my aha today THE GOSPEL IN FIVE LOAVES & TWO FISH I awoke this morning with nervous anxiety due to my gut not functioning right again. To get my mind off the discomfort, I turned scriptures in my head. I don’t know how, but I ended up at the five loaves and two fish story—Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five thousand. I think God was giving me a super food for my gut, as He showed me something beautiful. You’re probably familiar with the story, but I hope you will see the greater story within the story: So you have a world (the multitudes in the wilderness) that is hungry, sick and perishing, and God the Father (Jesus) has compassion on them. He doesn’t send them away, but wants them saved and fed. The Jewish leadership (the disciple Philip) actually thinks that salvation (food) for the world can be bought with good works through obedience to the law (Philip’s suggestion of buying 200 denarii worth of bread). Along comes Jesus (the lad) offering His grace and Himself as the Bread of Life (the five loaves of bread, five being the number of grace in Bible numerics). Why? So that there can be many saved believers (the two fish* multiplied) netted from the world (the multitudes in the wilderness). The Jewish leadership (Andrew) despises this offering of the Bread of Life and His grace—“What are they among so many?” Theirs is the sin of unbelief in the grace of Christ. So the Bread of Life and grace are given and multiplied, instead, to the Gentiles (the multitudes in the wilderness). And along with the multiplication of the knowledge of Jesus and His grace is the multiplication of believers (the two fish multiplied). The Bread of Life and grace are given to the Gentiles not directly by the Father or the Son, but through the Jews (the Jewish disciples were the ones distributing the bread and fish, and the miracle happened through their hands). Paul was one such Jew, as he was the apostle to the Gentiles, preaching the gospel of grace to them and multiplying the number of believers. The 12 baskets full of leftovers are reserved for the 12 tribes of Israel. God has reserved enough grace for all of them despite their rejection of Jesus. There are many Jewish believers being saved by Jesus’ grace today and many more will be saved when He returns for them. Note: *The two fish represent the first two disciples Jesus called—Simon and Andrew. They are a picture of disciples and believers who have been multiplied many times over all over the world. The fish symbol is actually the secret symbol used by early Christians under persecution to identify themselves and communicate with one another. Today, you might see the fish symbol on the back of some vehicles. Some have the word “IXOYE” in them. IXOYE means “fish” in Greek, but is really a Greek acrostic for “Jesus, Christ, God’s, Son, Savior.” Indeed, the fives loaves and two fish story tells the gospel story of the Jew and Gentile.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 10:52:05 +0000