Second-rate People?

# 485 - Today's Living Word comes from Mr 8:4 “Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"

Are the disciples really this dense? It wasn't all that long ago that Jesus had fed the 5000. Are you telling me that not one of them would remember the capabilities of Jesus to feed this throng? You don't forget something like that.

There must be something else going on with their question. Look carefully at their question. The phrase “these people” smacks of differentiating between two classes of people. The disciples are Jewish, “these people” are Gentiles.

The disciples are thinking in terms of crumbs for these second rate people. It was a crumb that the Gentile woman received from Jesus when her daughter was delivered from a demon. (Mr 7:27) In their unenlightened minds, the Gentile was only worthy of crumbs.

The word “satisfy” here means to be gorged as in what happens to you on a typical Thanksgiving day. Mere crumbs will never produce such a sensation. The disciples were merely restating what they took to be fact. Gentiles only get crumbs and crumbs do not satisfy.

At this point in their spiritual journey they did not see the Gentiles as equal recipients of the grace of God. This miracle would plant a seed necessary to dispel that notion, and in so doing would one day help the disciples dispel the gospel to Gentiles like you and I.

And by the way, let us all learn to avoid “these or those people” language in our conversations and thoughts as if we are somehow better than others. We are all sinners in need of God's grace.

I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.