Matthew 14:15-17 - You give them something to eat

14:15-17

This was leading to one of the most famous miracles, the feeding of the five thousand, and one reported in all four gospels. It was getting late and the disciples foresaw a problem arising, so they made Jesus aware of it and suggested a very practical solution. Namely to send the people away so they could go and get food. This was an entirely reasonable thing to propose. However, Jesus saw things rather differently: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat”.

This was an utterly ridiculous suggestion, for they only had five loaves and two fish. This was not going to work, based on the way things normally operated. But Jesus was going to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes God will tell us to do things that require Him to act in an extraordinary way. Now there must be some emphasis on the word sometimes. Most of the time we are to act and make decisions on the assumption that things will function in the normal way. It is a legalistic and silly approach to think that we must always act as if a miracle is going to occur. It is even sillier to think that because we come up with a madcap scheme that God will do some miracle to make our idea work! So how do we take account of the fact (and it is a fact) that sometimes God’s plans will require a miracle? I think there are two key facts to note. The first is that it was Jesus’ instruction to the disciples. The idea came from Jesus, not from the disciples. The second is that the disciples had a relationship with Jesus. They knew Him and were following Him. We need to know Jesus and to follow Him.