Matthew 16:7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.
Some Lessons Must be Learned Every Day
For most of the things we wish to master in life, the learning is sequential. That is, you have to learn things in sequence from most foundational to more difficult. Likewise, such learning is cumulative, it builds with time. Years ago, I endured two year of algebra. I experienced either difficulty or success to the extent that I paid attention day by day in class. Not all of the learning came in one day. If I paid attention one day, I had a better chance of comprehending the lesson of the next day. If you don’t learn the lesson one day, you miss the lesson on the next.
Matthew 16 illustrates this principle in the story of how Jesus was about to teach the disciples about the dangers of what He calls “the leaven of the Pharisees.” Now, whatever we know about the leaven of the Pharisees is found elsewhere because Jesus never expands on it in Matthew 16! The reason He did not is that when He said, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” the disciples “reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.”
These guys were so consumed with worry over the thought that they wouldn’t have enough bread, even on the heels of twice seeing Jesus feed multitudes of people from meager resources, that the moment He used any vague allusion to food, they automatically thought He was talking about their need. Somehow it never occurred to them that the One Who spoke the universe into existence was also able to provide food for them.
Jesus responded, “O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember?” The disciples did not understand the lesson of the day because they did not remember the lesson from the day before. The disciples were still stuck on a lesson about living by faith that they should have learned twice before.
Edmund Burke said, “No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” I find this to be true in my own life. If I am blind with fear, I can’t see what it is that I need to think or do. Often, we see God provide in miraculous ways, but the moment a problem is staring us in the face, all reason is gone and all thinking is muddled. We forget what happened yesterday, so we miss the lesson of today.
Living by faith is certainly an important lesson for each of us, but there is certainly more than this alone that God wishes to teach. Learning is sequential, but some lessons must be learned every day. Living by faith, apparently, is one of those lessons.