Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 4 Study # 6
December 28, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(272)
1901 ASV
6:37 But he answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings' worth of bread, and give them to eat?
6:38 And he saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go [and] see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.
6:39 And he commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the green grass.
6:40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.
6:41 And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake the loaves; and he gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.
6:42 And they all ate, and were filled.
6:43 And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes.
6:44 And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men.
- I. Jesus' Response To The Response Of The Disciples.
- A. Having been "commanded" by those disciples to "release and send away", Jesus gives a counter "demand": "You give them to eat."
- 1. This was Jesus deliberately foregoing the considered "rest" and imposing a significant amount of labor upon them.
- 2. This was Jesus reacting to their audacity in "telling Him what to do".
- 3. This was Jesus imposing upon them an impossible task as they freely admitted (with, perhaps, just a touch of scorn).
- 4. This was Jesus with a clear intention that the disciples actually "do" what He commanded.
- B. Unnoticed by the disciples, Jesus' "teaching them many things" was Him delivering to them "bread from Heaven" as the Chief Shepherd Whose compassion ordered these events.
- 1. It is the primary duty of the "shepherd" to "provide" for the sheep in terms of food, water, and security.
- 2. As it is a common biblical metaphor for the "Word of God" to be true food and true drink and security of an eternal kind, Mark presents Jesus as insisting that the disciples embrace their calling "to preach/teach the 'many things' that will be for those who 'believe' all of these 'Shepherd' provisions.
- a. They have already had some limited experience under their belts from the first time Jesus sent them forth with authority.
- b. But that experience did not yet translate into the "primary focus" of their lives; they were still defining their lives by their physical pleasures.
- c. What they had been witnessing of His "total commitment", and what they had dipped their toes into of this "Life", had not yet accomplished its purpose of giving them their primary "reason for being"; they were in the process, but it was slow-going.