Mark 6:36 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 6:36

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This was a deserted place with little villages spread about; there weren’t any towns in that particular region. Not one of those villages could have fed a small proportion of that vast crowd. But this is very sad, really, that the disciples, though they had seen the miraculous power of the Lord in so many ways, they don’t say, ‘Lord, can you do something? Surely here is one who is greater than Moses, through whom God announced the manna. He can feed this vast number.’ That doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. He had shown compassion and preached to them. He had told them many things. He had spoken to them for so long and they had listened with rapt attention, so that it became too late for them to go, to get home and get food. What do the disciples say? What is their solution – ‘Send them away, before they realise they are hungry, before they begin to complain. Let’s get them away from here so that it is no longer our responsibility.’ They don’t seem to have compassion, and they don’t seem to have enough faith. It doesn’t occur to them to believe that he can solve the problem. It is inconceivable that our Lord would stand here preaching for so long and not realise that he was producing a problem.

Application

So it is with us. We recoil from witnessing, because we think maybe the people are too hard, too resistant, or there would be some embarrassment in this particular case. So we say in our minds, ‘Let them go, send them away; not this person, not this group, not yet, or this is not the right moment.’ Here is this preacher and he is say, ‘If you’re saved, if you have found the Lord, what about your serving the Lord in the community work, in the Sunday School work for children, in something of this kind?’ ‘Oh, I haven’t got time for that; I won’t have the children in my mind, I won’t have community visiting in my mind. It’s not convenient.’ ‘Send them away!’ said the disciples, ‘it’s too much for us to cope with and soon they will be complaining and then it will be our fault.’

It depicts modern Bible Christianity sometimes. ‘Send them away’ – the church these days that won't restart the Sunday School. ‘Oh the difficulties are too great; there is too much to be considered. Send the children away.’ If you are Calvinists, you can hide behind grand doctrines of grace: ‘If God means to save them, he’ll find some way of doing it; it isn't all down to us; send them away.’ Or perhaps you and I say it during the day. The opportunity to witness to someone has come, and we should witness to them, but we shrink from it. ‘Oh not that person; that person will be difficult. Send them away Lord.’ Again, maybe we hide behind the doctrine of sovereign election. God will have a way of reaching him, but I'm scared of that one. I recoil from that one. These words convict us: ‘Send them away.’ You can't ever do that.

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Mark 6:36 Commentary and Bible Study