Mark 6:37 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 6:37

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But here comes a great test. ‘He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat.’ What a challenge it is. Christ is inviting their faith. He is giving them another opportunity as it were. You give them to eat. You would expect them to say, ‘Well, Lord, we cannot do that but you can. You ask us but you can do this.’ Still they don’t say the right thing. There are lots of tests of our faith in the Christian life. Between the Gospels you see what they did; a little more information is given in each one. They had to find out, how do we do this? According to John, Christ asked Philip, ‘Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?’ (John 6:5). So he is the person who Christ asked, but he was testing him, testing what he'd say, proving his faith, and Philip failed the test. He said, Lord if we had eight months wages – two hundred denarii, two hundred day’s pay; our King James version translates it ‘pennies’ – if we had eight months wages, it wouldn't feed this vast crowd, so we can do nothing. They are really indicating the hopelessness that they feel. Actually, others have calculated it would have cost far more than that to feed such a vast crowd but this is the first figure that comes into one of the disciples’ heads obviously. They are really indicating the hopelessness that they feel. To pass the test of faith, of course, Philip should have said, ‘We can do nothing Lord, but you can do anything. You can supply them’, but he didn't say that.

Application

Philip failed the test, and we fail the test time after time, the test of faith. When difficult circumstances arise, and we momentarily go to pieces, and feel sorry for ourselves, and weep and complain. They are only tests of faith. It helps us to think about the disciples’ reaction if we consider what would have happened if the Lord had not been God as well as man. What would he have felt? If he had been only a man, how crushed he would have been. Now it is illogical to say that, but supposing he had worked all his miracles, and the disciples look at him and say, ‘Nothing can be done’, and the Lord would be feeling inwardly, ‘Well what about me? I've done so many miracles in front of you; don’t you think I can do it? Why aren't you looking to me? Don't you think I can help? After all, you think nothing of me.’ The attitude of the disciples would have been crushing for the Lord, had he not been divine and perfect, God and man. It is a great insult really that Philip and the others thought that nothing could be done! When Christ was with them!

It is right for us to feel hopeless about our ability to achieve spiritual thing. We do need to be reliant on the Lord. He has the power, not us. But still, feeling hopeless in ourselves, that is one thing; being faithless and not trusting in him to do what we cannot do, that is another. They don’t trust him and it doesn’t occur to them that he can do it.

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Mark 6:37 Commentary and Bible Study