Tonight we are looking one more time at the parables for just a 020 or 30 minutes or so and then we're going to look at Jesus teaching during a difficult we might say an awkward period of his life. Last time we're together we looked pretty carefully at several of the parables of Jesus from the gospel of Luke. I want to look at one more tonight and that one will be the parable of the good Samaritan. I want to look at it because it's one of our favorites but I also have interest in teaching on it because it presents a problem that I would like to think about with you. The problem is how do you actually tell the parables? Particularly with this one the problem is how do you get the shock value back into the good Samaritan. I mean for one thing, you know when we tell or study the good Samaritan in some senses you might say our first attitude is almost a yawn of that again and for one thing we know what's going to happen because every time the man gets beaten up and robbed the good Samaritan stops and helps him every single time, right? There's no suspense. We know how the story is going to end. And besides that we're used to the idea that it's a good Samaritan who does that because after all I mean it's the parable of the good Samaritan so he's going to be good. And we missed the fact that this would be shocking or even outrageous to a Jew who heard this parable originally in the first century. Talking and outrageous because a Samaritan was probably the last person in the world a Jew would expect to help. Now we don't recognize that because the only Samaritan we've ever heard of is a good one, the good Samaritan. But every Samaritan they'd ever heard of was bad. And so we have to unlearn and look again if we want to see and feel what Jesus is talking about here. And it gets us to think about the question of communication. Let's take a look at Luke chapter 10, verse 25, and following a little bit and remind ourselves of the scene and maybe I'll explain a couple things about it that we might have possibly missed over the years. And all starts with a lawyer coming to Jesus, verse 25, to question him. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus says, well, you know, what's written in the law? What do you read there? And the lawyer says, well, I read that we should love the Lord our God with our heart and so on, strength and love our neighbors or self. And Jesus answers, you've answered, well, you've answered rightly. Do this and you will live. Now when Jesus says you've answered rightly, I think what he's probably saying to them almost is, you've given the right answer. Even maybe you've given the Pat answer. That's what we all know. The trick is to do it and then you'll live. Well, this leaves a bit of a problem for this particular lawyer and it's hinted at in verse 29. He wanted to justify himself and so he said, who is my neighbor? Now there's two ways to read this that he wanted to justify himself. One is that he was embarrassed. Here he came asking, Jesus is a question. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he himself knew the answer. Isn't that stupid to ask a question when you know the answer seems foolish? I mean, why are you asking? And so maybe he wanted to justify himself to show that he really did have a good question and he asked further, who is my neighbor? Specify please who you mean. That's one possibility but there's another possibility. The second possibility, I think it's actually, they may both be true but this one's a little more prominent. The second possibility is that he knew exactly how difficult it would be to do this and you will live. And so he thought like many Jews of that time thought, if I can restrict the command, maybe I can do it. So if I restrict who my neighbor is, then maybe it's possible for me to love my neighbor. If maybe, loving my neighbor is just loving a few people near to me, a few friends and neighbors, then maybe I can justify myself. Maybe I can be righteous in the sight of God by doing enough good deeds. And I think that's, I don't think the first one is absent, but I think the second one is actually more prominent and more sensible, given the historical background. So Jesus says, OK, I'll answer that question, who is your neighbor, and I'll answer it by telling you a story. Again, this story is so familiar to us that it creates problems. There's no longer any shock value to it, but maybe we can see a couple of new things. First of all, I want to see, there we are, if I just show you a thing or two about what this road from Jerusalem to Jericho was like, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho starts off in Jerusalem, as you all know. Jerusalem is actually about 2,000 feet above sea level, and it gets, because it is at the top of a range of hills, it gets a fair amount of rain, maybe 20 inches a year, which isn't all that bad. Jericho is the only oasis in the Jordan Rift Valley, and some of you may know that that spot is the lowest on earth, about 14,000 feet below, sorry, 1400 feet below sea level, that would be a lot, 14,000 feet below sea level. And on the road down, you see, once the clouds have dropped their precipitation in Jerusalem in that plateau, that high plateau, it's gone. If you follow down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, there is nothing there. When I went down that road with a tour about two years ago in Israel, we stopped the bus, and the driver said, here's a place you can see this and that and the other thing and so forth, and over there you can see the tree on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And I noticed that he said the tree, not one of the trees, he said the tree. And I looked in there was one tree, it was about 10 feet tall, it had about 14 leaves on