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oligopistos

ὀλιγόπιστος

GreekG3640“of little faith”

Appears 5 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 6:30Mat 8:26Mat 14:31Mat 16:8Luk 12:28
Compound of
oligosὀλίγοςlittle/few44G3641
pistisπίστιςfaith243G4102
Word studyResearch-gradeo-lee-GOP-is-tosadjective

What oligopistos means

of little faith: having real but wavering trust that falls short under pressure

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This is a word Jesus uses, and almost no one else ever did. It appears only in the Gospels, always on the lips of Jesus, and always spoken to his own disciples. It is built from two ordinary Greek words, "little" and "faith," and it most likely renders a Jewish saying of the day for covenant members whose practical trust in God falters. So it does not mean "unbelief." It names something far more familiar: the genuine but shaky faith of people who already follow Jesus.

Every time it is used, the disciples do believe, yet their trust buckles at the very point where it is tested. They:

  • worry about food and clothing (Matthew 6:30)
  • panic in a storm even with Jesus in the boat (Matthew 8:26)
  • start to sink after stepping out onto the water (Matthew 14:31)
  • forget what they have already seen God do (Matthew 16:8)

The faith is present; it simply is not strong enough to carry the weight of the moment.

The tone is a gentle scolding, sharper than mere reassurance but milder than condemnation. It always assumes the hearers are followers of Jesus. In fact, the word itself is a mark of belonging: Jesus addresses it directly to his own people, never to outsiders. Matthew, who uses it far more than anyone, deliberately softens harsher lines in his sources, where the disciples are called faithless or hard-hearted, into this kinder term. The result is a single word that holds rebuke and grace together: these are not unbelievers, just believers whose trust keeps coming up short.

Mat 6:30Mat 8:26Mat 14:31Mat 16:8Luk 12:28

What scholars say about oligopistos

Lexica (LSJ, BDAG, Moulton-Milligan) and Bultmann (TDNT 6.205) agree that ὀλιγόπιστος is unattested in pre-Christian profane Greek and absent from the LXX (Hatch-Redpath); it appears a Jewish-Christian coinage, a possessive compound of ὀλίγος + πίστις modeled on the LXX ὀλιγόψυχος ("faint-hearted"). Strack-Billerbeck, Jeremias, and Davies-Allison identify the rabbinic idiom קְטַנֵּי אֲמָנָה ("those of little faith," e.g. b. Soṭa 48b) as the most natural Semitic background, where אֲמָנָה denotes practical, covenant-embedded trust rather than intellectual assent (Cohen, AJS Review 9 [1984]). Held and Bornkamm established the Matthean redactional pattern: four of five adjectival uses are Matthean, and Matthew systematically downgrades Mark's stronger ἀπιστία / hardness-of-heart language to ὀλιγόπιστος. France presses the lexical contrast that Matthew reserves ἄπιστος/ἀπιστία for outsiders and ὀλιγόπιστος for disciples. Scholarship divides on theological trajectory: Bornkamm, Held, Luz, and Brown read the disciples as transparent for the Matthean church (little faith as the normal condition of believers, never simply outgrown, with διστάζω recurring at 28:17), while Verseput dissents, reading the disciples as a foil from whom the reader should distance herself.

Where scholars disagree about oligopistos

Whether Matthew's "little faith" disciples stand in for his own church (believers whose trust is genuine but chronically insufficient) or function as a negative foil from whom the reader is meant to distance herself, and whether their faith is shown to grow over the course of the Gospel.

  • majorityThe disciples are transparent for the Matthean community: little faith is the normal, never fully outgrown condition of believers, who are kept by Christ's abiding presence rather than ripened into great faith.; U. Luz, Matthew 8-20 (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2001), 16-17, 350; H. J. Held, "Matthew as Interpreter of the Miracle Stories" (ET 1963), 291-96; J. K. Brown, The Disciples in Narrative Perspective (2002), 102-19
  • minorityThe disciples are a dark backdrop for Jesus' authority, not a mirror of the church; the reader is meant to distance herself from them.; D. J. Verseput, "The Faith of the Reader," JSNT 14.46 (1992): 3-24, esp. 12 n.4
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), 703, s.v. ὀλιγόπιστοςlexicon
  • R. Bultmann, "πιστεύω, πίστις κτλ.," TDNT 6 (ET 1968), 205-06dictionary
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC; T&T Clark, 1988-91), 1.656-57, 2.509, 727-28commentary
  • H. J. Held, "Matthew as Interpreter of the Miracle Stories," in Bornkamm, Barth, Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (ET 1963), 291-96monograph
  • G. Bornkamm, "The Stilling of the Storm in Matthew," in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, 52-57monograph
  • U. Luz, Matthew 8-20 (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2001), ad 14:22-33, 17:20commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2007), 270commentary
  • N. J. Cohen, "Analysis of an Exegetic Tradition in the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael: The Meaning of 'Amanah," AJS Review 9.1 (1984): 1-25article
  • B. Schliesser, Zweifel (WUNT 500; Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 51-54monograph
  • J. K. Brown, The Disciples in Narrative Perspective (SBL Academia Biblica 9; 2002), 102-07monograph
  • D. J. Verseput, "The Faith of the Reader and the Narrative of Matthew 13:53-16:20," JSNT 14.46 (1992): 3-24article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ὀλιγόπιστος

vocative m p

ὀλιγόπιστοι

Mat 6:30, Mat 8:26, Mat 16:8, Luk 12:28

vocative m s

ὀλιγόπιστε

Mat 14:31