IN WHOSE HANDS?
Opening Prayer
Thank you, Gracious God, for providing all that I need for life, for faith, for service. Help me to use all that you give me to bring you glory, to show others who you are.
Read MARK 6:30–44
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages[a]! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”
When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
Footnotes
- Mark 6:37 Greek take two hundred denarii
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Read 2 Corinthians 12:9. What is God saying to you through this?The Jewish reader of this passage would be reminded of someone else who was responsible for a huge group of people in a desert, who taught them the things of God and who provided ‘bread’ (manna) for them. Knowing he could lead people only so far, Moses prayed that God would provide someone who would be able to lead them into the full blessings he had in store for them, ‘…so that the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd’ (Numbers 27:15–17). It was not Joshua, son of Nun, who would lead people into the fullness of God’s blessing, but Jesus, Son of God.
This incident marked another steep learning curve for Jesus’ disciples. They had learned to minister to people spiritually (and to have their own physical needs provided for by their hosts). But Jesus meets people’s spiritual and physical needs. Now he tells them, ‘You give them something to eat.’
Confronted with this impossible command, they learned a profound secret of the kingdom of God: if we give our limited resources to Jesus, they will be multiplied. Like an old instrument in the hands of a gifted musician, or meager ingredients in the hands of a master chef, what matters is not the scale of our resources, but whose hands they are in.
Apply
Search out a need in your church or community and commit to making a difference.
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, I place into your hands my ordinariness, my limitations, and my few resources. Use them today to feed any hungry and lost people I meet.
Book and Author Intros
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