Moving mountains

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According to Mathew 17:20, He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. "

I find this difficult to believe. Is it really true that a person’s faith can move Mt. Everest all the way from the area near Tibet to Nevada, USA? Or is the Bible wrong and you cannot really move Mount Everest to the USA by faith alone?
 
Physical Mountains cannot be moved by words as everybody knows.

But Jesus was talking of the mountain of his disciples.
 
Mountains are difficult to climb and are always an uphill battle. How many times in our lives are we faced with obstacles that seem impossible to move out of our way? These obstacles, aka mountains, can come between us and the Lord, but with just a little bit of faith we can actually move these mountains that stand in the way of our path to Jesus. Example, when our daughter passed away there was a mountain of grief, faith moved that mountain. Or, when I was faced with an addiction, it was faith that moved that obstacle that came between me and Christ. The thing about the Word of God, He can use just a few words yet it can have unending meanings and purpose in our lives. I guess what I’m trying to say is that His Word is living and never returns void. I just know for me, when I truly began to believe and gained faith in the Lord, mountains of guilt, pain, and suffering fell like dominoes. Just plant that mustard seed and hang on!!!
 
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Rather than doing something showy like moving mountains, I would rather do something beneficial to others that would cause them to praise God.
 
Lets examine this.

Mary had absolute faith. She was able to do the miracle of the sun. She had absolute confidence in God to do this for her.
 
God would permit the moving of a mountain if he thought it would be necessary/ helpful to increase people’s faith.

God rarely does this, presumably because he doesn’t think it’s necessary/ helpful. The Miracle of the Sun is a recent example of God performing a miracle of this type. Yet many people just ignore it or try to explain it away as hysterical behavior or all made up, etc.

He would be more likely to miraculously cure someone, perhaps after the intercession to a saint or a person on the path to canonization. That type of miracle happens frequently (saints are regularly canonized based on their intercession bringing about such medical miracles), can be verified by medical science, and it does good for the cured person and their loved ones. Moving a mountain would more likely cause negative geo consequences for many people who lived, worked or traveled in the vicinity.
 
Faith is all well and good; but I’d rather have the love to do all things.
 
AlNg said:
According to Mathew 17:20, He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. "

I find this difficult to believe. Is it really true that a person’s faith can move Mt. Everest all the way from the area near Tibet to Nevada, USA? Or is the Bible wrong and you cannot really move Mount Everest to the USA by faith alone?
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Sacred Scriptures are of God - True…

You’re probably thinking that for reason that you’ve insufficient Faith…

At Judgement - people shall remind the Lord that they performed Miracles…
Yet, those actions alone do not assure one shall be with God in Heaven.
 
Since a Coptic Orthodox saint was able to move a mountain, would this be a sign that God favors the Coptic Orthodox Church?
 
From the Haydock commentary:

By faith is here understood, not that virtue by which we assent to all things that are to be believed of Christ, the first, of the theological virtues, in which the apostles were not deficient, but that confidence in the power and goodness of God, that he will on such an occasion exert these, his attributes, in favour of the supplicant. To have a true faith of this kind, and free from all presumption, is a great and high privilege, which the Holy Ghost breathes into such only as he pleases. (Jansenius) — Examples of this efficacious faith are given by St. Paul. (Hebrews chap. ii.) St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea is also related, by Eusebius and Ven. Bede, to have removed by the efficacy of his faith a rock, which obstructed the building of a church; thus literally fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ. (Tirinus) — The faith of the apostles, especially of those that had not been present at the transfiguration, was not perfect and complete in all its parts, till after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost. (Haydock) — St. Jerome understands by mountains, things the most difficult to be effected.
 
AlNg said:
Since a Coptic Orthodox saint was able to move a mountain, would this be a sign that God favors the Coptic Orthodox Church?
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Edited first answer because it was wrong. Coptic Orthodox is Oriental Orthodoxy which means it split in the 400s, not 1054. I should have doublechecked before posting, my bad.

However, I still don’t think that it proves that God “favors” one or the other group of those who believe in him and go back to the Apostolic Succession. At the time this saint lived, he didn’t have options. If he wished to follow Christ’s Church, the Coptic Church was the one available to him with apostolic succession in his geographical area. The Coptic Church has had other miracles through the years and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches also have had them. The failing is in ourselves for not all being the One Church.

Weaker answer than my first one, but I don’t want to propagate wrong info on the forum.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The saint lived in the 900s. The Great Schism between East and West didn’t occur until 1054. So there was no separate “Orthodox church” when this saint was on earth.
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Not right because the ‘Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches’, which includes the Coptic Orthodox Church, split from the other Christian Churches in 451 in a major schism at the Council of Chalcedon over the nature of Christ.
 
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You are correct, I was wrong and corrected my post as you were posting yours.

However…

I found another saint who moved a mountain, and he’s a saint for the Catholics and the Orthodox both. (So God loves all of us, by your reasoning.)
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who I usually pray to against floods. I wasn’t aware till I researched that he was said to have moved a mountain.

https://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j203sd_Gregory_11-17.html
 
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