Matthew 14

This story has always disgusted me. A girl, who knows how old, is convinced by her mother to ask for a dismembered head on a platter. The depravity of the human race is astounding at times. Also, what is the point of being king? (or governor, or whatever Herod was) Like Darius with Daniel, the man in charge is trapped by someone to do something he is uncomfortable doing. Can’t he just say, “Never mind!” ?

Jesus is grieved by John’s death so He wanders off to mourn in private. The ignorant crowds follow Him like He’s a first century rock star. The impressive thing about Jesus is that , in the midst of His mourning, He has compassion on them and healed their sick and taught them. He even goes so far as to feed them miraculously. Matthew doesn’t give us much detail about the boy who gave his lunch to feed the crowd. Like the widow in Mark 12:41-44 who put two small coins in the offering, this boy gave all he had to Jesus to use, and he didn’t even have any guarantee that he would receive any benefit from his own gift. We today give a tithe, or even a little better than a tithe, and we feel pretty good about ourselves. Do we have the absolute faith to give Him everything we have? Do we see a need and fill it with all we have? He took this boys sacrifice and multiplied it to the point that there were significant leftovers. The promise of Malachi 3:10 in action.

Is the purpose of Jesus ministry to teach His disciples to have faith? Despite what they have seen so far, they still don’t trust Him to feed the 5,000 when the time comes. Then as soon as He’s performed a miracle in their presence they lose faith again out in the water. All except Peter. He exhibits enough faith to jump out of the boat. Then he doubts….

Oh that I would have enough faith to climb out of the boat . “Truly you are the Son of God”