Word Stories

The average format for math used in every-day life looks a bit like this.

Donna had five chicks, a hawk came down and scooped up one. How many chicks does Donna have?

Now what if Donna's chick came clucking back again because the hawk really wasn't interested? Well, I guess that's a slightly different scenario, isn't it? Jesus too liked to give his followers word puzzles to solve. See Mark 8:19-21 for more details on the situation. I also happen to have a very simple, though practical, solution.

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

It seems then that the miracle lies in the multiplication of the two. Let me see here, we have twelve baskets remaining among five thousand. It corresponds with the twelve tribes of Israel down across the way. See, there might be a lack and no people with not enough to eat right now. Yet when God is through there is plenty enough to spare and all to fill his house. You see, nothing is ever lost missing or wasted in the house of the Lord. So then too are the seven baskets among four thousand. There were seven remember, just as the Lord walked among the lampstands of his seven churches. It seems the God who cares for us is the same God that remembers. For some it is more than anyone hoped, dreamed, or even dared to find. Here also in the want and in the need we see a circumstance designed perfectly by God the Father. How well some of us should do to rather sing, 'Jesus loves his little children, all the children of his world,' For indeed they are precious in his sight. Hardly a sparrow falls without his mighty hand there to protect and care as planned. How well would some do to trust the keeper of our lives with this as in all things we find. It seems then that these word stories must stand for something else. Indeed, they don't do much to solve the way these things so often happen in real life.

Counting

Hello everybody. Tonight, we're counting sheep until we sleep.

One sheep

Two sheep

Three sheep, Four

Five sheep

Six sheep

Hit the floor.

Seven sheep

Eight sheep

Nine sheep more

Ten sheep

Eleven sheep we adore.

Twelve sheep

Thirteen sheep

Makes fourteen

Fifteen sheep

Sixteen sheep

Need to sleep.

Seventeen sheep

Eighteen sheep

Beep, sheep, beep

Nineteen sheep

Twenty sheep then

Twenty-One,

Twenty-two

Sheep too few.

Twenty-three sheep

Twenty-four

Bring some more.

Twenty-five sheep

Twenty-six and twenty-seven

Sheep baaaaaa

Twenty-eight sheep

Twenty-nine sheep

Thirty sheep spa.

And then from the

it goes on up by ten.

Forty sheep come

Jumping in

Fifty sheep bring

It over again.

Sixty sheep help us

We implore

Seventy sheep

Eighty sheep

Ninety sheep more.

Then at last is

Round one hundred

But wait,

Something's missing.

Can you think?

The hundreds go up one at a time with a repeat of all the rest. So it would be, one hundred and one versus one hundred eighteen and even one hundred twenty-one. Then the two hundreds start up quick followed by the three hundreds and fours just after that. Now that we've briefly counted by 100, let's check out the thousands Jesus brings.

One thousand

Two thousand

Three thousand, four

Five thousand

Six thousand

We implore

Seven thousand

Eight thousand

Helps some more

Nine thousand

Ten thousand

Right, I don't know about you but if the sheep didn't do it for you the people definitely will. By this point, I've all but forgotten about the sleep. Next time, we will try word problems with Jesus.

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? Luke 15:4