9:18–25 As usual, Matthew has a more condensed form of this story than Mark and Luke. Both the story of the ruler’s daughter and the story of the woman with a hemorrhage illustrate the relation between the work of Jesus and the role of faith in the kingdom. The same point appears in the following accounts of the blind man and the mute demoniac. These works (raising the dead, healing the sick, etc.) are in response to faith, not because faith causes them, but because without faith in the King Himself they are not signs of the kingdom but only unaccountable events with no special meaning.