Faith [pistis] is a very crucial and dominant feature of the Synoptic healing stories. Yet, as was also seen in chapter 3, there is considerable ambiguity about what exactly this ‘faith’ is. That chapter first showed that biblical commentators tend to disagree among themselves about the meaning of pistis in these stories and then it argued that the Synoptic stories themselves are inherently ambiguous. Three different levels of faith were detected in these stories: the first was faithful trust in Jesus as healer (demonstrated either by the persistent words or by the determined actions either of those who would be healed or of their family/friends); the second was faith as a mutual relationship between Jesus and those to be healed or their family/friends; the third was faith as a response to God. The present chapter will explore these three different levels of faith in the context of health care ethics today arguing that each is still surprisingly relevant.

For once it might be helpful to illustrate these three levels of faith from a healing story taken from the Fourth Gospel's account of Jesus healing an official's son (John 4.46–53) rather than from the Synoptic Gospels. After all, C. K. Barrett maintains that ‘it seems very probable that the synoptic tradition (or a tradition very closely akin to it) lies immediately behind the Johannine narrative’. There are indeed obvious parallels in this story with that of the healing of the centurion's servant (Matt. 8.5–13 / Luke 7.1–10).