Based on the teachings from The Gospel in Chronological Order.
And once you see the whole picture, there are some applications that are hard to get around.
You don’t get the full picture unless you put the Gospel accounts together. That’s one of the things I’ve been seeing as I’ve gone through the Gospels chronologically. Matthew will record something Mark doesn’t. Mark will give you something Matthew left out. John may come along and give you a detail neither one of them mentioned. They don’t contradict each other. They complement each other, and you get a different impression when you put all of those accounts together.
The feeding of the 5,000 is one of the relatively few events recorded in all four Gospels. Then right after that you have Jesus walking on the water, and again the different writers give you different pieces. Matthew tells about Peter walking on the water. Mark says Jesus would have passed by the disciples. John records details the others don’t. Those are major things, and if you only read one account, you can miss them.
But I don’t believe the point is just to get the chronology right. You have to take what you’re reading and apply it to yourself.
Take John the Baptist. Herod had taken his brother’s wife, and John told him, “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” He said that to a king. There aren’t many ministers today who would do that. We hear people say Christians shouldn’t get involved in political things or speak to political leaders about moral issues, but John did. Moses stood before Pharaoh. Daniel stood before kings. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood up to Nebuchadnezzar. John looked at the ruler of that region and told him what he was doing was wrong.
Now, we need to speak the truth in love. We live under the new covenant. Anything can be forgiven. When you tell somebody that something is wrong, you ought to make sure they also know about the love of God and that forgiveness is available. But forgiveness doesn’t mean sin no longer exists, and it doesn’t mean you just sweep everything under the rug.
Mark gives us another part of the story that I think changes the way John is sometimes portrayed. Herod feared John. He knew John was a just and holy man. The Scripture even says Herod heard him gladly and did many things because of him. So John wasn’t just some wild man running around constantly condemning everybody. Apparently, when John spoke to Herod, he spoke in a way that got through to him. Herod didn’t like what John was saying about his adultery, but he knew John was a godly man. John was having an effect on him.
After John was killed, the disciples returned from being sent out to minister. They told Jesus what they had done and what they had taught, and Jesus told them, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” I tell you, some people need that verse. There are people who are so on fire for God that they never rest. They want to see people’s lives changed, and that’s good. We need that kind of motivation. But this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon.
There have been ministers who literally preached themselves to death. They wouldn’t slow down because they thought the need was so great that they couldn’t afford to stop. But you have to pace yourself. If you reach thousands of people in 10 years and then burn yourself out, that isn’t going to have the same impact as serving God for 60 or 70 years.
I’ve never been much for taking long periods of time off. I don’t think I could take six months off, but I do take time off. I remember teaching this passage to a group of ministers once. One pastor became convicted that he needed a regular day off. He prepared for Sunday on Saturday, then had Sunday morning and evening services, so he told his church he was taking Mondays off. Basically, he said, “If you die, you’re going to have to die on another day or let one of my associates handle it.”
Somebody came up and told him, “Pastor, the devil never takes a day off.” He said, “Well, then if I don’t take a day off, I’m going to be just like the devil.” Amen. That’s pretty good wisdom. Jesus Himself told His disciples to come apart and rest a while.
Then the people messed up the plan. Jesus and the disciples went out to a desert place to rest, but the people figured out where they were going. They ran ahead and were waiting for them when they got there. Jesus saw them and was moved with compassion. So there is a balance here. You need to rest, but when a genuine need is standing right in front of you, you also need to be sensitive to that.
By the end of that day, they had another problem. Thousands of people were out in a desert place, and there was no food. The disciples came up with the obvious solution: send them away. Jesus said, “They need not depart. Give ye them to eat.”
One application I make from that is that Christians have gotten used to sending people someplace else to get every need met. I’m not saying it’s wrong to go to a doctor. I’m not saying it’s automatically wrong to use a bank or receive help from some government program. That’s not my point. My point is that Jesus looked at His disciples and said, “You give them something to eat.”
The disciples immediately looked at what they had: five loaves and two fish. Then they looked at the crowd. That’s what most people do. We look at the need, then we look in our wallet. We look at the bank account. We look at our ability. We compare what we’ve got with what it’s going to take, and we say, “This isn’t going to work.”
Jesus saw the same five loaves and two fish, but He didn’t stop there. The Scripture says He looked up. I’ve studied that word, anablepo, and I believe there’s more being communicated than Jesus simply raising His head. He looked past what was in His hands. He saw beyond the five loaves and the two fish to God. Boy, that has spoken to me. I can’t just look at what’s in my bank account or what’s in my wallet. There are things God has told me to do that I couldn’t do if what I had in my hand was the only resource available.
That’s where the disciples found themselves. They had enough food for one little boy, and Jesus was telling them to feed thousands of people.
This is one of the parts that really ministers to me. Jesus blessed the food and gave it to the disciples, and the disciples took it to the people. Based on the timing and the number of people involved, I believe the multiplication had to continue as the disciples distributed it. Jesus blessed what they had, and then those disciples started walking toward people with something that looked completely insufficient.
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