Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
Hey, everybody. We’re super excited to be here. Yeah, this is Jeff. I’m Chris, we’re the Bible guys. And we have an exciting episode here for you today. Absolutely.

Jeff
Jesus is going to feed the 5000 four times. Well, he.

Chris
Already did it.

Jeff
Well, he already did it. But we’re going to read it four times.

Chris
Yes.

Jeff
So it’s going to be great.

Chris
Yeah. Wow. That’s that’s a lot. And by the way, we’re only reading it four times because we’re still in our series where we’re walking through the harmony of the Gospels, where all four gospels, in this case all four of them, tell the same story. We’re looking at the variances and the similarities.

Jeff
This is one of the rare stories that comes up four times in the gospel. Yeah. That’s pretty.

Chris
Yeah, it is rare.

Jeff
It’s kind of cool. Well, hey, first though, we have some really amazing mail bags. Yeah.

Chris
Mail bags.

Jeff
And then when we get the high. No, I can’t even get there today. Mail bag. There you go.

Jeff
So this is from Michelle. Ah, yeah. And she has a great statement. She says I’m so glad I find this podcast. Listening to you two is the best way to start off my day. Oh, I know, isn’t that nice? And then she said, you’re both big family guys. So what makes you proud of your family?

Chris
Oh, it’s a it’s a compliment with a question.

Jeff
I know that’s.

Chris
Very nice, isn’t it?

Jeff
Great.

Chris
What makes you proud of your family? Yes.

Jeff
Who says? I’m proud of my family.

Chris
Who ever said that? Yeah, that’s a big assumption, Michelle. Exactly.

Jeff
Just kind of filling in the blanks there, aren’t you?

Chris
Well, gosh. I mean, how do you answer that? Because there’s a billion things you’re proud of. But I think I think I would honestly say I mean, what else trumps the faith part, right? So yeah, I would say the thing I’m most proud of is I, I heard horror stories about PKS, which is pastor’s kids write horror stories and, and I figured out, and it’s not too hard to figure out, that it usually finds its roots in kids being forced to go to church or forced to behave a certain way, or told that everybody’s looking at them. Right. And so usually those sort of things end up with not a good outcome. So what I did and my wife did is we never forced them. So if they said, hey, I’m sleeping in today, we would say, well that’s disappointing. We let them sleep in. So we never once forced anything ever. And so. But we always talked about it. We always made efforts toward it. We always encouraged. But we let them become their own people. And and I think it worked. So all three of our kids embraced their faith. And they choose to come to church and they want to come to church, and they’re all of them are in the season where people normally don’t go to church.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
So I think that’s what makes me most proud. Yeah.

Jeff
So I think different kids respond different ways. There are some kids who have a totally high threshold with parents being disappointed with them. Yes. Okay. Right, right. So I think you have to know your kid. Well. Yes. Of of I agree.

Chris
With that for sure, because.

Jeff
That phrase for most kids is enough to go, oh, I don’t want to disappoint, you know, disappoint my parents. But there is that occasional kid I had one that. Yeah, okay, why are you eating my food and live in my house? We go to church on Sundays, so that’s the expectation we didn’t fight about. It just made it really clear. But yeah, same thing for me. I think, you know, my sons are grown up and married and they’re building families and and so that whole thing super proud of the fact that they’re productive citizens on the planet and, you know, trying to follow Jesus and all those things. And then, you know, my daughter Jenna, she’s not married. She’s still at home and just a delight, really sweet person, big heart loves children and all those things. So yeah, I think that’s I feel very similar to how you feel about it. That’s awesome. Yeah. It’s a little presumptuous to think that we’re proud of our families, but.

Chris
Thank you, Michelle. That’s very cool.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. And my grandson is the cutest grandkid in the world, so there’s that, too. I can show you pictures.

Chris
Is he though?

Jeff
He really is in the world in the on the planet.

Chris
That’s just silly because he’s.

Jeff
The smartest, you.

Chris
Know, everybody in the world.

Jeff
I don’t need to. I met the cutest, I don’t know.

Jeff
Yeah, I don’t need to. Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty much the cutest one.

Jeff
So yeah. He’s great.

Chris
All right. Well thank you, Michelle for that segment. And by the way, if you want to write in we would love to feature your comment question, whatever it is. And you can just email us at info at thebible. guys.com. And we would love to consider that.

Jeff
Yeah that was a neat one. Yeah.

Chris
So we are going to. Move into Matthew chapter 14 and Mark chapter six. Luke nine and John chapter six.

Jeff
Yeah, and this is one of those cool stories. There’s a few variances among it. So really, when you’re reading in parallel like this, you want to kind of figure out where are the differences. And the differences kind of make the story come alive.

Jeff
Well, everybody, this is.

Jeff
For four witnesses telling the same story. Yeah.

