City Life Starter

Written by Scott Fiddler

The Word

1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.”13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”

John 6:1-14

Commentary

After all had eaten until they were full, Jesus told the disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.” When they did, the fragments from the five barley loaves filled twelve baskets.” John 6:12-13. 

When I was a younger Christian, and I read the accounts of Jesus’ miracles in the Bible, I wondered how people could still doubt after seeing. But if you have ever witnessed an honest-to-God miracle, you know it’s just the opposite.  The human mind is naturally skeptical and disinclined to believe in miracles and will immediately try to cast doubt on what you just witnessed.

Even those who are paid to think about God indulge in such doubt. In his book, Orthodoxy, the great G.K. Chesterton, tongue in cheek, noted, “For some inconceivable cause, a …’liberal’ clergyman always means a man who wishes at least to diminish the number of miracles; it never means a man who wishes to increase that number.” 

But all those who are confronted with the question of miracles, if they are intellectually honest, must grapple with the evidence. Christians believe in miracles because of the testimony of persons who have witnessed them throughout history, while rationalists disbelieve in miracles because their materialist dogma prohibits it. As Chesterton observed, if you ask a rationalist why he disbelieves the testimony of persons who have witnessed miracles, he will say those persons are not credible.  Ask why he believes those persons are not credible, and he will answer, “Because miracles are not possible.”  His objection to miracles does not spring from evidence, or the lack of it, but from his a priori belief against them. Chesterton concluded, “It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence–it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed.”

Application

No one was more cognizant of the human condition and man’s propensity for skepticism and doubt than Jesus. When Jesus instructed the disciples to gather up the fragments of the barley loaves, He wanted everyone to see the math didn’t add up. He didn’t want them to walk away and have their minds start constructing natural explanations for what they had just witnessed. Under no circumstances does 5 barley loaves, after feeding 5,000 people, equal 12 baskets of left-overs. 

If you are a Christian and believe in the miracles of Jesus, you have nothing for which to apologize. You have been open-minded enough to consider the evidence and have been convinced by it. It is those who disbelieve in the face of the testimony of the witnesses of miracles throughout history who have the more difficult argument. I’m glad to have thrown in my lot with those who are open-minded.

Prayer

Jesus, thank You for providing the objective evidence that You were who You said You were and You are who you claim to be. Amen.