Episode 95: Mark Part 35—The Feeding of the Four Thousand…Gentiles?

In a miraculous and frustrating turn of events, the Pharisees from the district of Dalmanutha demand a sign from Heaven shortly after Yeshua/Jesus feeds a mixed multitude, leaving four thousand satisfied. But can the Pharisees be satisfied?

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8 In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, ² “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. ³ And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” ⁴ And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” ⁵ And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” ⁶ And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. ⁷ And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. ⁸ And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. ⁹ And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. ¹⁰ And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. ¹¹ The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. ¹² And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” ¹³ And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

I have to tell you that this is where it stops being fun for me. I love teaching about my King, don’t get me wrong, and I love talking about His mighty deeds and His victories against the kingdom of the enemy, but chapter eight is where things take a decided turn. In a few weeks, we will be coming to what scholars call the “hinge” of the Gospel of Mark, where Yeshua stops ministering around the Galilee and begins His final trek toward Jerusalem to die and to complete the divine plan to destroy the authority of the powers of darkness. This is why He came—not to defeat the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and Herodians, but to deal with the source of evil plaguing mankind. He did this out of a purity of love and by virtue of His perfect intentions toward us—the likes of which we can only try to imagine. But it’s hard to talk about. I am not ashamed to get emotional and cry when I do. So if you don’t like tears, fair warning. This isn’t a storybook for me. This is history and more than history. It’s like looking at a newspaper story about the tragic death of someone I love. And yes, we can never forget that He is victorious now and seated at the right hand of glory but as I read through it, I am reminded that He really faced all of this for us. This is the history of His life on earth. And it is impossible for me to read it in a detached way. So let’s get to this.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast called Context for Kids where I teach Bible context in a way that teaches kids why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.

I always feel enormously depressed and defeated after reading this section. The irony is just over the top. To review from the last two weeks, Yeshua/Jesus is in Gentile territory. First, He travelled to the region of Tyre, a wealthy coastal city north of Galilee, where He delivered a stinging reality check to a Gentile woman before delivering her daughter from demonic oppression. Then He, for unknown reasons, travelled like 25 miles north to Sidon and then southeast to the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, to the Decapolis region, where He healed a man who was deaf and who suffered with a speech impediment. The Gentile population is reacting to Him the exact same way that the normal, everyday Jews reacted to Him—flocking to Him and proclaiming He does all things well. But those who knew the Scriptures best—not so much. Let’s start out in the first verse of Mark chapter eight:

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them…

Okay, “in those days” so we know this isn’t somewhere else or a long time later. Mark likes to group incidents by theme—incidents that didn’t necessarily happen back-to-back like the controversy dialogues—in order to teach us things but by indicating the time, we know this isn’t one of those cases. Yeshua is still in the region of the Decapolis and so He will be more than likely teaching a mixed audience here, using the same terminology as usual, polys ochlos, great crowd. Of course, the Jews always came to hear Him teach but because of the specific wording in this account and the lack of wording that we find elsewhere, scholars generally agree that the crowd was either mostly Gentile or at least a mixed crowd.  And we have our first mention of the disciples since the handwashing controversy when Yeshua prepared His disciples for the future option of having dealings with Gentiles and laid the foundations for Peter to later understand his vision in Acts 10 that Gentiles are not automatically defiled and that they can share table fellowship with them. Who you ate with in the ancient world signaled acceptance and we can’t have a body of believers at separate tables and call it okay with God. So, we have our general location—the Decapolis, which we discussed last week—and the time, which is after He performed the deliverance and healing of two Gentiles. A great crowd gathered, and no wonder when He has healed a deaf and speech-impaired man and the man’s friends are blabbing about it everywhere, and they had nothing to eat. As usual, Mark doesn’t tell us the specifics of what Yeshua is saying to them. If we didn’t have Matthew and, to a lesser extent, Luke—we would be flying blind for sure. But Mark is concerned with Yeshua as the “arm of the Lord”—the promised Yahweh Warrior of the prophets and especially Isaiah—vanquishing the kingdom of Satan.

