Monday's Devotion: Feeding the Five Thousand: Jesus Tests His Disciples (March 16, 2015)

Feeding the Five Thousand:

Jesus Tests His Disciples

John 6:1-15

March 16, 2015

You may have read or heard this story hundreds of times.  I know that I have.  It always amazes me, though, how I can go back to an old story and find something new.  Today, I learned something about testing.

Let's focus on verses 5 and 6 of this Lesson:  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?"  He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do."

I discovered that John used the same word in verse 5 for "test" that he used in John 8:6 in the story of the woman caught in adultery, where he says that the Pharisees "were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him."  (We can find other examples by checking the other Gospels, but I am sticking with John so we have an "apples to apples" comparison.)

How do we know whether something is a test or a trap?  The answer appears to depend on the motivation of the tester--something that we only determine from the context of what we are reading.  As one Greek Dictionary puts it, "the difference between a test and a temptation is found in the tester's motivations and expectations; the devil tempts that the believer might fail God's standards of faith and so sin; God tests that he might determine and sharpen true character, with no focus on making the believer fail."  [For more information, check out this web page:  https://www.teknia.com/greek-ditionary/peirazo.]  

Traps are intended to tear us down; testing is intended to build us up, to make us stretch and grow.  Traps originate in the evil hearts of man; tests intended to build us up come from God.  And we are told elsewhere that when testing comes from God, God gives us the resources to pass the test.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, that "God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."  And, as you might guess, Paul uses a derivative form of the same word for test.

God wants us to grow.  Growth comes through testing; but God gives us the resources to cope and to overcome.  Thanks be to God!

Prayer:  Let us sing our prayer today:

In my trials, Lord, walk with me.

In my trials, Lord, walk with me.

When my heart is almost breaking,

Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

[Afro-American spiritual, “I want Jesus to Walk with Me,” reprinted from The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing Company, 1989), 521.