From the Pulpit...

The so-called feeding of the 5,000 is recorded in all four of the gospels. We focus on Matthew’s account of it, but we examine all four accounts as we study this miracle that Christ performed. Today, where are the multitudes going out to find Jesus? Of course, no one finds Him in person today on this earth. But the analogous situation is this: people must come to true churches if they are to find Jesus. They will find there the message of Jesus, the people of Jesus, the provision of eternal life from Jesus, and the love of Jesus. Do not be frustrated when inconveniences come. Look at the “inconvenient” people who need compassion. Help them by sharing the Word of God, and, if needed, benevolence. It has been well said that the Lord permits us to be involved in His work by using what we have—as small as it might be. But it must be done in faith, without doubting (James 1:6). Remember that the fish and loaves were given by God too—as is everything else that we have. We use the resources that God gives us to do God’s work, even if those resources at first seem insufficient to do the job. The boy with the loaves and fish—and the disciples too—had to give them up so that the other people could be fed. We give and often get back…not in the prosperity gospel way, but in a way in which God’s grace ordains to supply so that His people have an abundance for every good work (2 Cor. 9:8). We should not be surprised at this historical account whatsoever, for the Creator of the universe (John 1:3) who used nothing but His divine power to make all things in six days can easily use something to create something more. Somehow He used the loaves and fishes as “seed-starters” because He “broke them,” meaning that he divided them into portions. Maybe He created the rest of the food out of pure nothing. One time He used dirt to create (new?) working eyes (John 9:6). The situation is a miracle, so trying to find a physics-based or natural-law explanation is futile. Do not waste the Lord’s provision, whether it was miraculous or not! (I am not suggesting that the Lord supplies via miraculous provision today.)