As I travel around the country speaking, and equipping churches to renew broken lives, there are some Frequently Asked Questions that I receive. I am going to take the next few posts to answer some of these F.A.Q.’s, beginning with the following question:

“What about Jesus feeding the 4,000 and the 5,000?
Doesn’t that show that Jesus wants us to feed the poor?”

This question is often asked by people who are struggling with the idea that God calls us to do more than just meet the immediate need. And while I appreciate this line of thought, we have to be careful not to take these two isolated instances out of context and use them to support systematic feeding programs.

Let’s look at the two passages and see what they have in common and how they are different from our feeding programs today.

Let’s start with the feeding of the 5,000. This is found in Matt 14, Mark 6, Luke 9 and John 6. Feel free to read them.

What was the situation when Jesus fed the 5,000?

• Jesus was heading to an uninhabited area
• People ran around the Sea of Galilee and beat Jesus to where He landed
• Jesus spent the day healing people
• There was no other food available
• Feeding them was a necessity

What about the feeding of the 4,000? Found in Matt 15, Mark 8

• Jesus was up on a mountain (remote area)
• They had been with Jesus for 3 days
• Jesus spent his time healing people
• It was physically dangerous to send them home on an empty stomach
• There was no other food available
• Feeding them was a necessity,

These two passages have a lot of things in common, but the question is: do the people our feeding programs serve mirror those who Jesus fed?

• Are they in a remote area?
• Are they giving up their time and energies to be near Christ?
• Are they there, or bringing their loved ones, to be healed?
• Is there no other option for people to get food?
• Are they physically in danger if they don’t eat?

As we look at these two instances, it becomes pretty clear that Jesus was not creating a model for feeding programs. Now think about this. When Jesus healed someone, He opened the door for them to work and care for their families.

While it is necessary to meet the immediate need, Jesus was not using Himself as an example for feeding the poor. In fact, there is no evidence in Scripture that the people he fed were even poor.

What other programs or services do we provide that stop short of restoring the poor because they only meet the immediate need?

Next time we will look at a second F.A.Q. I get asked regularly. Why do you qualify people before you serve them? Jesus didn’t do that.

Do you want to learn more about God’s plan to restore hurting people? Click here to order your copy of Breaking the Broken.