Luke
9:1-11 Jesus sends out the twelve to proclaim the kingdom of God. First He gave
them power, then He gave them instructions. It seems odd that before the day of
Pentecost He gave them power, but they went and apparently did great miracles
because Herod heard about it. Jesus sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of
God and to heal. The instructions must have been somewhat daunting - they were
to take nothing with them - no food, no money, no change of clothes. Instead
they were to look for hospitality and if they found none, leave the city and
take care not to let its dust contaminate you. The disciples nonetheless went,
preached the gospel, and performed miracles.
Herod's reaction was that He had gotten
rid of John the Baptist so who is Jesus? Perhaps John the Baptist had come back
from the dead, or maybe it was Elijah, whose miracles were legendary in
scripture. Eventually Herod would meet Jesus (Luke 23:7-11), but Jesus was not
interested in meeting Herod at this time. In our day, it is counted an honor to
be invited to meet the president. Obviously, Herod was a tyrant and ultimately
participated in Jesus' death, but should we ask ourselves the question, how
much does it impact the ministry of God if we get cozy with the powers of the
world, even if they are benevolent?
After the disciples reported in, Jesus
tried to take them on a retreat, but the crowds followed. Jesus welcomed the
crowds, continuing to preach and heal. It seems paradoxical that we often feel
powerless because we do not spend enough time with The Lord privately, but
Jesus never passed up an opportunity to minister to the needy, even when He was
tired or needed time alone with the Father. We saw this earlier in Luke
4:38-44. Somehow the effort to minister when we feel drained is blessed. Often,
if we have other commitments and a ministry opportunity presents itself, it is
amazing to see God's had at work in the circumstances when we take the time to
minister, so that the latter appointment or commitment is amply taken care of
if we are late.
Luke
9:12-17 Jesus feeds five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish. The disciples are naturally concerned that
everyone is getting hungry, and did not yet understand that God can provide for
His ministry. When Jesus told the disciples to give them something to eat, it
is hard to tell if He was joking with them or testing them. But the outcome was
straightforward. He blessed the food looking to heaven, and then just kept
giving to the disciples to distribute. It must have taken quite a while to
distribute enough to feed five thousand men, plus women and children in the
crowd.
What should we take away from this
story? In our day food is plentiful and comparatively inexpensive. Any large
meetings that are held in stadiums or convention centers have ample
restaurants, so this need would not arise, at least in the West. But the
underlying theme of this seems to be that God will supernaturally supply needs
that arise in the pursuit of the ministry of the gospel, if it is impossible by
natural means to supply them. So in this sense, affluence limits God's ability
to show Himself, because in so many different ways, we don't really need. What
we do need is Him, and the question is whether our hunger for Him is strong
enough that we would allow our circumstances to get to the point where we would
need supernatural provision?
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