Oh, let me stop here and cover the theory that there was only one miraculous feeding and the story is repeated twice. Well, to accept that you have to ignore verses 18-21 of this same chapter where He’s going to flat out mention both events as separate incidents. Sometimes, people do this when they object to the second feeding being in clearly Gentile territory, although there are also a couple of other reasons. But if we go with one feeding then we have to practically eliminate 46% of chapter eight and it’s way too important to allow that to happen. Peter’s confession directly hinges on it as does the irony of the Pharisees demanding a sign from heaven. And the two-stage healing of the blind man is virtually robbed of all its meaning, as we will see. Nope, this is a second historical event. Backtracking a bit…

…he called his disciples to him and said to them, ² “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 

So, as I mentioned, the disciples are being mentioned for the first time in a while and He calls them to Him and tells them that he has compassion on this mixed multitude. The word is actually very urgent and gives the impression of Him being very moved and worried for their welfare. Unlike the feeding of the five thousand, who had only been with Him one day, these people have been with Him for three days. We also see no classic references to Jewish crowds with sheep and shepherd language. It is most likely late winter because He is about to begin His final journey to Jerusalem, and so heat is not an issue but hunger is. By this time, as Yeshua notes, they are out of any food they might have brought and show no signs of wanting to go home. Whatever He was preaching, it was working. Perhaps something like the Sermon on the Mount. In any event, these people chose to listen to Yeshua over food. Stunning.

Keep in mind that because this was a mixed or mostly Gentile crowd, this was not the self-manifestation we see in other miracle accounts—He did it because people were going hungry and not to give clues as to His identity. He isn’t manifesting Himself as doing what only Yahweh can do because these people are clueless as to what the Scriptures say about Yahweh. This is an act of compassion and if there is anything further than this to be understood, it is for the benefit of the disciples who need to see a world larger than just the Jewish world. They need to see Yeshua going outside the boundaries of Israel to reach others despite the clear message, first to the Syrophoenician woman of “to the Jew first and then the Gentile.” But that doesn’t mean He will utterly ignore them. The disciples need to see this—even if it won’t click in their minds for another decade. And really, His feeding these people shouldn’t shock us because one of the character traits of Yahweh is that He provides food for friends and enemies and causes the rain to fall both on the righteous and the unrighteous. He created the earth to provide food for people, regardless.

Another difference between this account and the feeding of the five thousand is that Yeshua is the one bringing up the problem this time. I hate to say it but, the first century being what it was, they might not have been as concerned with the hunger of Gentiles. Hey, it’s just the way things were in the aftermath of the Hellenistic persecution and the ongoing Roman occupation. Total “us vs them” mentality. There was little love lost between the Jews and the Gentiles and it went both ways. Maybe Yeshua had been waiting for them to bring it up and they never did and He took matters into His own hands—no clue.

³ And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 

Yeshua cares about our needs. He is, after all, the very image of the God who feeds even His enemies. And here is another reference that scholars believe points to this being a Gentile audience—the reference to them having come from “far away.” Throughout the prophets, there are references to the nations coming to worship God on Mt Zion. In reference to the faith of the Gentile centurion, Yeshua says the following:

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. ¹¹ I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, ¹² while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt 8)

Is 49:6 “…he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

What we can’t call this is Yeshua revealing Himself to the Gentiles because they lacked the context that would make this at all meaningful to them. But if He preached something like the Sermon on the Mount then it would have stood in stark contrast to Pax Romana, the so-called Roman Peace that came at the expense of the conquered and benefitted only the wealthy among the Romans. Or perhaps He taught them in parables, which are always entertaining. But three days without food? It had to be more than entertainment at that point for them to stay.

 ⁴ And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” ⁵ And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.”

Questioning Him with a vague hypothetical, they talk about the responsibility in the third person. They don’t ask how they are going to feed the people, as they did last time. They don’t ask how He is going to do it. No, they push it further away with an impersonal third-person reference. How can “one” feed these people with bread? And like, everyone who has ever read this just facepalms. Seriously? We went through this two chapters ago. You seriously have GOT to be kidding guys. So many things could have happened. They could have jumped up and said, oh my gosh, we have seven loaves, we’ll go get them! Just a second. But that didn’t happen. It’s like amnesia. And yet—and yet…we all ought to be blushing right now because we do this all the time. No matter how many times God provides for us we are still worrying about tomorrow. You know, as though we have either forgotten the past or we figured it was a coincidence or a fluke. So, don’t laugh at the disciples without taking a hard look in the mirror because we are silly faithless creatures full of nonsense just as soon as something unexpected or unpleasant happens. It’s like we are brain-wiped droids.