Chris
So buckle up. This is probably going to be like six minutes of reading.

Jeff
Yeah yeah here we go.

Jeff
Ready. And unfortunately I mean it’s a Bible guys thing. And you’re going have to listen to the Bible for a minute or two. So sorry about that.

Chris
We’re 6 or 7. That’s okay.

Jeff
Yeah. These people need more Bible. Come on Chris. Yeah. Here we go.

Jeff
Ready?

Chris
As if as if we don’t.

Jeff
Matthew 14 verse 13 says, as soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. That evening the disciples came to him and said, there’s a remote place and it’s already getting late. Send, send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said, that isn’t necessary. You feed them, but we only have five loaves of bread and two fish. They answered. Bring them here, he said. And then he told the people to sit down on the grass. And Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. They all they all ate as much as they wanted. And afterward the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftovers. About 5000 men were fed that day in addition to all the women and children. Mark. Chapter six tells the same story, and it says the apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all that they had done and taught. And then Jesus said, let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while. He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place where they could be alone. But many of the people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jeff
Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon, his disciples came to him and said, this is a remote place and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat. But Jesus said, you feed them with what they asked. We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people. Well, how much bread do you have? He asked. Go and find out. They came back and reported. We have five loaves of bread and two fish. Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups of on the green grass. And so they sat down in groups of 50 or 100. And Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5000 men and their families were fed from those loaves. Luke tells us in chapter nine this way he says the same story. When the apostles returned, they told Jesus everything they had done. Then he slipped away quietly with them toward the town of Bethsaida. But the crowds found out where they were going, and they followed him, and he welcomed them and taught them about the kingdom of God. And he healed those who were sick. Jeff
Late in the afternoon, the 12 disciples came to him and said, send the crowds away to the nearby villages and farms so they can find food and lodging for the night. There’s nothing to eat here in this remote place. But Jesus said, you feed them, but we only have five loaves of bread and two fish. They answered, are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd? For there were about 5000 men there. Jesus replied, tell them to sit down in groups of about 50 each. And so the people all sat down, and Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftovers. And then John pipes up and he tells the same story. In chapter six it says. After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the sea Tiberius. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, where can we buy bread to feed all these people? He was testing Philip, for he knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them. Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. Jeff
There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd? Tell everyone to sit down, Jesus said. So. They all sat down on the grassy slopes. The men alone numbered about 5000. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. And afterward he did the same with the fish, and they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, now gather the leftovers so that nothing is wasted. So they picked up the pieces and filled 12 baskets with scraps left by the people who’d eaten from the five barley loaves. When disciples saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, surely he is the prophet! We’ve been expecting. And when Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.

Jeff
Ha! So John tells.

Jeff
A little different than the other three.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
And yeah, but it’s really cool.

Chris
Yeah. So there’s, there’s a note since since we’re going to be talking about John already, I love the fact that this note in the Life Application Study Bible says if anyone knew where to get food, it would have been Philip because he was from Bethsaida. Yeah, a town about nine miles away. It tells it tells us that in John one. And it says Jesus was testing Philip to strengthen his own faith. And by asking for a human solution, knowing that there was none, Jesus highlighted the more powerful and miraculous act that he was about to perform. So. So Philip started assessing the probable cost. Jesus wanted to teach him that financial resources are not the most important ones. Yeah, and we can’t limit God. And I love the fact that John includes the fact that it was Philip. Yeah, right. And it makes way more sense. And then, you know, think about it. Jesus could have easily just said, hey, go gather up bread. But he said, what do you think we ought to do? Yeah, yeah. What do you think? And then he literally forced Philip to calculate the odds. And Philip’s like, okay, I’ve done the math. And what I figured out is it would take us months, in fact, seven and a half months each. Right. Or whatever, whatever it’s going to be right to feed 5000 people plus women and children, right?

Jeff
Right.

Chris
So and by the way, plus women and children, they only counted the men there because they were counting the head of the head of the household. Right, right. So it was 5000 households. That’s what that means. Right.

Jeff
And so it could have easily.

Jeff
Been 15, 20,000 people.

Chris
Yes. Easily. Yes.

Jeff
Especially back then with how big families were.

Jeff
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris
So think about that. So let’s just say conservatively 15,000 people, which by the way, it was only a man and wife and one child. Right. So you know it’s way more than that. Right. But even conservatively, if it was 15,000 people, there’s only 12 apostles.

Jeff
Right.

Chris
And he’s saying, he’s saying, okay, I’ve done the math. Yeah. This is how much it would take to feed everybody with one meal. Right. So anyway, all that to say, I think that there’s, there’s like 15 sermons in here. And I think that one of them is, is that when you and I know the odds and we calculate the odds and we think we know best, and God promises something or nudges us to do something or asks us to do something crazy, we have a tendency to respond with, don’t tell me I’ve calculated the odds. Yeah, I know my business, right? I know my finances. I know the situation I should, and I know my wife. She’s stubborn. I know my husband.

