Of Loaves and Fishes

"By feeding the hungry crowd, Jesus gave the people the opportuity to experience what his new way meant in practice. He did not lobby or try to persuade them of the abstract or the spectulative.  Apparently, he did not define his divine mandate to the people, either. He simply showed them. The effect of him demonstrating his new way of living was that in return the people gave him their complete and unreserved allegiance.  Theirs was not the tentative acceptance of a still untested principle, for now they knew what he offered.... Jesus made it clear that the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of action. He did not lament their hunger or promise to do something about it, he simply fed them."  Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., The Politics of Jesus, p. 191.