The New Testament says we are engaged in a powerful battle. But before we get to this, we should understand that another type of battle was taking place in the time of Jesus and that how Jesus fought transforms how His disciples make war.<\/p>\n
In the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:31-44) Jesus\u2019 mode of combat subverts contemporary uses of force. To grasp this story\u2019s full impact, we need to understand the mindset Jesus was transforming.<\/p>\n
Zealot movement<\/strong><\/p>\n Have you ever heard of a place called Gamala (or Gamla)? Although it\u2019s not one of the better-known cities of Israel during Jesus\u2019 day, and not even mentioned in the New Testament, Gamala created a family that would spell the doom of Israel by influencing the same people Jesus was preaching His gospel to.<\/p>\n Gamala, just northeast of the Sea Galilee, sits on a steep hill and takes its name from the camel (gamal<\/em> in Hebrew) hump it sits on. On this hill lived about two to three thousand people, a decent-sized city for the region of Galilee. Capernaum, one of the largest cities, had around ten thousand inhabitants.1<\/sup> Built as a fort during the Syrian wars three centuries before Christ, Gamala never surrendered its military bent. Surrender, however, is not the only way to lose one\u2019s soul or one\u2019s self.<\/p>\n Judas the Galilean,2<\/sup> who came from Gamala, picked up and developed the anti-Roman sentiment growing in Galilee. Six years after Jesus was born, the Zealots, led by Judas, became a sect of Jewish religion. By using military force against their Roman oppressors, they sought to obtain the freedom God promised.<\/p>\n Many in Galilee at that time latched onto this militant understanding of how God\u2019s rescue would come. So when the taxation demanded by Rome was at its worst \u2014 during a census \u2014 Judas the Galilean capitalized on the negative sentiment and led a revolt against Rome. The rebellion was quickly squashed, but the movement was not. Gamala was one of the cities in Galilee to fight against the Roman armies in \u1d00\u1d05 66.3<\/sup> Judas\u2019 son James was put to death in \u1d00\u1d05 46 by the Romans, who no doubt saw him as potentially stirring up the same trouble his father did.4<\/sup> Furthermore, Judas\u2019 grandsons led two of the three groups of Zealots who revolted against Rome and defended the temple in \u1d00\u1d05 66.5 <\/sup>If you don\u2019t surrender, then you die. And these Zealots refused to surrender.<\/p>\n After the destruction of the temple, the death of Judas\u2019 grandsons, and the massacre at Masada, the Zealot movement dwindled and eventually died in one last attempt at revolution: the Bar Kochba revolt of \u1d00\u1d05 135.6<\/sup> But for our purposes, we need to realize that from at least the time when Judas the Galilean began uniting his militia (\u1d00\u1d05 6) until the destruction of the temple (\u1d00\u1d05 66), the Zealot spirit was alive and well, especially in Galilee and Gamala.<\/p>\n Feeding Zealots<\/strong><\/p>\n With this background, let\u2019s consider Mark 6:31-44. Because of the demands of ministry, Jesus was concerned for the disciples\u2019 well-being, so He took them in a boat to a deserted place. However, when they arrived, the desert was not so deserted. Five thousand men were waiting for them.<\/p>\n Men<\/em> here is gender specific, meaning only people of the male sex.7<\/sup> And five thousand of them were congregated in the wilderness, which is strange. We must recall that among the three closest cities (Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Gamala) there were probably only about eight to nine thousand men.8<\/sup> This story gives the impression that every able-bodied man in the vicinity flocked to where the people knew Jesus would be. Only one cause could draw all these men without women or children to this desolate place on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee: zealotry.<\/p>\n This is exactly what John\u2019s Gospel tells us was happening. John 6:15 says that Jesus knew they intended to make Him king. On that very night, they planned to crown Him and make that the first night of the Jesus revolt against the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n Jesus and the Twelve landed where they intended, not ignorant of this fact. They saw the crowds, and Jesus had compassion on them because He knew what was happening. With deep pity and love, He taught them because they were sheep without a shepherd.<\/p>\n Within this phrase too \u2014 \u201csheep without a shepherd\u201d \u2014 we catch the militant nature of the congregation. In four separate Old Testament passages the phrase is used with the same wording, and all four have strong links to a military leader (Numbers 27:17; 2\u202fChronicles 18:16; Ezekiel 34:5; Zechariah 10:2). Interestingly, in the face of all these revolutionary pointers, Jesus taught and fed. Even though He had all the support He could have asked for militarily, He refused to be the militaristic Messiah in the way people wanted. Rather, He opted to give the people the word of God and instruct His disciples to pass out bread from God.<\/p>\n People wanted freedom from Roman oppression; Jesus wanted freedom from death. They desired to be delivered from the chains of taxation; Jesus desired to deliver them from the Evil One. They were desperate to be loose from impure governors; Jesus was desperate to loose them from sin. Jesus showed Himself to be the militaristic Messiah prophesied centuries before, but to the real<\/em> enemies of Jews and all humanity.<\/p>\n Fighting Jesus\u2019 fight<\/strong><\/p>\n We take up arms with Jesus in the same way. Paul says, \u201cFor our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places\u201d (Ephesians 6:12). And in another place,<\/p>\n Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ (2\u202fCorinthians 10:3-5).<\/p>\n So let\u2019s engage in the cosmic battle of thoughts and spiritual forces of evil that Jesus defeated through death and resurrection, and will completely defeat at His second coming (1\u202fCorinthians 15:24-28). Let\u2019s not muddle around like the five thousand in militaristic fever against humans, but let\u2019s take Jesus\u2019 compassion as a cue to have compassion on the humanity He died for.<\/p>\n May the compassion Jesus had, and has, drive us to spread His teaching and nourishment to all the world, as the disciples did that day. May we not waste our energies battling flesh and blood but put those energies to proper use in being strong in the cosmic battle that Jesus already won. May God use us powerfully.<\/p>\n Jonathon Hicks<\/strong> and his wife, Danielle, pastor the CoG7 in Lodi, CA. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Bible<\/em>.<\/p>\n The New Testament says we are engaged in a powerful battle. But before we get to this, we should understand that another type of battle was taking place in the time of Jesus and that how Jesus fought transforms how His disciples make war. In the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Mark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":3429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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