Chris
He’s stubborn, not mine.

Jeff
Hi. Bonnie.

Chris
Right. I wasn’t literally talking about this.

Jeff
Oh, yeah.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. And so it’s like, I think that that’s one sermon for certain, which is, which is, you know, when we can calculate the odds. Guess what? God trumps the odds every time.

Jeff
Yeah. The reason why this story is told is because this is out of the ordinary. Yeah. So it’s not that God doesn’t expect you to use your best judgment, right? All the time, right? It’s not that God doesn’t intend for you to make sure that you’re making wise decisions. That’s why the book of Proverbs exists, is to help us make wise decisions. Right. But this story is unique because now he’s going to say, you’ve calculated it all. Now let me show you what God can do. Right? Right. And so it’s a supernatural moment. But so us being faithful, part of being faithful stewards of what God’s given us is making wise decisions based on the information we have. Right. And what he was trying to do is this is a lesson for Philip to go, yeah, I’ve got way more for you than just managing, you know, a pocket book and trying to plan. How do you take care of a few thousand people? Now I want to show you what God can do. And God steps in and adds his super to your natural. Yeah, because. Because that’s what happens here. They’re natural. So there seems to be a dialogue going on. Only John really dials into Philip. Right. The other three are saying, Jesus says, hey, go feed him. The disciples came, say, hey, you need to send him away. There’s no drive thrus open. You preach too long. The drive thrus are all closed. There’s no way to get any food. You need to send them back so they can find someplace to stay. And Jesus, will you feed them? But then John says, actually it was Philip where Jesus said, well, what would it take to feed them? And I was like, oh, months. Jeff
So then.

Chris
By the way, by the way, a drive through the first century would be more equivalent to like somebody riding by a tree with a donkey and then somebody sitting up in the tree who throws down a coconut. Yeah, there you go, a banana and says, there you go.

Chris
Yeah. That’s that’s their drive through.

Jeff
So have you been so in the Middle East. You’ve been in the Middle East. Have you ever eaten any street food in the Middle East? There’s usually little stalls and they’ve got like little barbecues going. They got meat sticks.

Chris
No, we were told to only trust the restaurants that we trust me.

Jeff
Travel with me. I’ve never gotten sick eating street food. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
But only just cooked. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
You got to get the right stuff. But that’s kind of common where they would have food already cooking in little places. But they said it’s late in the day, which means all the places are closed. Right. So there’s probably no street food available now, you talked so long. Anybody ever get frustrated with you preaching too long?

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
I probably probably in my early days.

Jeff
I’m sure you went long this past weekend.

Chris
Hey. That’s it.

Chris
That’s a different story.

Chris
I only had 25 minutes to preach. Then I had to include other things.

Jeff
So Jesus is healing and teaching and it gets late. Everything’s closed up. Yeah. So the natural Philip wasn’t wrong, right? So I’ve heard preachers kind of get grumpy about or go after the disciples. They don’t have any faith. And I don’t think Jesus is correcting him for having no faith. I think Jesus is trying to expand their faith. So in the natural they had all the right answers. And then Jesus came in and add his super to their natural. Yeah. And that’s when miracles happen, right? Yeah. And so so they did know they had five loaves. They did know they had two fish. And they did know if we have to raise the money for this, it’s going to take us months. Right. So, so they they did everything they could do. It wasn’t that they were just stand with their hands in their pockets and they had no solutions. It was that the solutions they had wasn’t sufficient. Right. And that’s when Jesus stepped in and said, hey, I’m going to do something he had at his super to their natural.

Chris
So, so another sermon in here is did you notice that in all four Gospels? It’s very interesting. In fact, I think I probably just noted this. I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about this before, but all four Gospels goes out of its way to record the fact that Jesus had compassion. Yeah, so think about this.

Jeff
He’s exhausted.

Chris
Jesus is exhausted. Yeah. And he probably could have told them, everybody go their own way and go find your own food, because that was a legitimate suggestion, right? Hey, have them all go back to their towns, back to their villages, and have them go hunt or whatever they’re going to do and have them go every person and every family go eat. That’s a legitimate option here. It’s a viable option. But then it says in all four gospels, all four accounts, Jesus had compassion on them. So? So you and I can’t fathom the idea that God doesn’t need food, right? And we’re assuming he doesn’t. Right? Right. You know, the human part of him needs food. Yeah.

Jeff
Jesus. Jesus on earth needed food.

Chris
Yes. Yeah.

Chris
So but the idea that Jesus was compassionate because they were hungry, and I’m sure along.

Jeff
With that, they were sick.

Jeff
And they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Chris
Yes. Yeah.