⁶ And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.

Unlike with the Jewish crowds, not only do we see no sheep/shepherd references but we also see no reference to green grass or to grouping them into hundreds and fifties—which have references to the Psalms and to Exodus (and if you missed my broadcast on the feeding of the five thousand I will link it in the transcript, it’s called The Ultimate 5K). The wilderness motifs associated with the Exodus out of Egypt are glaringly absent here. But you might be saying—look, He spoke the blessing before breaking the bread just like before but you would be wrong. Totally different word. With the Jewish audience, Yeshua said a blessing, eulogeo and, with this crowd, he gave thanks, eucharisteo and there are debates as to why. Perhaps with the Jewish crowd, it was enough to bless God, as was customary but with the mixed or Gentile audience, He needed to make a show of giving credit to Yahweh. Certainly, the Jewish crowd didn’t need to have it explained to them about blessing God instead of the bread. Then He broke the bread and handed it to the disciples so that they could serve the people. Now, this was slave’s work in the ancient world. Yeshua didn’t choose some lowly people out of the crowd to help Him out. No, He put His disciples in the position of being “slaves to all” which of course is what they would later become in service to the risen Lord. But they still don’t get it yet. As we will see in a few weeks, they still have delusions of grandeur and future earthly glory. Sorry, Charlie. Speaking of Charlie:

⁷ And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them.

If you didn’t get the “Sorry Charlie” reference with respect to the fish, you are just too danged young. Now, He does actually bless the fish, which is weird and I don’t know if it should read that he spoke a blessing because of the fish or what because Jewish prayers don’t bless the food. The food is already blessed because it is food. This isn’t like a Cheeto where, like Tim Hawkins, you are asking God to turn it into a carrot stick as it travels down to your stomach. And yes, I will find it on YouTube and link that in the transcript. If you don’t know Tim Hawkins, you definitely should change that. So, it’s kind of a mystery but it really doesn’t matter that much. Again, maybe Yeshua is making sure the Gentiles understand that this isn’t a magic trick. The only thing worse than allowing them to go hungry is to appear to be using magic to feed them, right?

⁸ And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. ⁹ And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 

They ate and were satisfied, and at the end, he still had to send them away. Let’s look at the word basket here, the word used in this instance is different than that used in the feeding of the 5K in chapter 6. Here the word is spyris, which is a rope basket large enough to carry a person in but I don’t know why anyone would want to do that, and I didn’t go looking to find out. This is one big basket. In the other feeding account, the word is kophinos, which is a small wicker basket. So, he fed fewer people here but they picked up seven ginormous baskets of leftovers, whereas last time they picked up twelve smaller baskets of leftovers. People like to do things with the numbers—numerology, and speculation—but that’s just not me. My dear friend Dinah Dye is who to go to for that sort of thing. She’s really good at it. Not me.

But, as you see, this account really has very little in common with the feeding of the five thousand. One—the audience is Gentile/mixed and not Jewish. Two—no sheep/shepherd relational language that we see when Jews are being referred to. Three—the blessings are different, catered more to an audience who isn’t acquainted with blessing Yahweh for His provision. Four—here the people have been with Him three times as long. Five—different number of loaves and fishes as well as different amounts of leftovers. Six—there is no mention of green grass, with allusions to Psalm 23, and no mention of groups of fifties and hundreds, which alludes to the Exodus. Seven—the basket types are entirely different and we will see that carry over into next week’s recollection of this event as well. Eight—it was Yeshua, and not the disciples, who brought up the need of these Gentiles and their hunger and the dangers of sending them away unfed. When it was a Jewish audience, the disciples were the ones to bring up the problem. Not, of course, that they were any more willing to do anything about it!

