You Give Them Something to Eat: World Hunger Emphasis
Making disciples involves leadership and Jesus worked very hard to instill leadership qualities into the twelve around Him. If you look back at Luke 8:51, Jesus allows Peter, John, and James to accompany Him as he brings a dead girl back to life. In Luke 9:1 ff, Jesus sends the twelve disciples out on a trial run and gets them some much needed experience. After Jesus is crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven, the disciples will have learned from this valuable experience of preaching and healing.
The natural result of Jesus’ work and the twelve disciples’ preaching and healing was that the crowds had started rumors all over the country. Herod the tetrarch was confused because he had recently had John the Baptist beheaded. Now some were saying that Jesus was John resurrected. Others thought Jesus was Elijah or one of the prophets.
As nightfall came, thousands of people surrounded Jesus and His disciples straining to hear His words or stretching toward Him to receiving His healing touch. The disciples realized that between them, they had five loaves of bread and two fish, which would have been hardly a meal for the thirteen of them alone. Their solution was to send the crowd away. Jesus had other plans:
“You give them something to eat.” (v.13a)
The disciples had been digesting Jesus’ teaching for a long time. They had just that day returned from a preaching and healing tour. The power of God was evident, yet now they fall back to the physical, leaving the supernatural out of mind and therefore out of reach.
Jesus is calling all Christians to feed the hungry masses. We cannot be selfish and gorge ourselves on the pure milk of the word or the honey-flavored scroll without sharing what we have found. We must teach the spiritually starving to eat, how to survive the spiritual famine the world is stricken with because of sin.
Jesus met the disciples where they were mentally as He does for all of us. After commanding them to organize the crowd into groups of fifty, He looked up to heaven to remind the disciples where the power comes from. Jesus broke the bread and fish and kept giving them to the disciples to set before the people.
After this great miracle had taken place, Jesus was praying alone (the disciples were there) and suddenly he stopped praying as if the Father had just told Him, “Ask the disciples who they think you are.” He did and they echoed the rumors from the crowd: John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets. Jesus took it a step farther. “But who do you say that I am.” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
Jesus’ desire was never to have a group of mindless robots follow Him around and do whatever He said. His goal was to start a revolution on the entire planet that would start with the lives of twelve men. Jesus poured Himself into His disciples teaching them how to preach the kingdom of God and to rely on the presence and power of God. In the same way, God’s desire is for you to be a food server for the rest of your life. The world is starving and we have the Bread of Life. You give them something to eat.
Jesus fed the hungry crowd physically as well as spiritually. Mississippi Baptists have the opportunity to do the same. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Mississippi has the highest percentage of households in poverty — 21.3 percent. Mississippi also has the lowest median household income at $32,938. One way to help alleviate hunger is by giving generously to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund. Gifts to the fund are used 100 percent for ministry projects. The International Mission Board receives eighty percent and the North American Mission Board receives twenty percent. All projects have an intentional spiritual strategy and all projects have “on the ground” accountability. Southern Baptist personnel are there from the very beginning. On the local level, you can give to your association’s effort to alleviate hunger or have a food pantry in your church. One church has a casserole ministry where members bake casseroles and bring them to the church’s freezer. When the need arises, the food is delivered.
Faced with the problem of feeding so many people, the disciples had the attitude that “it’s their problem and they can deal with it.” They said, “Send the crowd away.” Another attitude was “it’s their problem and we can’t fix it.” They said, “Let them go to the villages and countryside and find food.” But Jesus had a different way of seeing their need. His attitude was “it’s our problem and we will deal with it.” He said, “Have the people sit down.” We as Mississippi Baptists have the opportunity to deal with hunger like Jesus did.