Chris
So yeah. That’s right. Sheep without a shepherd too. Right. And so that’s another sermon. And then and then here’s another sermon. And that is God. You can take what little you have and make it into great things, which you kind of already said by saying natural and make it supernatural.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah.

Chris
But but sometimes what we bring to God for a task is insufficient, but God can do a lot with it. So the application of that is, you know, if God if God’s asking you to do something, you’d say, well, I’m not talented enough. I’m not good enough. What difference can I make? Do you really want me to, you know, do this when? When it’s just only affecting 1 or 2. And yet the ripple effect of eternity reverberates beyond our ability to perceive. Yeah. We have no idea how it’ll continue to just go on and on and sometimes even way beyond our lifetime. Yeah. Because, you know, this person gets a seed planted. It reminds me of that pastor friend of mine who’s in Youngstown, Ohio, who who ended up becoming a Christian way after high school. Then he became a pastor. And then I contacted him. I’m like, hey, dude, who would have ever imagined you’re a pastor? And he said. You were one of the people that made me consider it the most, because we were in choir together, all right. And and he was always cutting up and I was too. But he inasmuch as they made fun of me for being the preacher guy or the or the Christian guy, apparently I was making a difference. And so who knows? His whole family legacy changes. The ripple effect continues on because that’s what Jesus does, doesn’t he? Yeah.

Jeff
He takes the little and blesses it and turns it into much. Yeah. You know, there’s one last thing. I shared this with the staff, with our church staff a while back. I think you’ve had a pretty rough schedule here the last few weeks. Yeah, right. You’re just kind of dragging. I’ve had a really rough schedule the last several weeks. I’m just. I feel like I’m almost a ghost of myself sometimes over the last. Especially when I get home at night. Yeah, for sure. Just wiped out. And I look at this passage and if you remember just a couple of days ago in the podcast, but this is all in the same week for Jesus. His cousin is, is is killed. There. Then this says here that the the disciples just came back celebrating all the the great miracles that had happened, right? That they’d gone out sharing the gospel, preaching all these miracles before his cousin gets killed, John the Baptist gets assassinated. He’s exhausted from the people all wanting to touch him and and be healed by him. Right? So it’s just nonstop ministry, nonstop ministry, nonstop ministry. He gets the devastating news that his cousin is is assassinated. Then the disciples come back, go, woo hoo! Jesus, this is amazing. They’re all wanting to party and he’s wiped out. Then he goes, let’s just get in the boat and get away. Let’s go take some time together. You guys are a whole lot right now and the people are so enthusiastic. They run ahead of the boat, they beat Jesus to the next place they’re going, and he gets off the boat, totally wiped out. And then the Bible says they’re like sheep without a shepherd. He has compassion. He begins to heal them and teach them. Jeff
Late into the evening, he just had a little more to give. And so he does. And then one of the greatest miracles comes out of that right is out of his exhaustion, out of his tired, you know, tired experience, out of the fact that the disciples had no more to give. They gave everything they had. They had the sack lunch. And Jesus did a great miracle. And I think sometimes not that we shouldn’t take a break, but there are times when we just lean into a ministry opportunity and God shows up and does. You know, this is one of the greatest miracles in the Bible.

Chris
Oh for sure. Right.

Jeff
And and Jesus does it there. Now there is a time they do get away and they do go take a break. Right? But Jesus walking on the water next.

Chris
But to your point about that, about about him being exhausted is that notice that even though this was an interruption, that Jesus wasn’t probably in the mood for, certainly nothing he planned for sure. Certainly nothing. He was, you know.

Jeff
He was trying to get away from he was trying to.

Jeff
Go to the other side.

Chris
Yeah, you’re right, you’re right.

Chris
I’m trying to be kind. Yeah.

Jeff
He was trying to get away.

Chris
He legitimately was trying to leave the crowd. Yeah. So. So how does that translate for us? Here’s how it does for me in my mind. And that is sometimes the most the greatest opportunities to be a blessing to somebody is actually pretty inconvenient for us. Yeah. Because what happens is, you know, we’re on our way. We’ve got our own calendar, we’ve got our own agenda, and all of a sudden the phone rings and it’s like, oh, I’m going to take ten minutes to talk to this person, you know, that kind of thing. And, and I think sometimes what happens is we don’t recognize, like, hey, these are the moments. And in our mind we’re we’re tempted to say, I sure wish this really good opportunity would come back at a convenient moment. Yeah, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way.

Jeff
So Jesus is exhausted and Philip says, I don’t have what it takes.

Chris
Right?

Jeff
And that’s that moment when you have to ask God to do something special. God, I’m going to give you what I’ve got.

Jeff
Yeah.

Jeff
I just don’t have I don’t have much to give right now. That’s great. Jesus does an amazing miracle.

Chris
Well, that looks like it’s about our time. So that’s a good place to end. And we will see you next time hopefully on The Bible Guys.