THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST'S MIRACLE OF FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND
Christ's miracle of feeding the five thousand is unique in that it is the only one that all four gospel writers mention (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14). It illustrates Jesus' authority over nature and His divine intervention on behalf of others, showing that He is concerned about both humans' physical and spiritual needs.
Jesus is moved with compassion at the sight of thousands of people who had made a great effort to hear His message of hope. Although He is tired after a long day, He embraces the opportunity to teach them and heal the sick among them. As evening descends, His disciples suggest that the hungry crowd be disbanded to seek necessary food from the surrounding villages, but Jesus has something else in mind.
To test Phillip's faith, He asks him how the people could be fed. Not only does Philip learn a lesson of faith, but all of the disciples learn that true faith must rely on divine resources, not physical and material ones. Phillip begins to tally all of the meager supplies the disciples had among them, and somewhat stymied, says, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them." One denari was a day's wage at the time.
Then Andrew tells Jesus, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish." Yet, because of their lack of faith, the disciples cannot see any possibility of feeding the great multitude with their scarce funds and the scanty food on hand. However, faith enables us to see that with the omnipotent God, all things are possible.
This miracle is a magnificent act of creative power. No amount of human reasoning can reduce this miracle to a natural phenomenon. Indeed, complete understanding of miracles is beyond human capability to understand. By an act of His own creative power, Jesus revealed proof of His deity to thousands.
1. What is characteristic of Jesus' handling of the crowd? Matthew 14:19; Mark 6:39-40; Luke 9:14-15; John 6:10.
Comment: Jesus is very calm through all of this, for to Him, nothing is impossible. The disciples would have driven the hungry crowd away, but Christ is the One who had given manna to the Israelites in the wilderness. He had provided Israel sustenance in an orderly way, and here, Christ handles it likewise. He commands the people to sit down in manageable groups of fifties and hundreds, avoiding confusion and preventing injury to women and children should the whole multitude surge forward. Order is a characteristic of all of God's ways, as Paul asserts in I Corinthians 14:33.
Mark's description of the ordering of the crowd is very specific. Using the plural of the word that signifies "a garden plot or bed," he describes the people as reclining in sections, so that the separate groups resemble detached garden plots. As was the custom among the Jews, the 5,000 men sat apart and were the only ones counted. No one knows how many women and children were there, but the number must have been substantial.
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