Contents:
• John the Baptist killed
• God is able to provide for you
• The quality of our prayer life
• Jesus walks on water

Before reading this commentary, I encourage you to first read the text of Matthew chapter fourteen.

Verses 1-2

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

Perhaps Herod had some guilt or regret about having killed John the Baptist, because it appears that John the Baptist weighs heavily on his mind.

Verses 3-12

Herod arrested John merely for having told him that He should not be sleeping with his brother’s wife. Herod wanted to kill John but was afraid of the people because everyone regarded John as a prophet.

Herod eventually did kill John by having him beheaded at a request given by the daughter of Herodias, having been prompted by her mother.

Verses 13-21

In the feeding of the five thousand men, besides also women and children. We see that although God rested from all his work after the creation week, he is still able to create physical things out of nothing. And on this occasion, he did so as an act of providing. The same was true of the manna from heaven documented in the book of Exodus. God created something out of nothing for the sake of people’s provision.

I don’t believe this is how God normally operates. I believe God most often works through other people (giving both the receiver and the giver the opportunity to be blessed). However, one of the take aways from reading the feeding of the five thousand should be that nothing is impossible for God when it comes to taking care of you.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was on one occasion at the home of my spiritual mentor. We were sitting in his living room and at one point he got up and went to the restroom. During his absence, there was a knock at the door. Figuring my friend was otherwise occupied; I went and opened the door. Two men stood outside and said, we’ve brought you some groceries. I assumed these were some of his friends, so I invited them in and they brought in several bags of groceries, set them on the counter, offered their departing farewells and left. When my friend emerged from the bathroom, he looked at all the groceries on the counter and asked, “what’s all this?”. I told him about the two men and he asked, “who were they?” I said I had not gotten their names, but I described what they looked like and I described the vehicle they drove. My friend had absolutely no idea who they might have been and was in no way expecting anyone to deliver groceries. However, my friend had been praying for God’s provision because he didn’t have enough money that week for groceries.

Verses 22-24

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowds. After He had dismissed them, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone, but the boat was already far from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Notice in the verse above the Jesus went up on the mountain to pray. He didn’t pray for 30 seconds. He was up there until evening came. The verse also states that by that time the disciples had managed, in rough waters, with the wind against them, to row far from land. So I’m guessing that Jesus prayed for at least an hour or more.

I suspect that many Christians seldom pray, and of those who do, I suspect that many pray with brevity and superficiality. I once was appointed, for a year, to be a church deacon. The pastor, elders, and deacons held a monthly meeting together in which they discussed the current events within the church and congregation and then made decisions on how to run the church and on future events.

I had never before been in a position to make decisions on how a church should be run, so in my mind’s eye I was imagining a scenario in which, as a group, we would spend the first ten to fifteen minutes of each monthly meeting in prayer seeking the Lord’s guidance and counsel. Unfortunately, however, that’s not what happened. The pastor and elders would lead us each month in a 30 to 40 second prayer and then we would spend the remaining 59 minutes making decisions based largely upon our own limited wisdom rather than God’s unlimited wisdom.

By no means am I suggesting that correct prayer is determined by length of time. However, I am suggesting that if you have never before spent an uninterrupted 30 minutes in prayer with our Lord Jesus Christ, you are missing out on the most essential aspect of a relationship with Jesus. The same people who grumble that God doesn’t answer their prayers are likely the same people who spend little to no time at all in actual prayer.

I want to encourage you to organize your prayers in a text document, preferably on your phone. Start by writing down “Praise God”, or if you prefer you can write “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

Then, on every occasion that you pray, pull out your phone, open the text app to your prayer list and look at what’s first on your list. Praise. Spend a few minutes praising Jesus Christ for what he has done for you.

In your prayer list, write down the names of each of your family members. Pray for each person individually. Then write down the names of your friends. Pray for each person by name. Then write down the prayer requests you’ve recently received. Maybe you were at a Bible study and your friend Bob asked everyone to pray for his granddaughter. Write that in your prayer list so that you can remember to pray for her.

Lastly, write down your own needs, concerns and worries, and then pray about those also. And finally, don’t forget to take a little time to shut up and listen. In your prayer say, “Lord I’m going to be quiet now and I’m going to just listen for your voice. If there’s anything you want to say, I’m going to be quiet now.”

Something else I recommend that can readily extend the duration and quality of your prayer life is to perform a prayer walk. When you’re at home trying to pray, the dog may be barking, the children may be screaming, the cat is pressing against you asking for attention, it is very hard to remain focused. But if you plot a walking course that you know will take you 20 or 30 minutes to traverse, starting at your front door and ending at your front door, you’ll find you have plenty of time for quality prayer in solitude; just you and Jesus.

Verses 25-33

I’ve heard scholarly people try to explain away the miracle of Jesus having walked on water. Some say he was walking on ice. Others say he was walking on a sandbar. Pessimists such as these are merely searching for any excuse to say that nothing miraculous happened and that Jesus was no one special. So then how did Jesus walk on the surface of liquid water, on a lake that is 140 feet deep?

There is an insect called the water strider. They are common in fresh water creeks and streams. They readily walk on the surface of water by means of the water’s surface tension. I suspect that when both Jesus and Peter walked on the surface of the Sea of Galilee, God had miraculously altered the surface tension of water in such a way that the water was able to support their body weight, much the same way a water strider is able to walk on the surface tension of water.

Regardless of how the miracle actually occurred, the disciples in the boat were rightly in agreement that Jesus was the Son of God.

Verses 34-36

They landed at Gennesaret and the people there brought out their sick and he healed them.