Luke 9:1

Luke 9:1–17

4/9/2012

Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.

Feeding of the Five Thousand
Sorry for all the commentary quotes lately! If you are looking for a good commentary on Luke, I definitely recommend this one by Darrell Bock (see the footnote below). He has so many good thoughts that I can't help but quote him often!

Anyway, here are some good observations on the Feeding of the Five Thousand miracle. I've bolded the parts that I thought were interesting or important:

"Luke now records the only miracle that is in all four Gospels: the feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14:13–21; Mark 6:32–44; John 6:1–15). This miracle of provision obviously indicates how Jesus meets needs. But there is a second key to the miracle, in that this provision comes through the disciples. Jesus has just commissioned them to share the kingdom message (9:1–6). They need to be aware of what they can do through Christ. Jesus shows them that they have access to his authority through his enablement.
Two other images impact this event. The provision of food is conceptually similar to two key Old Testament events, God’s provision of quail and Elisha’s provision of barley bread (Num. 11; 2 Kings 4:42–44). The picture of table fellowship also evokes images of the messianic banquet, where God’s people enjoy fellowship provided by the gracious provision of the Messiah.
The miracle has a rich tapestry of fundamental themes that weave through Jesus’ ministry: compassion, control over creation, and the ability to make provisions for life. In a sense, this is a cameo portrait of God’s grace and the offer of his presence at a table where he provides for his children." [1]

Thoughts? Questions?

[1] Darrell L. Bock, The NIV Application Commentary: Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 256-57.

Andrei

4/9/2012 06:53:12 pm

After reading the passage, I had a question about verse 13; perhaps it is directly relevant to the commentary about Jesus commissioning the disciples to share the kingdom message? When I've read verse 13 in the past, I was wondering why Jesus responds with: 'You give them something to eat.' I had a mental image of the disciples standing around with confused looks or something. The commentary says that: 'Jesus shows them that they have access to his authority through his enablement.' Going with this, does this mean that the disciples had the ability and authority to perform the miracle of feeding the five thousand? Or is this taking the idea too far?

Also, in verse 14, Jesus says for the disciples to make people sit in groups of 50. Any particular reason why? Does it just make the feeding process more efficient because 50 is a ?multiple? of 5000?

Greg

4/10/2012 05:46:36 am

I know it's going to sound maybe a little weird, but I really think that Jesus was messing with them. The lesson they learned from the whole thing is that they COULD and DID provide the food for them, but only through JESUS' POWER. They didn't know that in the beginning though and were probably thinking something like "Oh crap. How are we going to do this?" If you're willing to allow it, there are a lot of places in the Gospels where Jesus is really funny, and I think this is one of them. I'm not sure I would say they had the ability to do it, but I would say that Jesus used what he knew would be their terror/confusion about His request to a learning opportunity that they only do things by His power, not their own.

Also, I noticed the 50 thing as well. I'm not sure that it's necessarily significant, other than that it made the whole process more orderly than a lot of people mobbing the disciples together. It probably aided in the passing out of the food. Also, Matthew brings attention to the fact that there was MORE than 5,000 there. He tells us it was 5,000 MEN, besides women and children (Matthew 14:21). The miracle is impressive anyway, but that means there was EVEN MORE people there, though we don't have the actual total count.

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Luke 9:1–17

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