Feeding of the Five Thousand - Part 4
Does anyone remember part 3 :-)
Well in case you don't my first point from the feeding of the five thousand was this:
The need was huge.
My second is perhaps no less obvious:
Jesus called his disciples (the church) to be part of the solution.
The disciples saw the size of the need. In fact they brought the need to Jesus attention (as if he was so busy preaching he wasn't aware of what was going on). But they wanted the hungry people to provide their own solution, to go off to the local Subway or MacDonalds and buy their own meal. Jesus had a different idea. His simple statement to them was "You give them something to eat".
I believe that whenever we see a need, Jesus calls us to be part of the solution. Not to expect people to fix it themselves, or to campaign for the government or some other organisation to come in and fix it, but for us to be part of the solution. Jesus was always meeting peoples felt needs, whether for food, healing, forgiveness, comfort or acceptance, and he expects us to do the same. Just take a look at Matthew 25:31-46 and see how seriously Jesus take this.
And this call isn't simply to us as individuals, but to us as a church, which is what the disciples represented. The church was never intended to be just a thermometer, measuring the temperature of society, but a thermostat, not only measuring the temperature but also being an agent for change.
In the next part I'll look at what this means for para church organisations.
Simon.
Well in case you don't my first point from the feeding of the five thousand was this:
The need was huge.
My second is perhaps no less obvious:
Jesus called his disciples (the church) to be part of the solution.
The disciples saw the size of the need. In fact they brought the need to Jesus attention (as if he was so busy preaching he wasn't aware of what was going on). But they wanted the hungry people to provide their own solution, to go off to the local Subway or MacDonalds and buy their own meal. Jesus had a different idea. His simple statement to them was "You give them something to eat".
I believe that whenever we see a need, Jesus calls us to be part of the solution. Not to expect people to fix it themselves, or to campaign for the government or some other organisation to come in and fix it, but for us to be part of the solution. Jesus was always meeting peoples felt needs, whether for food, healing, forgiveness, comfort or acceptance, and he expects us to do the same. Just take a look at Matthew 25:31-46 and see how seriously Jesus take this.
And this call isn't simply to us as individuals, but to us as a church, which is what the disciples represented. The church was never intended to be just a thermometer, measuring the temperature of society, but a thermostat, not only measuring the temperature but also being an agent for change.
In the next part I'll look at what this means for para church organisations.
Simon.