it, about six branches, and that was it. It's just some of the most desolate, barren, forsaken territory on the earth. You want to travel through it as fast as you can, and it's a sensible place for robbers to weigh lay people because there's nothing there to stop them. I mean there's not going to be any helpers or any police or any towns or anything like that. It's utterly barren. And so the man is a traveler, is attacked. And it says in verse 30, that they stripped him of his clothes, beat him in one away, leaving him half dead. Now what this does is make him into every man, no man. He is not wearing, he probably is still in a loincloth, but he was not wearing any clothes that would tell anybody who he was. He's just a man lying there unconscious, maybe dead. He's also speechless, he's unconscious. So he's not able to speak, so no one knows what language he speaks, no one can tell by his accent who he is or where he's from. He's just a man. And so when people see him, they have no idea if he is neighbor or not. If they owe him anything or not, in chapter 10, then it goes like this. A priest happened to be going down the same road and passed by on the other side. Now what we like to do when we tell this story is beat up on the priest and say what a cruel and vicious and heartless person he was, but in fact, it might be better to view the priest at least in part as a victim of his system and of the values of his class at that time, or his type of person, not class in the sense of upper class, lower class, but rather this, priests were not permitted to touch the dead. And the priest didn't know if this man was dead or not. There's a clear cut command in the Old Testament that says you cannot touch the corpse if you're a priest. A man looked like he was dead. So now maybe there's a chance, maybe there's a chance of the man being alive, so maybe he can do the right thing, but if the man's dead, he has certainly violated a law of God. Furthermore, if he does, he would have to quite possibly go through an lengthy and expensive process of purification. He might lose some income if he was going to be going back to Jerusalem to serve shortly. He might lose his ability to earn his income that week. He would certainly have to go through purification like any common person. The filing sounds would be very embarrassing for a priest to begin with common folk taking care of uncleanness. He would have to buy a red heifer and boil it and burn it to ash and that wouldn't be cheap. So there were real costs, tangible costs, both moral and financial, that pushed him to do what he did if you weren't living at that time. Furthermore, since he's not sure who this man is, it's not clear in that culture that he owed him anything. Here's a book that people read a great deal in Jesus' time, kind of like we read maybe John's thought or CS Lewis. He or other favorite authors, John MacArthur, whoever you might think of. His name is Ben Sirac. He wrote a book called Ecclesiasticus. It's in the Apocrypha. And in chapter 12 or 7 of his book, Ben Sirac said, if you do a good turn, know for whom you are doing it. Do good to a devout man and you will receive a reward from him or from God. Give to the devout man, do not go to the help of a sinner, give nothing to a godless man. Why? Because if you help a godless man, become restored to health, you may simply help him or her. Sin more. In fact, at one point, the rabbis had a debate. Several rabbis had a debate. And they discussed exactly what you owed to someone whom you know to be a Gentile. And they actually debated this. What if a Gentile falls out of a boat into a river or into a lake in his drowning? Do you have to help them or not? And the answer was, you may, but you don't have to. You don't owe him anything. You decide. It's up to you. So the priest is not necessarily, therefore, a cold or evil man. Rather, he is doing what we might say is almost predictable. For his day and time. The Levite would be much the same. It's a little bit more complicated with the Levite. The Levites didn't actually have all the prohibitions that a priest did according to law of God. But the Levites laid the laws of priests on themselves. It's like they said, well, we're going to live as righteous as the priest do. And so, while technically they didn't have the same burdens, they had imposed them on themselves. The third person who comes, of course, is the Samaritan. And not only is it unexpected that a Samaritan would help, but, again, according to the customs of the time, again, some rabbis actually debated this. They urged that a Jew not receive help from a Samaritan if they were in need. Because if they fed them or they clothed them and they put oil in their wounds, they would be using what was not tithed. And so, they would be sinning by using untied things. And so, one of the rabbis said, if this happens, what you should say is, see if I can find my quotation, I have it here somewhere, what you're supposed to say is begun, caffeine, Samaritan. I will have none of your oil and wine to take, or other wine for a Samaritan. From a Samaritan, in fact, was supposed to be a sure sign that you didn't have any self-control. Because you shouldn't be receiving this, because it's not tithed to God. But, in fact, of course, the Samaritan despite all this, despite the fact that most likely this man whom he encountered was not a Jew at all. The fact that he might be cursed didn't stop him. He helped them and gave as much as was needed to take care of him and took him in. Now, I've probably told you a couple of things you hadn't heard before, but do you think even this would communicate or fully bring this to life? The shock value? Is it easy to bring that to life for people today? To get people to make the