The School Of Obedience

THE SCHOOL OF OBEDIENCE (JOHN 6:1-14)

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Dallas Theological Seminary president Mark Yarbrough , who has 300 head of sheep in his 3,200 acre ranch, told of his ten year’s experience with sheep:

“The type of sheep that we raised - they weren't meat sheep, they were wool

sheep. We raised them for their wool. I’ll tell you an interesting story about wool sheep because if you are a shepherd overseeing sheep for wool once maybe twice a year you'll need to shear them. Well, the problem with that is is that sheep are so stupid that if they are full of wool and they have not been

sheared if you have a big storm system that comes through and it rains they will go out into the open field full of wool. I can only imagine the dialogue that goes inside of their brain: what's that falling from the sky? You ever watched a cotton ball get wet? here's the problem with sheep they are so helpless they'll go out and stand in the rain and it will weight them down by hundreds of pounds, and if that sheep collapses and the Shepherd is not there you have about thirty minutes to get them back up again, it will cut off the circulation of their legs and you have to put them down. Sheep need a shepherd sheep are dependent upon provision sheep must have protection.”

Mark Yarbrough, Sheep and Their Shepherd, DTS Chapel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMj155uNHs

The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is the only sign recorded in all four Gospels (Matt 14, Mark 6, Luke 9), rivaling the resurrection in all four gospels, but this is the only time readers are told that the crowd came for the signs from Jesus’ history of healing the sick previously (v 2). Jesus’ ministry was not about miracles, yet He fed 5,000 people. Isn’t that a contradiction?

Why is our priority, as believers, to seek the Master rather than His miracles? How does the Good Shepherd watch over His sheep? What does ministry to His flock entail?

Be Tender and Thoughtful

1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near. 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

A man who was blind for twenty years walked around pitying myself. One Saturday, her eleven-year-old daughter came to him and asked him to build her a periscope so she could look over tall things like fences. The told her that all she had to do was go out and buy him a couple of small mirrors. She came running back within minutes, and in less than an hour, with the help of cardboard and scissors and sticky tape, a periscope came off my workbench.

The daughter hurried to demonstrate her new toy to the boy from next door. “My daddy made that,” she told him casually.

“Your daddy made that?” he objected. “But your daddy is blind.”

“Yes, my daddy is blind,” she repeated. “But he’s not blind with his hands.

(David Blackhall, Reader's Digest)

Let us examine the people featured in the passage. First is John the Baptist. Jesus chose to rest, crossing to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (v 1). The other gospels tells us that John the Baptist was beheaded and Jesus need the time for himself, so he departed by ship to a mountainside (v 3) in the desert (Matt 14:13, Mark 6:31).

Second, this is the only time the phrase “a great crowd/multitude” occurs is in John’s gospel, not only once but twice. (vv 2, 5) Matthew and Mark say that Jesus saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd (Matt 14:14, Mark 6:34), even though he knew they followed him for the miracles he did on the sick (v 2).