What is similar is that both represent miraculous provision of bread and fish. Also, it was the disciples “waiting tables” in both instances. They are also in a wilderness setting and they all went home satisfied. Madeline Boucher points out that the feedings of the crowds are the most definitive sign, with an emphasis on the word sign, that the New Exodus described by Isaiah had come. If you are unfamiliar with that, check out my series on Isaiah and the Messiah, which I will link on the transcript. Isaiah prophesied a greater exodus than the exodus out of Egypt and according to the Gospel writers, that Exodus took place at the Cross when the greater Pharaoh of sin and death was defeated by the greater Moses of Yeshua. It is called the Greater Exodus because not one nation was freed but all nations. I did a specific broadcast on the New Exodus, it was like part two of this series, “What is the Gospel and what is the Greater Exodus?” I recorded it to dispel some of the fantastical and damaging misconceptions out there about a land bridge forming across the sea, which is only useful for people with cars, and is not supported by Scripture. The Greater Exodus is past and ongoing but don’t expect anything more glorious than the Cross and the New Creation reality and souls coming into the Kingdom as far as Exodus goes.

But that was a really positive story, right? Four thousand people fed. Amazing! But wait, the other shoe is about to drop. Hard.

¹⁰ And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. ¹¹ The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. ¹² And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” ¹³ And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

I read the whole thing because, just, UGH! We have a narrator and so we’re going, “A sign? How about feeding four thousand people from seven loaves and a few fish!!!!!” Okay, let’s backtrack and go one verse at a time because even though this is only four verses there is a lot of content here we don’t want to skip over. We have to understand, first of all, that this is the Beelzebul controversy, part II. What we have here, once again, is the source of Yeshua’s powers and authority being questioned.

¹⁰ And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

As far as Scriptural mysteries go, this one is kind of bland. No one knows where Dalmanutha is because it isn’t mentioned anywhere else in the Bible or in a single other historical document. All we know is that they crossed over from the East side of the Sea of Galilee to get there and so this district, not a town but a district, is on the western shore of the Sea. Some scholars identify it with Magdala but it really isn’t that important. He’s back in Jewish territory, in Galilee and wherever this place is, it has local Pharisees. Not every place did—there were only five to six thousand of them in the first century. Reading the Bible, sometimes it is easy to think of a large group like democrats or republicans, but they were a small influential sect within Judaism. A political group but not the way we see politics. They wanted the power and authority to set Halakah, how people walk out the commandments, for the entire nation. There was always this belief that if enough of the Jews were faithfully keeping the Torah correctly the Messiah would return and deliver them from foreign oppression and set up a Temple State under a restored Davidic monarchy. The irony, of course, is in all the political wrangling to control the religious life of the country, they missed the Messiah. This will carry over into three of the next four teachings—this theme of seeing but not seeing. We’ll see it three times—here with the Pharisees in the district of Dalmanutha, with the disciples in the boat on the trip back across the lake, with the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida, and with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.

¹¹ The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 

This word for argue–argue is a mild translation. They were massively in His face and challenging Him. This was a dangerous situation. What they are demanding is a sign from heaven which meant one of four possibilities: (1) a sign from God, because “heaven” was often a euphemism for the name of God, Yahweh, hence “the Kingdom of Heaven” didn’t mean Heaven but meant Yahweh’s Kingdom, (2) a sign from the heavens, like fire falling or brimstone or something dramatic, (3) an astrological sign that was predictive which, yes, is astrology but they didn’t seem to have problems with that. It’s bizarre, with just how against divination they were, that they were still very fascinated with and into astrology—as opposed to astronomy, which is just the study of heavenly bodies and totally different. Remember that the first-century had a lot of superstition and things that we look at today (and rightly so) as divination and fortune-telling that they did not see that way. Or (4) they wanted a sign that He was the kind of Messiah they were looking for—perhaps an apocalyptic sign pointing to the destruction of the Roman occupiers.