point? See the point? Let me tell you what a man did a few years ago. And I read this to you, it's not my creation, it's somebody else's creation. And I just, I'm going to read it to you and you tell me what you think of it. I'm going to tell you it was written by a man named Clarence Jordan, who wrote what was called the cotton patch version of the Bible. How have you ever seen that? Okay, handful of you have seen that. And he, you know, he made all what did he do? I forget the details now, but, you know, Atlanta was Jerusalem and Albany was Galilee and he put it all in the south, basically Alabama, and maybe a couple of other states a little bit in the 1960s, which is important to understand what happened. A man, this is how Clarence Jordan tells the story. A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters beat him up. When they had robbed him of his wallet and his brand new suit, they drove off in his car, leaving one conscious on the shoulder of the highway. It just so happened that a white preacher was going down the same highway. When he saw that fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by. Shortly afterwards, a white gospel song leader came down the same road. And what he, when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas. Then a black man coming that way came upon the fellow and what he saw moved in the tears. He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could and drew some water from his water jug to wipe away the blood and lay them on the back seat of his car. He drove on into Albany, took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, you all take good care of this white man I found on the highway. Here's the only $20 I got that you keep an account of what he owes and if he can't pay up, I'll try to settle with you when he makes a payday. Now I want to ask you what you think of that. Do you like it or dislike it? If you remember, this is the 60s in the South. Go ahead. This is a class of about 100 people or so. We have maybe 20 people of color in this class, I'm going to say. That's just a guess, I don't know. And one of our black students said this doesn't fit the 60s in the South because actually the idea of a black man having access to white hospital wouldn't work better if it was a black man lying in a white man health and then he could get him to hospital. That's your point. Okay. Anybody else? I see heads nodding on that, historical detail, but anybody else? Anybody like it? Okay, here's a couple more points just to repeat. What's your name again? Cardella. Cardella likes the openness of it because not all white people are the same, just like not all black people are the same. But then you also added this little thing just a little bit more detail about why relations are more complicated, maybe than this little parable allows, we might say. Well, this is interesting and it shows at least the responses show a couple things. One, let me put it this way. How many of you were at least intrigued by it? May you think a little? Or do you like it in the end or not? It's intriguing. It makes you hear it again and that's good. But there's also various ways in which really all three commentators here in our class have said it doesn't exactly fit, it kind of breaks down someone. Let me try again, can I? They're not confessed to you that this is one I wrote. And I wrote it about three years ago. So I can't blame it on somebody in the 60s in Alabama or something. A man was traveling from St. Louis to Indianapolis on a winter morning when his car hit a patch of ice and split off the road, little ways into Illinois. It's a car plowed into a bank. A man was knocked unconscious and thrown from the car. Sooner pastor, yes, I did it again. Sooner pastor who happened to be in the road saw him in a ditch but he drove by who was on the way to Presbyteria. And next the missionary saw him but he too turned into the outside lane and passed him by who was on his way to a mission conference. Then a homosexual on his way to New York City came by. Saw the man lying on the roadside, felt compassion for him and stopped. After checking for injuries, he covered the man with his coat called an ambulance and accompanied him to the hospital. That this American express car to pay for an expenses not covered by the man's insurance and called AAA to come and get his car. Meanwhile, the pastor was now two or three miles down the road. Remember Jesus' words, whatever you've done to the least of my brothers, brothers you've done unto me. Deeply troubled, he turned around and returned to the scene. By the time you arrived, whoever the man and his helper had already gone, agreed himself he sat in his car and prayed, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. How do you like that one? Now you don't have to like it just because it's mine. You don't have to like it. Comments? Is anybody upset that I use the homosexual? Can anybody guess why it might work? Why does it seem that it worked? If nobody's upset then somebody must have thought it worked. Why does it work, Jennifer? Okay, because the church sees it as outcasts, undesirables and sees them as having a stigma because of their sin somehow. Yeah, homosexual doesn't meet the same criteria as a Samaritan, why not? Okay, homosexuals have a higher standing in our society than Samaritan's did back then. Now I've got hands going up. Mary, let me get... Mary. And that is what I was shooting for. The man lying by the road is undistinguished. He's just a human being in need. And then an unexpected person stops to help the person in need and does what is necessary in an act of love for neighbor. Somebody whom you wouldn't think of as neighbor, just a man lying there. That's the way it is in the good Samaritan. Do you like