Depending on Crowds

Jesus refused to depend upon crowds for the obvious reason that He knew them to be undependable. There is nothing in all this to suggest any snobbishness or any failure to appreciate the importance of each single individual among the five thousand. Instead, the meaning is the simple one that mere mass movements do not usually make any permanent impression.

The permanent impression, if it comes, has to come in some other way. Christ’s reason for turning away from the crowds was not any lack of love for persons, but an intense concern for a cause. We have good evidence that Christ loved…