On one occasion during his ministry, Jesus told the apostles that if they had faith as great as a mustard seed, they could say to a mountain, "Get up and be cast into the sea," and it would be done. In the light of all the beautiful figures of speech that Jesus used, this one seems to follow that course.

There would be no great value in moving a mountain into the sea or anywhere else, so what could he have meant? The contention of this work is that he was talking about the great hindrances, the almost impossible barriers that would confront the apostles and others in the early church. Some of them were external, and some had to do with internal attitudes. In fact, the very size of the daunting task would make many feel that it was futile to even start.

If the figures are anywhere close to accurate, about 120 individuals were being asked to go out and conquer the world. That looked impossible, not only because of the fantastic odds they faced, but because of the many racial, cultural, and religious obstacles that they were to face.

Instead of talking about literal mountains, Jesus was probably indicating that, with faith, they could accomplish tasks that appeared to be overwhelming. They confronted much opposition, but with faith and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, they did move mountains.