that? Because I was aiming for that, yes. I don't see the Samaritan in the same light. As a homosexual? Yes. And the belief that Samaritan was a Samaritan because that's not by choice. Oh, now we're in the hot stuff here. Okay, we can talk about this all night but here's what I want to do. I'm glad somebody said it. So thank you. The Samaritan and the homosexual aren't quite the same one more time. And here the point is that Samaritan is Samaritan by birth, not by choice, but the homosexual is by choice. Now we can get into all that debate and we aren't going to do that. But I want to agree a little bit and disagree. I'm going to agree first and say, listen, there is no perfect way to retell the story. It is impossible. You're never going to perfect match because cultures always change no matter who you choose. It's always room for critique and for somebody to say that doesn't quite work. On the other hand, I will say that a Jew might not have been so sure if Samaritan had no choice because they always had the right to convert to Judaism. So that might be how a Jew was living in if they could come and listen to our class. He might say, yeah, they had a choice. They knew about the temple. They could have switched if they wanted. And be that as it may. Now nobody wanted to comment on my strange thing with a preacher. Yeah. Are you like that? Now let me tell you why I did it. I did it to do two things. I did it one just to add a wrinkle. Just to sort of trouble you a little because that's what parables are supposed to do. They're supposed to set you thinking and maybe also to make you identify and put yourself there a little more. Because after all, isn't that what a lot of us have done? I mean, how many of us, how many of you, have gone by somebody in need and then felt bad about it? How many of you have never done that? Okay, not one hand goes up. So I did it to kind of get us into the story, which is what Jesus is trying to do with most of his parables and kind of get it out of the classroom scenario and put you in there, even though you may not be an ordained minister. Well, when you tell these parables this way, the reason why I go into this is to suggest to you that we can't be passive about the parables. The parables were like jokes. They startled people. They amazed people. And if you just stand there and say this is this and I'll explain that cultural custom and I'll explain that word to you, you can sap the life out of them. You want to make them lively. You want to help people feel like they're engaged. And candidly, I often partly retell parables so that last time we were together, we talked about maybe the... Oh, the banquet, the great banquet, for example. When I turn the auction into cars and I turn the field into a house and things like that when I preach or when I teach it, often to a group just to get things going a little bit. One more thing I want to say about parables and that is it is vital that we see the presence of Christ and the parables. Now, when we look at these parables, as we've seen so far, most of the ones we've looked at are either about discipleship or about the kingdom. And there is a danger there. The danger is that you will find yourself focusing on the moral point of the parable too much. And in fact, in general with the teachings of Jesus in some of the mountain here in the parables, it's very enticing to say, look, these are the things Jesus says, go do them. Go be a good disciple, go be a good Christian, do these things. And with the parables, it's possible to read them too moralistically. Because if Jesus is just saying, go be a good neighbor, go welcome sinners, go and whatever the case would be, whatever parable you're studying. Just go do it. There was a man, I think I mentioned him before too, his name is Adolf Uliker, spelled with a J-U-L-I-C-H-R, who said that all parables have one point. And that point, he said, is a moral point. He was a liberal in the sense of an old liberal who believed in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the infinite value of the human soul, and the worth of the ten commandments and the golden rule. That's what it means to be a Christian. He was in that broad movement. But each parable has a moral point. And it's easy and yet deeply flawed to read the parables too much as just a moral story. What I'd like to do is suggest to you that Jesus himself is visible in most of the parables he tells. Now, I'm going to give you some reasons why. The first reason is that Jesus himself says that you can find teachings about him all through scriptures. Luke chapter 24 says so. Luke chapter 24 verses 44 to 47. And here's what it says. Jesus is meeting with disciples and he says verse 44, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled. It is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Okay, what's that going to be? And he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said, this is what is written. