A large crowd followed Jesus and His disciples around the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias.
Christ observed that they were hungering and thirsting after the word of righteousness. They had no faithful, spiritual pastors to feed them with knowledge and understanding; for the Scribes and Pharisees were blind guides, and shepherds that could not understand; so that the people were ready to perish for lack of knowledge, not having any spiritual comfort and refreshment under their ministry. Therefore they followed Christ, wherever he went, with great zeal and fervency, earnestly desiring the bread of life: this moved his compassion (Hocking).
Jesus, rejected as He is by the land He loved, has compassion on the poor of the flock, and manifests in their behalf the power of the Lord to bless them. (Darby)
Today the people are no better – priests, ministers and pastors are blind guides. There are few shepherds of the flock; most blindly have no understanding – the people perish for lack of the gospel. The truth has been forsaken: but it has not disappeared – read the Bible, listen to the Holy Spirit, receive his comfort, forsake the world and its ways. Truth changes not, but the world demands change: God does not change nor does His compassion.
References:
Our Compassionate High Priest WJ Hocking
Mark JN Darby
Evening at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee
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