Mark 8:19-21 commentary: how is it ye do not understand?

19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. 20 And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. 21 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?

As Jesus continues with this response to the cluelessness of His disciples he brings up some important considerations for us. Twelve is associated with the twelve tribes of Israel and seven is associated with God’s number of completion and perfection as in the seven days of creation.

Jesus is upbraiding them for their forgetfulness and their inability to understand. This is the root of all unbelief, not remembering what God had done previously, and a mind closed to the truths that God wants to reveal. It is much the same way with modern men. Scientists insist on denying God’s part in creation and prefer to explain away the existence of life itself by fantastic, mechanical means without any part played by the God of the Bible.

The fact is, though, that if they weren’t so hard hearted they would understand. For one instance, geneticists who deal with mutations will write papers filled with astonishment at how quickly we, as a species or as an individual, deteriorate over a relatively short time such as Cornell University’s Alexey Kondrashov’s 1995 paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology entitled, “Contamination of the Genome by Very Slightly Deleterious Mutations:Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” or James Crow of the University of Wisconsin’s Genetics Laboratory who wrote an article in 1997 published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled, “The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk?” These scientists appear to be amazed at the rapid rate at which mankind is falling apart, the rate of devolution, not evolution.

Harmful mutations over the past few centuries have been accumulating. The scientist, like the disciple hard of heart and hard of hearing doesn’t hear a distant voice in his head reminding him that the Bible implies only a 6,000 year old existence for mankind. At the rate we are going, as these scientists point out without meaning to, we couldn’t have been around much longer than that. People find out such interesting facts and forget in their dull minds what God has said and done. No, rather, they would prefer to pretend He doesn’t exist.

God will say to them, perhaps, “When I made the heaven and the earth in six days, when I destroyed life on earth with a Flood, when I scattered the families from Babel all over the earth, when I led the Hebrews through the Red Sea, when I rose from the dead and offered all men salvation how is it ye do not understand?”

What about the Christian who has been delivered time and time again by God’s hand of protection and mercy but forgets each time just how much he or she is totally dependent on God’s mercy and grace? Think about the last time you were certain that you would not have made it without God’s help and then ask yourself how is it you do not understand?