Sunday: Feeding the Hungry
One of the most well-known acts of Jesus is the feeding of the five thousand, “besides women and children” (Matt. 14:21). Yet, as with everything else in the New Testament, this story doesn’t occur without a context that helps us understand even more deeply the meaning of what Jesus had done.
Read Matthew 14:1-21. What happened right before the miraculous feeding, and what role might that event have played in what followed?
Put yourself in the position of the disciples at that time. John the Baptist, clearly a man of God, just had his head chopped off. His disciples knew that, because they were the ones who told Jesus. Though the texts don’t say, it must have been incredibly discouraging for them.
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No doubt, it put their faith to the test. However, after what Jesus did next, their faith must have been given quite a boost, especially after such a let down.
There is, however, a much deeper meaning to this story, regardless of how it might have increased the disciples’ faith. Jesus’ action of feeding the Jewish people reminded everyone of the manna that God had provided to the Israelites in the wilderness. “The tradition arose within Judaism that the Messiah would come on a Passover and that along with His coming, manna would begin to fall again … So when Jesus fed the five thousand just before Passover, it should not surprise anyone that the crowd might begin to speculate whether He was the Messiah and whether He was about to do an even greater miracle—feed everyone all the time by restoring the manna.”—Jon Paulien, John: The Abundant Life Bible Amplifier (Boise: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1995) pages 139, 140.
This was exactly the kind of Messiah the people wanted: a Messiah that would tend to their external needs. At this moment, the crowds are ready to make Jesus king, but Jesus hadn’t come to be king, and His refusal would greatly disappoint them. They had their expectations, and when those were not met, many would turn away from Jesus, even though He had come to do so much more than what their narrow and worldly expectations were.
| In what ways might your expectations of what you expect from God be too narrow? |
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To expect anything less than to have the perfect character of God fully developed in me in my life time here in this life is too narrow an expectation of God's power to transform my character. All He needs is my permission to do it all the time. My messed up life is not infinite in scope and can come to an end which is the perfected character of God in me. He is able, but His Love does not allow Him to force me or to give up on me without my permission.
Brother Don your words reflect my thoughts may God have His way with us all Amen
Despite the situation that occurred before (beheading of John) Jesus displayed love, he had enough compassion inspite the tragedy to attend to those who were in need
But the people thought of the miraculous event of they accruing a new king but Jesus was there to serve not as the early mind thinks
Jesus’ action of feeding the Jewish people reminded everyone of the manna that God had provided to the Israelites in the wilderness. Unless we eat of the Spiritual Bread of life, our expectation will ever be too narrow. For He ( Jesus ) is the bread sent down from heaven for the hunger of mankind.
Just to clarify something that doesn't seem to be made plain in the Lesson.
When John the Baptist was killed, the Scripture says that "his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus." (Matt 14:12)
Those disciples were NOT JESUS' DISCIPLES, but John's disciples, and the fact that they came to Jesus at this time was, I believe, a major event.
"These disciples had been envious of Christ when He seemed to be drawing the people away from John. They had sided with the Pharisees in accusing Him when He sat with the publicans at Matthew's feast. They had doubted His divine mission because He did not set the Baptist at liberty."
"But now that their teacher was dead, and they longed for consolation in their great sorrow, and for guidance as to their future work, they came to Jesus, and united their interest with His. They too needed a season of quiet for communion with the Savior." (Desire of Ages p.361)
This was a significant moment, because it signaled the unification of what had effectively been two [diverging] 'camps' or 'strands'. Yes, Jesus felt grief at John's death, but His heart was immediately drawn out to John's former disciples - they needed consolation, they needed guidance, and encouragement. The delegation that came to Jesus with news of John's death, went with Him on the ship, and I suspect [from the structure of the sentence in Matt 14:19], that Jesus involved, not only His own disciples, but also John's former disciples, in the distribution of the bread and the fish to the 5000+ people. Their involvement was, I believe, a huge encouragement and blessing for them.
John had been a celebrated, noble, under-shepherd. He had been "smitten", but his sheep need not be scattered while they had the Great Shepherd to go to.