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem. You are my witnesses of these things. Now, if you are sharp with your Bibles, you know that when you hear this phrase, this is what is written and so it is written and things like that. What you need to do is look for a quotation from the Old Testament. Right? So where does this statement come from, from the Old Testament, that Jesus has to, that the Christ must suffer and rise from the third day of repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all the nations? Look in your margins. You see the Bible verse for that? Hosea 6 verse 2? Now here's what I'm going to tell you. You turn to Hosea 6 verse 2 and you're going to be disappointed. Let's turn to it. Don't trust me. You can look at it for yourself. And I'm going to guess, we have a lot of people here. How many of you had Hosea 6 too in your margins? Just about three people. Okay? So most of you didn't, and I don't mean to put down your Bible as Mike, as you quoted that verse. It may be a fine Bible reference in most regards, but not this one. Here goes, after two days you will revive us on the third day he will restore us so we may live in his presence. And it doesn't say a word about the Christ, it's about restoring Israel, and it's really just a poetic device, two and three and four is a device some of the prophets used. In fact, there is no verse to these quoting here. This is one of just a handful of times where it says it is written and there's no quotation. When there's no quotation, and it's written, then what we have to understand is what Jesus said initially, this is what's written in all, all throughout the love most of the prophets and souls what he's saying is, the Old Testament as a whole predicts me. He's not thinking about one Bible verse in some way every book, every part of the whole Bible points to him. Now he was, when he said it's written, he's thinking Old Testament, but it's also true of the New Testament as well. The whole thing is about Jesus. So we have to say, if Jesus himself says the whole Bible is about him, how are the parables about him? Not just about morals. Here's the first part of an answer. Jesus himself puts himself in several of his parables. The first parable we studied was, remember Matthew 13, the Sower. And as you read the Sower and the Parable of Wheat and Tears, who is the Sower? The Son of Man, some of you have said that, he says explicitly, later on in chapter 13, the Sower is the Son of Man. So when he tells you about the Sower, he's talking about himself, he soars the word. And when he tells the parable of Wheat and the Tears, he's saying about himself that there is opposition to his work. So we've got two parables right there in which Jesus is talking about himself, he says he is. Then last week we also saw some other parables in which we said, and none of you objected to it, the Jesus is a figure in the parable, in the parable of the lost sons, who is the Christ figure. The Father, because just as the Father seeks lost sons, so Jesus seeks lost people. And in the parable of the great banquet is Jesus there? Absolutely. Jesus is like the host of the banquet, in that he is inviting all kinds of people to himself. And we can think of other parables as well. How about the parable of the wicked tenant farmers in Matthew chapter 21, we talked about that just briefly last time I believe. Remember how the parable goes? The owner says, I want to collect my rent, and he sends messengers, and they beat some, and they threw them out, and then he says, surely they will respect my son. Did they respect them? They killed them, and they said, we'll take the inheritance, we'll take the vineyard, they threw them out, and then they killed them. It's exactly what Jesus did. And then of course we have Matthew 24 and 25, and Matthew 24 and 25 just take a look at it with me for a moment. Matthew chapter 24 and 25 was about the last times and about the day of judgment, and we'll tell you we'll study that in more detail in a little while. But in verse 36, Jesus says very plainly, no one knows about that day or that hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the sun, but only the father. He's the only one who knows. That's pretty clear. He goes on to say, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the coming of the son of man. Who's the son of man? Jesus, so he's saying, my coming will be like the coming of the flood. No, it was the coming of the flood like. Well, for 120 years, that's why I read it anyway, Noah kept saying, you know, one of these days it's going to rain. And everybody said, well, yeah, great. And so they married and they gave in marriage and they lived their lives and Noah kept saying, you know, one of these days it's going to rain. And then one day it rained. And then everybody started to try to see if they could get into the ark and be delivered. Then that's pretty clear, but Jesus says that's what it's going to be. And then he tells a series of parables, you see, about this very thing, about one who comes like a thief in the night. Well, who's that then? Who's the one who comes like a thief in the night? Jesus. And then he tells about 10 virgins who weren't ready for the bridegroom when he came. Who would the bridegroom be? Jesus. And then he talks about someone who went away on a long journey and gave talents to his subordinates and then came back to see the sudden, again, unexpected time a little bit, to see how they did with them and called into account. Who would that be? That would be Jesus. And he told us that at the beginning. So there are, and how many do we do just now, about four, five, six, we just did about eight or nine, in which Jesus tells parables in which he himself appears. And I want to commend that to you as a strategy, there are others as well, in which somewhere or other the main figure in his own stories is him. What he does in his grace and his judgment and his plan. Some parables also are told I will put it this way under the shadow of the cross. I think I'll just leave it like that, because we're going to see one tonight, but they're parables that point to his future death and resurrection. So we have here then for you this idea, we have to be careful about telling the parables one to make sure we don't explain them to death and two to make sure we do not become closet legalists. That's the agenda I have for you under the parables. Any question or comment? Good, because I don't want any right now. I want to jump right on to what's coming next. And what's coming next is back to the gospel of Matthew. Matthew's