Reply to "We Used to Be Like That"

1/17/2001

I just finished reading some of the pages from the new book and I was wondering from the, “We use to be like that...” A lot of people justify that when Jesus fed the 5,000 and He broke them down into “smaller” groups of 50 and the like that that was their reason for doing so in the church. So I was wondering (and not that I am disagreeing with what you wrote at all), why did He do that? I ask for when the time that comes up again.

Response...

Next time YOU are feeding people a fish dinner, feel free to sit them down in such a way as there is SOMEWHERE to walk, in order to deliver the food, and a small enough group that you can REACH them with the food without constantly interrupting everyone else’s dinner to pass food a half a mile! I can’t see that this has ANYTHING to do with “assigning” anyone to a daily or weekly “small group”—which He SURELY did not do—nor did the Apostles with “3000 in a single day” and then “daily additions” beyond that! Surely no one thinks we need to go fishing in order to get a coin from the fish’s mouth to pay our taxes, just because that happened once? NO CORRELATION between a dinner for 5000 near the shores of Galilee, and religious groups doing some administrative shenanigans of assigning and “splitting” and all of that stuff UNHEARD OF in the BIBLE! It’s just NOT IN THERE! Right??!! Hope that helps, for next time it come up. : )