe. A confident person on a rotten one is not.

What Jesus said when asked for more

Luke 17:5–6 is the passage most directly about this question. The apostles ask Jesus to add to their faith. He does not give them a method for increasing it. He says that faith like a mustard seed could uproot a tree. The parallel saying in Matthew 17:20 comes after the disciples' failed exorcism, where the problem was not a missing quantity. They had authority and a track record. Carson and France both locate the failure in what the disciples were relying on. The Weight of God summarises the diagnosis: "They didn't need bigger faith, stronger faith, or a different faith." (For the detailed reading of oligopistia and the mustard seed, see the related page on faith like a mustard seed.)

1. Look at what your trust is resting on

The book's first practical step is an inspection. Its recurring question is "Where is your weight?" A person may sincerely trust God while quietly relying on something else: their competence, their plans, their record of past answers to prayer, even their own ability to keep believing. The disciples in Matthew 17 trusted Jesus but leaned on their delegated power. Proverbs 3:5 names the same risk: leaning (sha'an) on one's own understanding. The book reads this as a warning against reliance, not thinking: "your mind is a powerful tool but a terrible foundation."

2. Get to know the one you are trusting

Trust in a person grows through knowing them. The book illustrates this with a child who falls asleep on her father: she does not calculate whether he will hold her, because "They've been here before, and the arms held last time." It connects this to the Hebrew root aman, recognising something as firm, which comes before batach, resting one's weight on it. Abraham is its example (Genesis 15:6): in the book's words, "Abraham looked at the Promiser, not the promise". Many Christian teachers also point to Romans 10:17, where faith comes from hearing the message about Christ. Both point the same way: faith grows by attention to God's character and promises, not by attention to one's own feelings.

3. Stand behind it rather than hold it up

The "shield of faith" in Ephesians 6:16 is a thureos (θυρεός), the large door-shaped shield a soldier stood behind. The book's point is that a shield of this kind protects because of what it is, not because of the grip of the person holding it: "the shield holds because the foundation holds".

4. Return when your trust slips

Trust does not stay put. The book treats this as normal and gives a simple pattern from 1 John 1:9: notice that your weight has shifted back onto yourself, tell the truth about it (homologeō, "say the same thing as"), and rely again on God, who is pistos, reliable. It calls this "the daily operation of pistis". On this view, growing in faith looks less like building strength and more like returning, again and again, to the same foundation.

Common misunderstandings

• "Strong faith is a strong feeling of certainty." Correction: pistis means trust, and its strength depends on what it rests on. Feelings of certainty can be present in misplaced trust and absent in well-placed trust.
• "If my prayers weren't answered, I didn't have enough faith." Correction: Jesus answered a request for more faith by pointing to a mustard seed, not to quantity. The book does not teach that outcomes measure the amount of a person's faith.
• "Growing faith means trying harder." Correction: the book argues the opposite movement: relying less on your own effort and more on God. Its image is a child letting go into sleep, not an athlete training.
• "Trusting God means switching off my mind." Correction: Proverbs 3:5 warns against leaning on one's own understanding as a foundation. It does not forbid using it.

What the book argues

The Weight of God argues in Chapter 7, "Good Soil", that the instruction to generate more faith misreads Jesus. Using a farmer's image, it compares faith to mustard seed: viable seed sits uselessly in a jar until it is planted, so what matters is where faith is placed, not how much there is. It describes "great faith" as complete reliance on Christ, with no part of a person's weight held back. The book illustrates the problem with a child fighting sleep on her father's chest: trusting him, but not yet fully letting go. It says the difference is not the amount of trust, observing: "She trusted me the whole time." Chapter 4 supplies the order (recognise that God is reliable, then rest on him), Chapter 8 the shield image, and Chapter 12 the daily practice of returning after slipping. The four-step summary on this page is an arrangement of the book's teaching, not a numbered method the book itself sets out.

In the book: Chapter 7: Good Soil; Chapter 4: Childlike Faith; Chapter 8: Something You Cannot Prove; Chapter 12: How to Believe.

Sources

1. Arndt, William F., F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn (BDAG). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Entries for πίστις, πιστός, προστίθημι, θυρεός.
2. Thayer, Joseph Henry. Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995 (reprint of 1886 edn).
3. Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907. Entries for אָמַן, בָּטַח, שָׁעַן, בִּינָה.
4. Carson, D. A. Matthew. In The Expositor's Bible Commentary, revised edn, vol. 9. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.
5. France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
6. Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28th edn (NA28). New International Version (NIV).
7. Wong, Matthew. The Weight of God: How to Believe. Australia, 2026. ISBN 978-1-7646297-3-7. Chapters 4, 7, 8 and 12.