our main theme, our main book for this course, and I want to get back into that now. And as we do what we're doing is looking at the training of the disciples, the training of the disciples. Now all four gospels make it pretty clear around this time that we are in an awkward, difficult phase of Jesus' ministry. We saw it in chapters 11 and 12 of Matthew before. He performed that wonderful miracle of curing that demon possessed man and what did the people say? So he does it by the power of Satan. And that was that was a startling thing. And so Jesus had to tell about the way his ministry would be rejected. That's how the teaching and parables all got started. And he's veiling his words somewhat. So perhaps they can't be seized and misused. Matthew 14 and through 17 take us through a picture of this era. And we could say he does it through some cycles. And it goes like this. 14 through 17 shows first opposition from the Jews. Then it shows complete incomprehension by the crowds. And then it shows an episode of a little bit of understanding by the disciples. And then back to opposition, complete misunderstanding and then back to a little bit of understanding by the disciples. And we just rotate through this and nobody is getting anything clearly. The disciples are barely grasping a few things. That's the best you can say. Now Mark and Luke describe it a little bit differently. Mark stresses even more strongly and we'll see this later on. How even the disciples struggled mightily. He doesn't really focus so much on the others but on the tremendous difficulty. The disciples had in coming to understanding of Jesus. And Luke puts his emphasis on the idea that they're beginning a great journey to Jerusalem. And even John in his own way through the way he tells the story of the feeding of 5,000 shows, how tumultuous and how dangerous this period was for as John tells it after the feeding of 5,000. The misunderstanding by many of the common Jews was so bad that they tried to make him king on the spot. And the reason why they wanted it was because of his capacity to make bread. So the four gospels give different stories or give different accounts here of the events but they all show the same picture. I want to go through it kind of rapidly. It starts with opposition from the Jewish leaders shown in the death of John the Baptist. Chapter 14 verses 1 to 12. You may say how exactly does the death of John the Baptist show opposition to Jesus. And if you ask that question, I would say it's a good one. It's one I want to put to you. Why would the gospel writers signify trouble for Jesus when they report the death of John? How is the death of John dangerous for Jesus? Or ominous shall we say? Because John preaches and points to Christ. So if the four runner of Christ is slain, what are they going to say about the one to whom he points? What will their intentions be? Furthermore, their ministries were so similar in certain ways, weren't they? John came preaching to kingdom. Jesus came preaching to kingdom. John came calling people to repentance. Jesus came calling people to repentance. John attracted crowds. Jesus attracted crowds. Both suffered opposition and when the first whose career started a little earlier is killed and gives us a hint about what their intentions may be for Jesus. The crowds during this time are following Jesus to be sure, but you know it's just a question about exactly how much they really received. Let me take a look at the next episode with you. The feeding of the 5,000 and see how Matthew makes that particular point. Verse 13. When Jesus heard what had happened, he would drew by vote privately to a solitary place. Now what this tells you is that Jesus practiced what he preached. Remember what Jesus said when there's opposition? Matthew chapter 10. Go to another town. Don't change your theology. Change your geography. So he said, okay, they're killing over here. I'm leaving. It's not time yet. And so he moved on and the crowds followed him. In fact, they followed him on foot and maybe without really planning things very much. It says in verse 15, his disciple said, this is a lonely place is getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food. Did you hear that little word there? Buy themselves some food. They've been with us for a long time and they've been getting lots of teaching. Now it's time for them to take care of themselves. Jesus sent them away. Well, Jesus responds, by the way, is one indication that the disciples aren't following Jesus' ministry very well, a ministry of compassion, and they seem pretty hard-hearted. Jesus said, you know, that's not right. They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat. And the Greek, that's emphatic. You, you give them something to eat. They reply, we only have five lows and two fish as one of the other gospels say, what would that be among so many people? Now here, one more time, we have to get rid of Sunday school pictures. What is your Sunday school picture scenario of the feeding of the 5,000? How is it told in Sunday school? Somebody tell me you went to Sunday school. It's always the same in Sunday school. The little boy had five lows and two fish and he walked up and said, Jesus, I have food for you. You can have my food, right? Where does that come from? Wasn't in the passage we just read. Where did it come from? It comes from John. It comes from John. But here's what I want to tell you. If you put the two together, it's quite clear from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that Jesus is saying, you give them something to eat. And the way that boy is described in John, I'll put it this way, the gospel of John and the gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which all have the story of