Book of Common Prayer

Let us see what the Law itself has to say

²¹ Now tell me, you who want to be under the Law, have you heard what the Law says?

^22-27 It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave and the other by the free woman. The child of the slave was born in the ordinary course of nature, but the child of the free woman was born in accordance with God’s promise. This can be regarded as an allegory. Here are the two agreements represented by the two women: the one from Mount Sinai bearing children into slavery, typified by Hagar (Mount Sinai being in Arabia, the land of the descendants of Ishmael, Hagar’s son), and corresponding to present-day Jerusalem—for the Jews are still, spiritually speaking, “slaves”. But the free woman typifies the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, and is spiritually “free”. It is written: ‘Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear! Break forth and shout, you who do not travail! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.’

^28-30 Now we, my brothers, are like Isaac, for we are children born “by promise”. But just as in those far-off days the natural son persecuted the “spiritual” son, so it is today. Yet what is the scriptural instruction? ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.’

³¹ So then, my brothers, we are not to look upon ourselves as the sons of the slave woman but of the free, not sons of slavery under the Law but sons of freedom under grace.

Jesus heals and feeds vast crowds of people

^29-31 Jesus left there, walked along the shore of the lake of Galilee, then climbed the hill and sat down. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them people who were lame, crippled, blind, dumb and many others. They simply put them down at his feet and he healed them. The result was that the people were astonished at seeing dumb men speak, crippled men healed, lame men walking about and blind men having recovered their sight. And they praised the God of Israel.

³² But Jesus quietly called his disciples to him. “My heart goes out to this crowd,” he said. “They’ve stayed with me three days now and have no more food. I don’t want to send them home without anything or they will collapse on the way.”

³³ “Where could we find enough food to feed such a crowd in this deserted spot?” said the disciples.

³⁴ “How many loaves have you?” asked Jesus. “Seven, and a few small fish,” they replied.

^35-39 Then Jesus told the crowd to sit down comfortably on the ground. And when he had taken the seven loaves and the fish into his hands, he broke them with a prayer of thanksgiving and gave them to the disciples to pass on to the people. Everybody ate and was satisfied, and they picked up seven baskets full of the pieces left over. Those who ate numbered four thousand men apart from women and children. Then Jesus sent the crowds home, boarded the boat and arrived at the district of Magadan.