Luke 9:10-17 The Picnic
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: August 12, 2018 Luke 9:10-17
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” And they did so, and had them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
(Understanding the Text) The twelve disciples had returned to Jesus. He must have set a time limit on how long they were to travel and told them to come back to meet Him at a certain place on a certain day. As they returned, some of them probably met up along the road and began sharing stories of their experiences. Did they trickle in by two’s throughout the day, or did groups of four and six come in? When they came upon Jesus, they knew because of the crowds surrounding him. Due to their position as the twelve, Jesus’ assistants helped them to get through the crowd to Jesus directly. Jesus listened as they gave the reports of what they had done, but He saw that little would be accomplished in debriefing them with the constant interruptions of the crowd, so He took them and went to a town called Bethsaida. The other reason that some commentators think caused the withdrawal is that according to Matthew 14:13, Jesus had just heard about the beheading of John the Baptist and wanted to withdraw for a while because of it (Michael Card’s commentary on Luke).
If Jesus was in Capernaum when the disciples returned, He probably sailed in a boat along the shore over to a deserted area near Bethsaida. There, He took the time to listen and give feedback about the disciples’ experiences. This would have been a wonderful time of communion and rest for them all, but it was only a short time.
I imagine the disciples noticing the first group of people walking over to them or maybe a boat pulling in and letting people out. They may have tried to ignore the people as they continued speaking of their trips. Then, more and more people gathered, and some desperate person interrupted Jesus’ discussion with His disciples to beg healing for a son or daughter. I imagine it to be a mother or father because a parent would do anything and interrupt anyone on the possibility of obtaining help for a child. Jesus brought His meeting with the disciples to a close and turned a welcoming smile to the petitioner. At that, the crowd came forward, and the disciples took up their old familiar places in regulating the flow.
In one way, the disciples would have felt that this was old news, but in some ways they would have had a brand new perspective now that they had been the ones who had healed and preached on their own. Did Jesus have some of them do the healing while He watched? It does not say. I kind of think that it was only Jesus or Luke would have said differently, but I could be wrong. As the day progressed, the disciples, who had taken responsibility for the practical aspects of crowd control, reminded Jesus that these people needed to eat, and they were far away from a town. They urged Jesus to send the people away, but Jesus saw a teachable moment for His disciples. They had believed enough in Him in order to heal others, but now He wanted to open their minds to something bigger. He wanted them to know that they had power to do more than heal. The power that they had received from Him was for more than physical healing.
I imagine that there was mischief on His face as Jesus looked at the disciples who had come to Him and responded, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples were stunned. What was Jesus talking about? They didn’t have enough food with them. They didn’t have enough money. Did Jesus expect them to travel over to Bethsaida and beg enough food and bring it back and feed these people? That was impossible. Jesus might have smiled as He saw their confusion and heard their objections. This would be fun teaching these men that He loved to look up higher to the possibilities that He was placing in their power.
Jesus told them to divide the crowd up into manageable groups of about fifty each. If there were 5,000 men and only men were in the groups that would have been 100 groups. There may have been more groups or more people in each group when the women and children were added. Michael Card in his commentary on Luke estimates that there were between 10,000-15,000 people in the crowd. Had the disciples seen that look on Jesus’ face before, and were they anticipating something wonderful happening? Or were they skeptically dividing the crowd? I think the former. They had just come back from performing miracles themselves and knew that the others had done the same. They had heard their Master being happy with them and then watched as He patiently healed and taught the people. They loved Jesus and had learned to expect great things from Him, so I think they were giving each other excited looks as they divided up the groups trying to guess what Jesus was going to do.
Jesus had them gather round Him with their baskets. (I think they had baskets from the beginning as they had some at the end.) They bowed their heads and listened as Jesus prayed and blessed the food that they had given Him earlier. “Blessed art Thou, eternal God our Father, who causes bread to come forth from the earth.” (Card, Michael. Luke: The Gospel of Amazement (The Biblical Imagination Series) (p. 122). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.)
