Reading the bible when you’re young is a bit like being a tourist in London who travels by tube. You can get about but you don’t see how things are connected. You see the big name sights, like Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament but you might not see what’s between them.
In Sunday school, you don’t read the bible cover to cover because it’s a big book, and there’s plenty there that’s too complicated or boring for an eight year old. Instead, you dip in and out of the greatest hits – like a tourist with a Travelcard visiting the sights bigged up in the Rough Guide.
Inevitably, you cover the big stories – The Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, and the Feeding of the 5,000.
But it wasn’t until I read the bible on my own that I came across the feeding of the 4,000. We’d covered lots of miracles, including the feeding of the 5,000 in Sunday School and again in actual school. Yet here we come across a smaller echo of the more famous miracle that was new to me in what the disciples described as “this remote place”.
In Matthew, the feeding of the 5,000 appears in chapter 14 and the feeding of the 4,000 in chapter 15. Mark reports on the first miracle in chapter 6 and the second two chapters later.
Why did a couple of the gospel writers include a seemingly slightly smaller miracle within pages of the story we’re all familiar with?
Given Jesus’s earthly ministry lasted about three years, we can assume the gospel writers only captured the most important bits. So why did two gospel writers quickly follow their reports of an incredible miracle with one that’s so similar?
The inclusion finally all fitted into place when I heard the feeding of the 4,000 being preached about this week. The Vicar explained the first miracle as being to a crowd of Jews, while the second miracle was to a crowd of Gentiles.
A clue above the 4,000 is in Matthew where the crowds were reported to have “praised the God of Israel”. Ben Hussung, writing in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, says that for many this is “the most significant factor in determining the identity of the four thousand.” Evangelical theologian D.A. Carson concurs, saying the phrase “could be naturally said only by Gentiles”.
In the Biblical Theology Study Bible, edited by Carson, says:
The miracle of the feeding of the 4,000 strikingly resembles the feeding of the 5,000. But here the crowds appear to be Gentile, not those who have followed Jesus as before. The teaching period is longer and the need for food more acute. The close duplication of the earlier miracle may intentionally demonstrate that Jesus is the bread of life for Gentiles as well as Jews.
In the sermon I heard, the point was brought out that in the 5,000, “twelve basketfuls of broken pieces”. Twelve, of course, is a significant figure in the bible because there there were 12 tribes of Israel. Meanwhile, in the 4,000, there are “seven basketfuls of broken pieces”. Seven is said to have significance in the bible because Genesis reports that creation, symbolically, occurred in seven days. It is said to represent completeness.