What did Jesus mean when He said, "Your faith has made you swell"?

According to variant readings of John chapter 13, Jesus used the expression "your faith has made you swell" when referring to Peter's bragging claims about loyalty (John 13:36–38). In other words, Peter's arrogance was giving him a big head. This was not the only time Peter was criticized for having a swelled head. Jesus had to make similar remarks when Peter tried to rebuke his own master (Matthew 16:22–23).

It's possible that Jesus also used the expression, "your faith has made you swell" to explain why Peter started sinking after walking on water (Matthew 14:30–31). Peter's initial faith made him swell—like a beach ball or an inner tube—so he could walk on water. When he started to doubt, he deflated, and started to sink.

Paul would warn believers about this kind of "swelling" in his letters (1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Timothy 3:6). He might have also gone through something of a hippie phase. Scholars suggest early drafts of verses such as Romans 5:1 and Galatians 2:16 included phrases akin to, "your faith has made you, like, swell and groovy in God's eyes, man."

Careful analysis of Greek and Aramaic also reveals another use of this phrase. Speaking to persons he'd just healed, Jesus often used the casual dialect of Galilee. "Ya faith's made youse well" isn't the most formal declaration, but it would have been clearly understood at the time.

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