Jesus’ ministry, here on earth, was marked by many miracles. It was clear that He was intentionally showing God’s power to the people of the day and through the written Word of God, to us as well. This can be seen as a very clear and intentional message, supporting and proving that He was the Son of the Living God. Had those miracles not been performed, there’s a very good chance that many of the people who heard His message would not have, as many came for “the show,” rather than the Word, including some who came just to be healed.
We must recognize the importance of each miracle that Jesus performed, as they validated His ministry. After His death and resurrection, He gave power to His followers, especially those closest to Him, to use His power and authority to perform the same sorts of miracles. On the other hand, those who opposed Him, either during his earthly ministry or afterwards, were unable to do the things that He did, even when they tried.
We find a slightly humorous example of this in the book of Acts, where the sons of a Jewish priest attempted to use Jesus’ power in casting out a demon. Even though these seven men were the sons of one of the chief priests of the Jews, they were not only unable to accomplish the task, but the spirit won the battle, bloodying them and stripping off their clothes.
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcize you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” 16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. – Acts 19:13-16
All we can say to that is, “Oops.” They should have known better. After all, these were men who were supposedly exorcists. That indicates that they were accustomed to dealing with evil spirits. With that being the case, it only makes sense that they would have understood the necessity of operating in proper authority when dealing with evil spirits.
In contrast, Jesus freed a man from spiritual possession, who was inhabited by a group of evil spirits named “Legion, because many demons had entered him” (Luke 8:30). The Bible doesn’t say just how many spirits there were in that man, but a Roman Legion consisted of somewhere between five and six thousand men. Perhaps the evil spirits were exaggerating, but it is clear that there were a great many of them, and Jesus didn’t have any problem casting them out.
It’s germane to note here that while Jesus was the Son of God, He didn’t operate here on this earth as if He was. Rather, he operated as any one of us would have to, working in concert with God the Father and expecting Him to do the work. When Jesus did a miracle, it was because He saw the Father doing that miracle and became part of what Father God was doing.
Then Jesus answered and said to them (the Jews), “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son does in like manner. – John 5:19
But Jesus’ ministry wasn’t just limited to casting out demons. He performed a number of different kinds of miracles, each of which gives some insight into his power and authority. We can divide those miracles into four different categories:
- Healing miracles
- Miracles showing power over unclean spirits
- Miracles showing power over death
- Miracles showing power over nature
The first three of those categories are rather obvious. He showed power over unclean spirits by casting them out; power over death by raising people from the dead. He healed a number of people, from a variety of different diseases, in a variety of different ways. But when we get to His power over nature, we find a variety of different things, from walking on water, to multiplying food.
Jesus Fed Thousands
One of Jesus’ miracles over nature was in multiplying food to feed thousands of people. This actually happened twice, with one time mentioning 5,000 people and the other mentioning 4,000. Actually, that’s just the men that He fed, as the scriptures tell us that the women and children weren’t counted along with the men (Matthew 14:21). We know that the two were separate, distinct cases, as they are both mentioned in both Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospel, with the 5,000 occurring before the 4,000.
It would almost seem as if the second incident is nothing more than a repetition of the first; but there’s more to it than that. There is nothing in the Bible that has been placed there casually; so, when we see something that appears to be placed casually, we need to look a bit deeper.
In both of these cases, we find loaves of bread mentioned. This is significant, as bread was their most basic food source. There are various references to it in the Gospels, mostly because of how necessary it was. You see, they didn’t eat with utensils, like we do today. Rather, the food was placed in a common bowl or plate and each person had a loaf of bread, something like a pita. They would break off pieces of their pita and use it to scoop food out of the common bowl or plate, essentially using the bread as a spoon. So, without bread, it was basically impossible to eat.
This is why Jesus referred to Himself as “the Bread of Life” (John 6:48 & others) indicating that He was the most basic substance of their lives.
The Feeding of the 5,000
The first of these miracles is the feeding of the 5,000. According to the historic record found in the Gospels, Jesus had never performed this specific type of miracle before. He might have, but based on the reaction of His disciples, it seems as if He had not.
To start with, this miracle happened near Bethesda, close to the northern end of the Sea of Galilee, but not on the shore. It is in an area which was inhabited by the Jews, so He was dealing with a Jewish audience. They had come out to where He was, on foot, seeking his help in healing their sick. Mark’s Gospel tells us that when He saw them, “He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). We don’t know how long that took, but they were still there as evening approached.
When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Sent the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” 18 He said, “Bring them to Me.” 19 Then He command the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. – Matthew 14:15-19
This can almost be seen as Jesus testing His disciples, telling them to feed the crowd. He already knew what He was going to do, yet He told them to feed the people. Their response, telling Him just how much food they had available, shows that they were thinking as natural men and not as spiritual ones. They were about to learn an important spiritual lesson.