Jesus demanding the disciples to get some food. And they say, we have five and two. But the boy was a member of their entourage and he was carrying their food. And he wasn't a little, you know, one of those little dough-eyed, you know, his little giant head and one curly, cute hair and big, drooping eyes and a little smile. You know, he was probably more like a teenager. The word that's used is, could cover somebody up to, you know, almost manhood. And so it's not a little tiny boy walking up saying, here I have five and two and everybody's ashamed that they didn't have. They refuse to share. Picture is, this is Jesus' supply and the disciples' supply and Jesus is saying, what do you have? What do we have? How much food do we have? The answer is, five loaves and two fish, incidentally, it is from John that it says it's five barley loaves. You know what a barley loaf is? That's horse food. That indicates the poverty of Jesus into disciples. When food had to be created, Jesus would do it. But he did not create fine flour for themselves on a daily basis. And the word for fish is obsceria, which is about like our word, and this is not exact, but kind of like sardines. Now this is not, you know, albacortuna. Certainly not sord fish, or you know, what kind of fish do you like, blue fish, or whatever the case may be. This is trout, whatever it is. This is just, this is like mayonnaise, just to make the bread go down better. That's all we're talking about here. There's not much to this. But Jesus takes the elements, and now just jumping to John, sorry, from Matthew to John, in Mark, it's clear that the miracle takes place in Jesus' hands. It says in Mark that he kept on breaking, he took those five loaves, and he just kept breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking and giving and giving and giving. And somehow those loaves never give out. In fact, there was so much food, that 5,000 males ate, plus women and children, let's say, 15,000, 12,000, hard to say. 12 to 15,000 people ate, and 12 basket falls were left over, and it's a word for a big basket, like a basket, maybe about this high. You're kind of like the basket, you take your trash out in, it'd be bigger than that even. You know, about this high, about like this, enough food for a lot of people for a long time. And then when it's over, an interesting thing happens. It says the number who ate was 5,000 men and women besides men, besides women and children, and immediately Jesus told the disciples to get into the boat and go in the other side. What's odd about that? What's different about that miracle? Something we haven't seen before. What's different is, there's nothing. Aren't we used to a response after the miracles? Aren't we used to people praising God or saying who is this, or we've seen marvelous things today? Something, even if it's not a strong or excellent response, something. You know what this reminds me of? Have you ever had some teenage boys into your house when they're just starving half the death? They just roll into your house, they just open the refrigerator, and they just start grabbing things and eating things or maybe it's a separate time. And they just eat and eat and eat some more, and then after they're done eating some more, they eat some more, and then after they've eaten for about 45 minutes, and this is a meal's your last for three days, and it's all gone. They just leave. They didn't say thank you. It doesn't occur to them. Of course she fed us. That's what grown up women do. They feed us. And then an off they went. They just eat, maybe they burp, and move on, and they give it no more thought. And that's the way it was. The disciples didn't understand what Jesus was accomplishing, and the crowds didn't get it either. Well, maybe in the next scene, maybe the disciples will start to show some signs of life and comprehension, because he's got opposition on one side, and no understanding on another. How will the disciples do? Come back for part two. We're in the gospel of one more thing, a question during break, just to make it clear why I say that I think the boy is part of the entourage. I think it's clear that the food is expected to come from within the disciples community in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then the way the boy is described in John, which gives us the idea of the cutesy little boy with the bread and so forth in the front row, is extremely vague. And if you knew Greek, I'd be happy to show it to you. It doesn't say, here is a boy, or this is a boy, or this is the boy. It just says, boy here has food. That's all it says. That may sound odd to you, but it is actually a boy is here. He has food. But even the word ought isn't there. Boy here has food. Might almost be a translation of it. And so it doesn't specify, so Matthew, Mark, and Luke do, and that's why I take it as I did. Well, the disciples in Matthew chapter 14 are perhaps Jesus' hope. Not so strong was their performance in 14 wanting to get rid of the crowds, but maybe they're going to get things a little bit. And in fact, the counterpart of opposition and the crowds not understanding anything is, but the disciples do seem to understand things at least a little bit in chapter 14 verse 22 and following. After the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus withdraws for a time of prayer. And he sends his disciples on across the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is about 17 miles long, and at its widest point, 8 miles wide. It says, if they traverse the widest possible part, good rowers, men who know how to get around the Sea of Galilee, after all they were fishermen, could do it in a couple hours. But it says, in the 4th watch of the night, they were still tortured by the wind. And