Mark 8:1-21

Jesus is our powerful Lord -- Mark 8:1-21: The multitudes of people still followed Jesus. Great leaders always train others. Therefore, Jesus did much of what He did through His apostles. He had pity or compassion on these people because they have been with Him for three days without food. The people had come from a great distance away and He was concerned that they would faint on the way home. The disciples asked, "How will it be possible to get enough food for these men here in this wilderness?" How strange that they seemed to have forgotten the feeding of the five thousand.

Jesus often asked His disciples questions. It was not for the purpose of gaining information, but He asked as a means of drawing the attention of the disciples to the matter at hand. He asked how much bread they had. Their answer was that they had seven loaves and a few small fish. Jesus had his disciples to ask the people to sit down. He then looked to heaven and blessed the loaves and fish or gave thanks for them. They were divided among the disciples who then shared them out with the people. The four thousand people were given all that they wanted. After they had eaten, seven baskets of fragments were collected and then the people were sent away.

In Dalmanutha the Pharisees asked Jesus questions tempting Him. They desired "a sign" after all that He had already done. Jesus was sad because they kept acting in their usual hypocritical manner. In Matthew 16:4 we learn that Jesus did given them Jonah as a sign and then He left them. As the disciples moved about with Jesus He warned them to "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod." At first they thought He said this because they had forgotten to take bread. They came to understand that "He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." (Matthew 16:12)