1 About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, 2 “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.”
4 His disciples replied, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”
5 Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”
“Seven loaves,” they replied.
6 So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. 7 A few small fish were found, too, so Jesus also blessed these and told the disciples to distribute them.
8 They ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. 9 There were about 4,000 men in the crowd that day, and Jesus sent them home after they had eaten. 10 Immediately after this, he got into a boat with his disciples and crossed over to the region of Dalmanutha.
Read Mark 8:1-10 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
While reading Mark’s gospel where he describes Jesus feeding the crowd of 4,000, a detail stood out to me that seems obvious, but it was one I had never picked up on prior to this reading. This detail is very easy to miss, because it gets lost in the other details of the verse it is included in.
After receiving the bread from the disciples, Mark tells us, “So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd.” (v. 6)
The phrase that stood out to me as I read this verse was the four-word phrase “thanked God for them”. Jesus thanked God for the seven loaves of bread (and later on, He thanks God and blesses the few fish when they were found).
This detail is significant because Jesus thanked God before any miracle had happened. Jesus thanked God for the tiny, insignificant number of seven loaves of bread before distributing them. Jesus didn’t wait for God to multiply the seven loaves into 700 baskets of bread before giving thanks.
We can learn from this detail that we should be thankful and grateful for the things God has blessed us with, regardless of whether the blessings are large or small, and we should trust that God can multiply these blessings to be as impactful as is needed. Jesus was thankful for just a tiny amount of bread, and God multiplied it into a satisfying meal for over 4,000 people!
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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