Jesus came to them on the wind, on the water, through the wind. They're terrified. They think it's a ghost, verse 26. But Jesus says, take courage, you desire, don't be afraid. Peter says, Lord, if it's you, let me come down to you on the water. We talked about this in our first night together. We just remind you, this is a perfect picture of the disciples at this phase. Enough faith to get out of the boat. Not enough faith, well let's put it this way, not enough faith to get out of the boat, enough faith to walk on the water to Jesus. Not enough faith to stay up. Enough faith to go, not enough to endure, we might say. Jesus says this to Peter, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Why did you hesitate? Why were you between the two faith and unfaith? So there we have it, that's the scenario. Strong opposition, the crowds understanding nothing, the disciples understanding having a little bit of faith, just a little bit of hope, a little promise that maybe they're learning a few things. The cycle continues in the very next account, and that is found in chapter 15 verses 1 to 20. You want to do it very briefly, and simply said to you, here's another controversy with the Pharisees. A controversy in this case over why Jesus and His disciples don't eat. Jesus says they're concerned about all the wrong things. They're people who honor me with their lips, they have the traditions of men but their hearts are far from me. It's not what's on your hands, it makes you cleaner, unclean. It's what's in your heart. The Pharisees are opposing Jesus. Next, we have the story of the Sarah Phoenician woman who studied already, and then I will jump to the feeding of the 4,000 verse 29 of chapter 15. Here again we have great crowds coming to Jesus to be healed, and they are healed, and they're amazed, and they're praising God, which is a little bit better. Jesus said, verse 32, I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days, and have nothing to eat, I do not want the sendable way hungry, or they may collapse on the way. The disciples answered, but where can we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd? Answer, hey, just 40 verses ago. Now, in the actual event of Jesus' life, it may have been weeks. We don't really know how long the time frame is between chapter and chapter. But as we read the story, and in fact, if they'd really taken in the story, they would know the answer to their question. Calvin said this about it. All who have once or twice experienced the power of God, and distrust it for the future, are convicted of unbelief, for faith cherishes in the heart, through remembrance of the gifts of God. That's for little quotes like that that we like John Calvin, or maybe better, we respect him deeply, and he gets right at the cusp of the matter, doesn't he? If they really appreciated what God had done, even if it had been a month or two months, they would know the answer as to where it would come from. But nonetheless, Jesus does go ahead, despite their lack of perception. It goes ahead, he takes care of things, and then feeds the people. And immediately after that, chapter 16, verses 1 to 4, back to the Pharisees and their opposition, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to Jesus and ask him for a sign from heaven. What's wrong here? He just fed 4,000. He just fed 5,000. He's healed people who are demon possessed. In chapter 14, verse 30, we barely mention it, but it says, he had healed the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. What is it exactly that they want? Besides that, Jesus is not in the business of performing enough miracles to force faith. And so, he says, he's not going to do it, it is rather only a wicked and adulterous generation that looks for a miraculous sign. The only sign they're going to get is the sign of Jonah, that is the sign of the prophet who himself was for all appearances dead, and then came to life again. That will be your sign. Jesus goes across the boat again and warns his disciples, verse 6, beyond God against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and that's all he says. And as disciples, discuss that among themselves a little bit, and they come to the conclusion, he's upset because we don't have any bread. Now, this is when you really start to get discouraged, because see lack of bread is not a problem. That is not the problem. Problem is lack of understanding, lack of insight, lack of discernment. Certainly the Pharisees and Sadducees have that problem. Jesus says to them again, verse 8, you have little faith. What are you talking about? I'm not talking about bread. You know that I can create all the bread that's necessary. You have to be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now, what did he just do there? He said the exact same thing he said earlier. He said, you have to be aware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they completely misunderstood. He said, no, no, no. You have to be aware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. When you say the same thing to somebody twice, and the first time they don't understand it, you say it again, what are you doing? You're implying that if they just listen, they can understand this. It doesn't go round and explain it like he just listened to me, just going to say it again, and then they get it. They understand. That's what he says. Then they understood, verse 12, he was not talking about bread. He was talking about teaching. So slowly, slowly, the disciples are coming to understanding. It is possible. Which leads us to the next passage, and that is the confession of Peter. Verse 13 of chapter 16 says, that Jesus took His disciples and doing a lot of traveling these days, the Caesarea Philippi, pretty far up in the north.