Chapter # 8 Paragraph # 3 Study # 3
September 13, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(340)
1901 ASV
8:16 And they reasoned one with another, saying, We have no bread.
8:17 And Jesus perceiving it saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye not yet perceive, neither understand? have ye your heart hardened?
8:18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
8:19 When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.
8:20 And when the seven among the four thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces took ye up? And they say unto him, Seven.
8:21 And he said unto them, Do ye not yet understand?
- I. Mark's Record Of The Disciples' Total Disorientation.
- A. Immediately following Jesus' "insistent" demand regarding the temptation to fall into the trap of The Pharisees and of Herod, Mark records the fixation of the disciples upon their lack of loaves.
- 1. We should immediately recognize that Jesus' "insistent demand" will go by the wayside if this fixation should continue.
- a. It goes without saying that one cannot live within the boundaries of "strict insistence" if there is no understanding of either "what" is being restricted, nor "why" the insistence is so "strict".
- b. Thus, as long as the disciples are mentally focused upon their lack of "loaves", they simply cannot be on their guard in regard to the "leaven" issue [there is nothing so unsettling as being completely blind-sided because the issue that blind-sides isn't even on the long range radar, let alone the immediate present].
- 2. We should also immediately recognize that there is an extreme danger to being focused upon "needs" that will be met without even the necessity of prayer. Jesus told His disciples to be totally unconcerned about things over which they have no responsibility or even capability (Philippians 4:6; Matthew 6:25, 31; and Luke 12:28-30).
- 3. We should also recognize that, "hermeneutically", it is impossible to understand words that are addressed for one purpose when they are "forced" to fit a different purpose.
- B. Jesus' words of "insistent demand" assume a total lack of need for preoccupation with things which have no "need" built into them; either because they do not represent a need, or they represent things that God has so abundantly underwritten that we need not even "petition" God for them ("giving thanks", yes; "petitioning", no). Jesus did say, on one occasion, "pray that God will 'give us this day our daily bread'", but He did not mean to belabor that, so-called, "need'.
- II. The "Lesson" Of The Loaves.
- A. Has a preliminary question.
- 1. The question is "Why?"
- 2. It has its focus upon the disciples' fixation upon the fact that "they had no bread".
- a. Its roots begin in 6:8 where Jesus forbade them to take "a loaf" for their journeys as messengers of Jesus. "Loaf" is singular; its significance is best understood as "not even a loaf" as a "preparation" to do the will of Jesus and to discover His ability/willingness to provide for them day by day (Luke 22:35).
- b. Its roots continue into 6:37 and 8:4 where the foundations are laid for both 6:52 and our current text (8:17) in regard to the problem of "a hardened heart".
- c. And to make sure we "get" this connection, Mark goes on to record Jesus' deliberate reminders of how much bread was left when everyone was filled in both 6:42 and 8:8.
- d. But there is this: God sometimes, for His own reasons, lets people "go hungry" (Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11:27; Jesus in Matthew 4:2; and in this very context, the crowd in 8:2.).
- B. Totally underwrites "provided food" as an outcome of "basic" compassion, with the intention of keeping us from distraction.
- C. Thus, Jesus forces them to reconsider the number of baskets of leftovers so that they will not be distracted from what is far more crucial [Isaiah 2:22].
