The concept of ""faith"" holds a central position in New Testament and early Christian thought, yet this concept has not received the careful attention it deserves in the Synoptic Gospels. The present study offers a comprehensive analysis of ""faith"" as a key motif in the Gospel of Matthew, where it plays a major role in communicating this Gospel's vision for how readers should respond to the person and message of Jesus. The argument propounded is that Matthew's unique narrative portrayal of the Canaanite woman's faith (15:21-28) is used for pedagogical purposes, namely, that by comparing and contrasting her ""great faith"" with those characters expressing ""no faith"" and ""little faith,"" Matthew uses Jesus's quantitative p