Did you know that Jesus fed the four thousand? And no, that wasn't a typo. I meant to say four thousand.
No, your Sunday school teacher growing up was not incorrect when she said He fed five thousand because He did in Matthew 14. He then fed four thousand more in Matthew 15. Trust me, I was very shocked about this too, and that is coming from someone who has read the New Testament (and the Gospels especially) multiple times. I just had never caught it.
As I studied for finals, I looked at a sign on my wall that says, "Be still and know that I am God." That really hit me, and I decided to take a study break to get in the Word. Since "Be still and know" was what got me to stop studying, I decided to go straight to Psalm 46. As I read over that, I meditated on it, just simply asking God to allow me to be completely with Him in this moment.
I jotted down some notes and closed my journal as well as my Bible. As soon as I did this, I felt led to open up my Bible again.
I flipped to the New Testament, and amidst my flipping, I saw a subheading in Matthew that said, "Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand." I stared in shock as I really began to debate if there was a typo in my Bible or not. To investigate, I read the actual story, and it said four thousand too along with seven loaves instead of five. At this point, I was questioning every single thing I had ever thought I knew about the Bible considering for 18 years I had believed this was five thousand people with five loaves.
As any person in this day and age would do, I turned to Google (haha) where I learned if I flipped back one page I would find the story of the five thousand and five loaves I had always been taught. To be honest, I sighed out of relief because I realized I did at least somewhat know what I was talking about.
Then, I just started wondering why exactly Jesus performed almost the same miracle twice, one chapter of the Bible apart from each other. Jesus had already proved His power and ability to do this, so why do it again?
That is because Jesus is full of compassion. Sure, these miracles reveal His power and that He is indeed the incarnation of God, but ultimately, He performed them out of love for the hurting, broken people. Jesus loved the four thousand just as much as He did the five thousand; since God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:24), He fed them both.
In the here and now, people who do not follow the Lord sometimes will give the excuse, "You don't know my story, I have messed up too many times. He couldn't do that for me" when they hear the testimonies of believers. The truth is, though, when God included these two very similar stories in the Bible, He was showing that He can indeed do the same thing twice. It is His Will for ALL people to come to salvation, so if He can save others, there is not one sinner He cannot save.
There is a reason the song "Do It Again" by Elevation Worship is so popular: it is because God does "do it again." He has always came through for me, and there will not be day that He stops. He continually does it again just like He fed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes twice.
if He can feed the five thousand, then He can feed the four thousand. If He can save me, He can and will save you too.
