Lovers of God

Jesus feeds 4000 plus women and children

Mt 15:29-39 29 Departing from there, Jesus went along by the Sea of Galilee, and having gone up on the mountain, He was sitting there. 30 And large crowds came to Him, bringing with them those who were lame, crippled, blind, mute, and many others, and they laid them down at His feet; and He healed them. 31 So the crowd marveled as they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.

32 And Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said, "I feel compassion for the people, because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way." 33 The disciples said to Him, "Where would we get so many loaves in this desolate place to satisfy such a large crowd?" 34 And Jesus said to them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven, and a few small fish." 35 And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; 36 and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 37 And they all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, seven large baskets full. 38 And those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And sending away the crowds, Jesus got into the boat and came to the region of Magadan.

Jesus conducted His healing and teaching conferences in desolate areas. People had to come out a long way to get healed. They would only do this if Jesus was a real healer, and not a quack.

Lots of healing took place over a span of three days.

Jesus was concerned about their physical needs. He healed them, but also wanted to make sure that they had enough to eat. Heb 1:1-3 tells us that Jesus is the exact representation of the nature of God. So we know that God is concerned about meeting our needs.

After having seen how Jesus fed the 5000, one would have thought that the disciples would have said, "Do it again," instead of saying, "Where would we get so many loaves in this desolate place to satisfy such a large crowd?"

How many times does God have to show you something until it sinks in? A quick learner needs to be shown something just once. He then takes the time to make his own notes, and to mediate on what he is shown, and he internalizes it, so that it becomes a natural part of him. Just like how (through much self-repetition) we learned multiplication tables when we were young, we must also learn the lessons God wants to teach us.

There are a lot of similarities between the feeding of the 4000 over here and he feeding of the 5000 described earlier on, and so I will not repeat them here.

This healing is also symbolic of what God can do with those who are faithful to allow Him to use what the time and money and talents we have.