Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 4 Study # 6
January 4, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(274)
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. For 15,000 people divided into groups of 50, it would take each of the twelve disciples 25 trips to take the food to the people. Assuming 10 minutes per trip, it would take something over 4 hours to "give them to eat".
- 2. This was Jesus reacting to their audacity in "telling Him what to do", and not sharing His compassion for the shepherd-less sheep.
- 3. This was Jesus imposing upon them an impossible task as they freely admitted (with, perhaps, more than just a touch of scorn).
- a. The disciples' response was a declaration of "impossibility".
- 1) If they "having been sent" (intensive verb form), were to go and buy enough food for the entire group, it would take them too long (hours too long) to actually do this and have time to get back (how would they carry such a load?) and feed the crowd before long into the night.
- 2) Even if they were to make the attempt, would 200 denarii be sufficient to buy that much bread? This bread, to feed 15,000 people, would have to cost 0.01% of a denarius per serving. At a denarius per day (typical wage of that day), that would be the equivalent of $1.60 if we figured a denarius at $20/hour for 8 hours (assuming the accuracy of the math here involved). This does not provide any time for preparation of the food.
- 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 provisions of the teaching Shepherd's".
- a. They have already had some limited experience under their belts from the first time Jesus sent them forth with authority. This initial "sending forth" was, in every conceivable way, a dropping of a drop of truth in a bucket that consumed a few hours/days to "drop". How much lasting good could they actually expect to come of that without "faith" being a seed in its own right with the power to produce lasting fruit within it? Without that reality, even Jesus' "teaching them many things" was an exceedingly tenuous action. Just as a lifetime of living cannot be sustained by a single meal, so neither can a single event of proclamation be expected to sustain a lifetime of faithful living. Jesus' own bottom line was one issue: repentance (properly/accurately defined as a God-given (Acts 11:18) creation of the dual nature of it being "a profound awareness of inability" combined with "an equally profound awareness of a divine provision of a working solution" (Isaiah 40:1-3).
- b. But that first experience did not yet translate into the "primary focus" of their lives; they were still defining their lives by their physical pleasures and spiritual lusts for status.
- 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. We make the assumption that every "gift" bestowed upon the individuals in the Church has a like process and that every individual has the same tendencies that these twelve had -- making it a "slow-go".
- d. The inescapable root of Jesus' actions was the principle that "The Word" is God's provision. Along with "The Word" is the enlightening of the mind to its meaning and truth so that "seeing they see" and "hearing they hear". As long as "disciples" remain unenlightened (in the reality of Luke 24:46 ["He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures"] following on the heels of 9:45 ["...this statement...was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it..."]), they cannot fulfill their calling as "disciples". The "hours and hours" of Jesus' teaching was, for these men, at this point in their "hardness of heart" (6:52), not the really needful and desired thing (they longed for the promised "rest" and "deliverance" from the demandingness of the great crowds; they did not long for the "teaching of many things" for many hours).
- e. The "You give them to eat" was the compulsion to, at least, begin to understand this great issue of "bread" (as it gives "life" to the body as a metaphor of the "bread" that gives "Life" to the soul).