Thank you, Stewart, to drawing our attention to this aspect that we might otherwise have missed.
Stewart, I like that point that you made that John's disciples probably went with Jesus and joined with His other followers. Only God knows why John didn't follow Jesus himself. It almost seems to me that John's ministry was almost finished when Jesus came on the scene. He was beheaded and that was the end of his ministry.
Thank you Don,
The purpose of John's ministry was to point men to the Messiah -- and when that is done, John's work is done. Of course John didn't come to form a faction, or a party, or a following of his own, but the comment from Desire of Ages implies that this is exactly what was developing/happening. This must have troubled John.
And John's heart-felt conviction that "He must increase, but I must DECREASE" (Jn 3:30), may have meant more than we've normally thought.
...I don't know whether John actually "removed himself" (just as Samson effectively removed himself), knowing what he was facing when he reproved Herod.
The idea that Jesus' disciples were from John the Baptist, uses the word, "His" disciples. They could have been adopted so to speak. However if John's disciples had returned with the news from being buried it took 3 days for the crowd to be very hungry, Matt15:32,33. Interesting also the story of feeding the multitude 4000+, Matt15, Mark 8, and 5000, in Luke,9. there is a comment that Jesus made in Luke9:12&13 that was a little different. "You feed the disciples? The answer was like, Really? How? Yes, after the fact and years of study we would know. Especially after the boat is about to sink and a miracle made them believers.
I'm sorry to be talking so much, but some might be interested in a brief note on Matt 14:19. It talks about Jesus blessing and breaking the bread, giving it to the disciples, and the disciples then taking it to the people.
The Book of Matthew has literally dozens of places where the term "his disciples" is used. But this verse (Matt 14:19) is THE ONLY ONE in the whole book that does not have the word "his" in the original text. To my mind this is strongly suggestive that in this instance we should be careful, not limiting the term "disciples" to the 12 disciples only.
This is why I've written earlier that I suspect Jesus involved not only His own disciples, but John's former disciples as well, in the work of feeding the multitude.
Feeding the five thousand people with the small amount of food made many people to have much faith in God.
With us Christians today we should have faith and know that with Christ and faith everything is possible.
Whatever speculation we might have regarding John the Baptist, the Bible first tells us in several preceding chapters of the life of John, the purpose and relationship between him and Jesus. The Apostle John in John1:3-9 continues with more.John3:22-30. The obvious question for us as humans many hundreds years later is, why didn't Jesus save John? We can speculate the reason that may be acceptable without formulating another.
After the feeding of five thousand people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. The people became aware of their long-looked- for Deliverer is among them. "The hopes of the people rise higher and higher. This is He who will make Judea an earthly paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey. He can satisfy every desire. He can break the power of the hated Romans. He can deliver Judah and Jerusalem. He can heal the soldiers who were wounded in battle. He can supply whole armies with food. He can conquer nations, and give to Israel the long-sought dominion." -(The Desire of Ages, p.377-378. The sad fact is that even the disciples thought that was the right time to proclaim Him King of Israel.
How soon the disciples forgot what Jesus Christ mission was. As He stated in Matt. 4:17 "From that time Jesus began to teach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And Luke 4:18-19.
And the Lord Jesus just created the five loaves of bread and two fishes as He handed them to the disciples to pass out. Humans are very selfish and inward driven. When we think about it this was not the first miracle the Lord hard performed. He had already raised the dead son of Nain. And yesterday He healed a crippled man who had been living at the pool of Bethesda. His kingdom is spiritual not worldly.
I am struck by a couple of points in this lesson:
1. Christ used man's 'traditional' beliefs ("that the Messiah would come on a Passover and that along with His coming, manna would begin to fall again") to point the way to Himself. To me the act of feeding the 5000+ seems to work like animal sacrifices; they were to point to Christ, not just be an act of killing animals or just an act of compassion to feed people. Ultimately it points to God is love.
2. Even though Christ uses the traditional beliefs to point to Himself, He left variances. Ex: the manna did not continually fall, there was no scapegoat in Christ's trial (there was only Himself, the sacrifice.)