Then, Jesus began to break it into pieces. He called Peter forward, and put some into his basket, then the next disciple, and the next. Then with a big grin (I think) He looked at them and once again told them. “You give them something to eat.” The disciples turned and did exactly what their Master had told them to do. Some may have been doubtful as they started while others were grinning because they knew what would happen when they started distributing the food. As the food kept flowing and flowing from their baskets the disciples became more and more excited. Then, as fatigue set in, they may have settled down and the distribution from the everflowing baskets became routine. Finally, everyone had been served and the disciples sat down with Jesus and ate their own meal.
When they were finished, Jesus grinned a big grin again (I think) and told His disciples, “Go pick up the left overs.” Knowing that grin, the disciples were not surprised when they went to each group asking for left overs and received some from each group. Did people talk to them asking where the food had come from? Did the disciples ask if everyone was full with big smiles on their faces? I think as they went from group to group, the words spread that the food had come from only five loaves and two fish. The crowd would have been unbelieving at first, but as they calculated the logistics of what had just happened, and the fact that the disciples had never left the area, the crowd would have realized that the miracle that happened was more logical than any logical explanations that anyone could come up with.
(Revelation of God) Card says that there were two miracles: the feeding and the leftovers. “In the second half of Luke 9:17, we read that twelve small lunch-pail-sized wicker baskets, kophinoi,[9] of the leftovers are picked up. The leftovers were referred to as the peah in Judaism and were usually left as provision for the slaves (see Mt 15:27; Mk 7:28). Wasting food was seen as an insult to God. The “miracle behind the miracle” of the feeding of the five thousand is the perfect provision that is left for the Twelve, who were in the process of learning to be servants. Out of that vast crowd, which must have covered several acres, twelve lunch pails of leftovers were gathered for the Twelve.” (Card, Michael. Luke: The Gospel of Amazement (The Biblical Imagination Series) (p. 122). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.) Thus, the disciples were being taught that when they were asked to give to others, their own needs would be met also.
(Revelation of God / Application) I always hear people saying to protect yourself and don’t give more than you can without hurting yourself. The lesson here is that when God asks you to take care of His business, He will take care of you in return. We do not have to protect ourselves from God and His requests. The problem comes when we try to add to God’s requests and impose more burdens on ourselves than what God has asked us to take. This comes on because we try to do God’s job as well as our own. This is a lack of trust. I need to do the job that God has given me and ignore the comments of others. I need to trust that God knows what He is doing. I also need to remember that I am only one part of the plan and only one worker in the team. I need to believe that God can coordinate His plan and simply do my part without worrying about the outcome. I need to grin right back at God and wait for Him to multiply the blessing.
Card says, “It is an impossible command. It is one of those situations in which Jesus continually puts his disciples, both then and now. Bill Lane used to say, ‘You should always work at the level of your own inadequacy.’ That was his way of encouraging us to accept following Jesus as a life of impossible commands. The disciples have just come back from a mission on which they carried nothing for themselves to eat. It is a thoroughly hopeless situation, a perfect parallel to the starving Israelites in the wilderness (Ex 16).” (Card, Michael. Luke: The Gospel of Amazement (The Biblical Imagination Series) (p. 121). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.) That is my application for myself. God gives impossible commands to me. I look to try to solve them in the usual ways. It does not work, and I complain to God. He grins at me and says watch and do what I tell you. I need to listen to God and see how He wants me to fulfill His commands.
(Prayer) You have commanded us to take your gospel to the world. You have placed me in this city, so I looked here to serve you in that capacity. I am trying to serve You, but I don’t know what my mission is. I started the group, and we sing at nursing homes. You are having us lead the song service at the retreat. I started the Facebook page because that seemed to be what You were telling me to do. However, I really don’t know what I am doing. I pray that You will bless all these things as You blessed the food and make them multiply for Your glory.