Jesus’ only action, besides the conversation with His disciples, was to bless the food they had and to break it. We don’t know how He blessed it or how He broke it. Obviously, the blessing part was some form of prayer; but the breaking could take several forms. It could have been that He broke each loaf of bread and each fish in half, into multiple pieces, or it could have been that He started breaking off pieces and just continued breaking them, as the loaves and fish multiplied in His hands. We just don’t know, although we have a hint…
If the loaves and fish were not multiplied in Jesus’ hands, they would have had to be multiplied in the hands of His disciples. Considering that the disciples wrote the Gospel accounts, if such a miracle had happened in their hands, it is surprising that it is not mentioned. I know that if I participated in such a miracle, with the food being multiplied in my hands, I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about it. Naturally, laying out the food would make their hands empty, yet they had more to give, until all of the people had been filled. This makes me think that the multiplying of the food happened in Jesus’ hands and He just kept breaking off pieces and giving it to His disciples to distribute.
What we’re talking about here is a miracle of multiplication. This is by no means the first time such a thing happened in the Bible, although it is the first time that it happened at the hand of Jesus. Yet we find other examples in the Old Testament, such as the flour and oil of the widow who fed Elijah during the drought (1 Kings 17:8-16) and the widow whose oil was multiplied (2 Kings 4:1-7). God is the creator and has created the heavens and the earth; creating food would be simple for Him.
There is another option which has been raised and needs to be dealt with. Some have said that there wasn’t a miracle there at all; but rather, that the people, who had heard Jesus’ teaching, were moved by compassion to share food that they had brought with others. This takes God out of the equation altogether, saying that it was people who made this “miracle” happen, not the Lord. But Jesus hadn’t been teaching, He had been healing the sick. Besides, were that the case, the disciples would have seen it and it would have been mentioned in the Gospels.
But there’s something more that disproves the idea that people shared food they had, turning this into the first church potluck supper. That’s found the end of the narrative, where it talks about the leftovers.
So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. – Matthew 14:20
I’ve been at enough potlucks to understand how things work. When everyone has finished eating, people start grabbing the leftovers to take home. People really haven’t changed. If they had food left over that they had brought, there would be plenty in that crowd who would wrap it up to take home, just like people do today. The fact that they didn’t, allowing the disciples to gather it, shows that they didn’t feel like they had a right to take it. It wasn’t a potluck, but rather a miracle of multiplication.
The Feeding of the 4,000
On the surface, it would seem that the feeding of the 4,000 was a repetition of the earlier miracle. The number of people was slightly different and the amount of food was too. There was also a difference in the amount of leftovers that they gathered. But other than that, there is nothing much different at first glance.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an important difference; in fact, there is. While the first miracle of multiplication occurred in a Jewish region, making it likely that the majority of the crowd were Jews, this second time he was in the region of the Gerasenes, around the Decapolis. This was a decidedly Gentile region, rather than a Jewish one. So, Jesus was showing His power over nature to Gentiles, in addition to the previous time, when He was showing it to the Jews.
This is significant, especially since most believers think that Jesus only ministered to the Jews. While that was the focus of His ministry, there were a few notable exceptions, like this one. That validates Peter’s (Acts 10:20-25) and later Paul’s decision to minister to the gentiles in the book of Acts. They weren’t doing something that Jesus Himself hadn’t done.
How Can Food be Multiplied?
It can be difficult to accept these two Bible stories, especially for those who are unaccustomed to the power of God. But that doubt doesn’t make them any less real. As I mentioned earlier, God is fully able to multiply food and has demonstrated it from well back into Old Testament times. It shouldn’t be surprising, considering that God created the entire universe that we live in.
The problem in accepting such stories in the Bible comes from the tendency to think that everything is limited by what we humans can do. That’s actually rather arrogant on the part of anyone who thinks that way, as it doesn’t give God credit for being greater than we are. But God is not limited by the same things we are. He is able to do much more than we can think or imagine.
When we look at the creation story, in Genesis, chapter one, we find that God spoke things into existence. Extrapolating that further, God created an image of what He wanted to create, inside Himself, then spoke that thing out, causing it to exist. While such an act is impossible for us, as humans, it is clearly something that God is able to do.
Since Jesus only did those things that He saw His Father doing, His part was in recognizing the provision that Jehovah God was about to make and praying over that food, taking part in God’s miracle. It was attributed to Jesus, because He was the one that people saw; but since Jesus and God are one, that’s not a real issue.
The fact that they gathered so many leftovers, in both cases, shows something important about God’s provision. When we are in the midst of that provision, it may seem like there’s just barely enough. But when we get past that point, looking back at what God has done, we find that not only did He provide enough to meet our needs, but He provided in excess. That should give us confidence in our own struggles, where we need God’s help in provision.