I am thinking God tries to meet us where we are in life but we are to pay attention to the holes in our beliefs, traditions, attitudes and actions. I am thinking we are to find the variances so that we can bring them more alligned with God's true meaning/intentions in His Word. So that, as stated often above, He can mold us into His character.
The key is finding out where we differ from God's love and to give our variances over to Him and be changed toward His likeness.
Although Jesus was often "moved with compassion" for the multitude who thronged about Him and His disciples from time to time, He had a much deeper longing to fill their hungry and thirsty souls and heal their wounded, broken spirit, than their physical need for food and healing. The feeding of the 5,000 (which took place shortly after John's execution), marked a significant turn in Jesus' public ministry in terms of firmly reinforcing His Messianic role that John himself had preached about during his ministry. This miracle was to be a sign to all who witnessed, that Jesus was no ordinary man, and what He did must have been of Divine origin.
Remember what Jesus said to John's disciples when they inquired, on John's behalf, whether He were the Messiah or should they look for someone else? It was the same John who introduced Jesus publicly, just before baptizing Him in Jordan, declaring "Behold! the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus told them to go back and tell John what they had witnessed: "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor" (Matt. 11:4-5).
Jesus' miracles were not for show and comic relief, but a direct statement of His Divinity and authority over nature and every other force; a demonstration of His mission to restore and recover all His creation, including man, from the clutches of the destroyer, to their original glory. The news of John the Baptist's death brought into focus Christ's own impending death as the shadows of doom gathered around Him. He hastened on to accomplish the mission at hand, while it was day.
The Savior's words in the Sermon on the Mount, "blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6), demonstrates His emphasis on our eternal salvation. Jesus is capable of supplying our physiological needs for food, clothing, shelter or healing but more than this, He can fill the longings of the broken heart and spirit for "only Jesus can satisfy your soul".
Matt 14:19. ‘Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. ‘This scripture does not only refer to the physical food that fills us up. It also talks about the spiritual food. Jesus first blessed the food and then took it to the disciples then the disciples took it to the multitudes. As disciples of Jesus Christ, you need to ask yourself where you are getting the ‘food ‘that you are feeding the children of God with. The Word of God is blessed and so let us be aware that the Word we are feeding the people with ought to come from above. This message applies so well to these end times where you see people running to the multitudes and at times they are running with no Word that comes from above but their own things. As a disciple you also need to feed from the source, He is the one who sustains you in both the physical and spiritual food. The food from above is more than enough because it comes from God El-Shaddai.
I'm blessed each Sabbath by the comments on this website and I used some of it in my class. Just want to add my 2 cents. I realized too often that the "Bread of Life" is given to the people but most time we send them away knowing full well they have physical needs. I speak in reference to when we have mega campaigns and circumstances changed for many and it is sometimes the very poorest of the congregrants that are willing to house these new babes. While there are others including ministers who will not put one up for a short period of time... In no way I'm bashing but it's my observation and thought as much that we should not overlook that we are no different from the disciples of old. Lord help us to follow in your footstep.
Please note it was the disciples who said to Jesus,’ Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food. ‘Upon hearing this Jesus said to them, ‘they do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ Just imagine that the disciples had the provider right with them but they did not reckon that He is able to feed them for He is the bread of life. When we are faced with a difficult situation, do we ever reckon that we have God in our presence? He says in His Word, He will never leave us nor forsake us. As disciples of Jesus let us not be negligent in leaving the multitudes to go and fetch food for themselves because the one who is the provider of all is the one who will give them the food. Let us not look at things in the natural only. God can never create something that He cannot sustain. At times we worry a lot trying to solve something that we should surrender to God. He is the sustainer of all and there will be no lack.Even in our Ministry when things look or seem so impossible let us not try to solve it by our means ,rather surrender ALL to God.
In what ways might your expectations of what you expect from God be too narrow?
My ways may be narrow in a sense that when I am sick or a relative of my is sick, I expect God to heal him after prayers.
I also expect to get that good job after fasting for the whole week. These are all my narrow expectations.