What’s the purpose of asking for a sign? Did they want to be dazzled? Let’s look at Deuteronomy 13 really quick:

13 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ ³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

On the surface, the request for a sign seems positive but it is a trap. They have already accused him of blasphemy, despite witnessing His miracles. In fact, if He gives them a sign or a wonder to prove His legitimacy, and they make the decision that teaching people doctrines they aren’t in agreement with is tantamount to telling the people to go after other gods (I mean, I can’t count how many times I have been accused of not following the Lord or of being a pagan over a silly little disagreement in how to keep a commandment, legitimate or imagined), then they have grounds to kill Him. But, you might say, “What does Yeshua have to lose?” Have you ever heard the tale of Rabbi Eliezer and the Rabbis from Bava Metzia 59b? Rabbi Eliezar disagreed with the majority over a legal opinion. He called down three miracles in support of his opinion and a voice from Heaven agreeing with him and still, the majority would not listen to him and excommunicated him for daring to disagree with the majority. Moral of the story—tradition and majority opinions matter more than miracles to an awful lot of folks. Signs from people we disagree with can always be attributed to Satan. And don’t think we are any different because nowadays you can hardly talk anyone out of an emotionally held opinion no matter how much scripture in context you throw at them. And especially if they have made it a point of forcing said opinion on everyone and their dog. It’s bad enough to be wrong but to have to be wrong and need to admit it? Some people will change and slink away quietly and pretend like it never happened but very few will do a public about-face. May we always endeavor to be teachable and correctable.

¹² And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 

This “sighed deeply in His spirit”—same word as last week with the deaf man with the speech impediment. The deep groaning that I believe was hurt over not being able to do anything for the Gentiles languishing under false gods and tyrants. He could heal them but the mission of His life was not to the Gentiles even though it was for them. Ha! I sound like John Walton, who famously coined the phrase, “The Scriptures were written for us but not to us.” Before the Cross, He had to 100% focus on preaching to the Jewish people—and not even all the Jewish people but just to the ones in the Land. There were Jews all over Europe and in the Scythian Empire and in Egypt. He had a very specific mission that could not be diverted from.

And I think this challenge just was heartbreaking. It wasn’t as if He hated the Pharisees but He saw them for the stumbling blocks that they were. And here they are, after ignoring every sign, miracle, deliverance, and healing—demanding something to prove He is sent by God. Yeshua’s response, in context, is far stronger than it appears here because it is in oath form. “Truly I say to you” is a short-form oath that would be understood as, “Truly I say to you that if I give you a sign may I be cursed,” or something of that nature. He is saying that under no circumstances would He perform like a trained monkey and do tricks for them. He wasn’t going to stoop to what amounted to showing off for the crowd and He wasn’t going to misuse His power trying to prove Himself. He proved He could forgive sins when He healed the paralytic, for crying out loud.

But here’s the unspoken thing behind all of this—asking for a sign in and of itself was a sign—a sign that they belonged to a blind, deaf, wicked, and adulterous generation. All of the evidence was there if they wanted to see Yahweh in the flesh. The works were there. He could do things that Scripture says only Yahweh can do. He can do all the works of all the different prophets but in His own authority, and even greater versions of their miracles. And the people, both Jew and Gentile said that He did everything well and they speculated that He was Elijah or John the Baptist or one of the other Prophets or maybe a new Prophet. But the leadership, just as we see in Isaiah 6, were under judgment for their refusal to listen to Yahweh and His messenger.

⁸ And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” ⁹ And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ ¹⁰ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” ¹¹ Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, ¹² and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. ¹³ And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.

And it’s crazy, you know? Because in forty years it was all going to happen all over again. The destruction of the Second Temple and sixty-six years after that the Jews would be expelled from Jerusalem permanently until just recently historically. Jerusalem would be ravaged again in 136 CE and turned into a fully realized Roman pagan city. Not only did they not realize the time of their visitation but they acted as enemies of Yahweh. In defending their political goals of controlling Jewish life, they lost everything. That’s why we have to be so careful of our own agendas and not so sold on our doctrinal beliefs that we miss movements of God in the world. Sometimes our doctrines are wrong and if we do not have a personal and teachable relationship with Yahweh through Yeshua, if we are not familiar with the goodness, patience, generosity and mercy of His character, then we might miss it while subconsciously believing that somehow He is like us and the same things that are important to us are also important to Him. But His concern is with the Kingdom and if our agendas do not serve the Kingdom in some tangible way, then they really need to be re-evaluated. As NT Wright pointed out about this episode, what we are dealing with here and for the next four weeks are clashes in Kingdom expectations.

Okay, one more verse for this week:

 ¹³ And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

Yeshua does this whenever there is a crisis point and danger of arrest. Things are heating up and He is about turn south for the final trip to Jerusalem—but first He has to go north for a vitally important piece of business before His death.