The Disciples Didn’t Understand Either

They were in a boat, and Jesus warned them about the leavenIn the biblical symbol-system, leaven is amoral — neither good nor evil in itself. It represents doctrine, teaching, knowledge, influence: the system that permeates whatever it enters and transforms it from within. The type of leaven matters; "the leaven of the Pharisees" is their doctrine, not leaven as a category. Synonyms: yeast, leavening. See Does Leaven Really Mean Sin? More of the Pharisees. They thought he was scolding them for forgetting to bring bread. He had, by then, fed thousands twice over from a few loaves — and they were worried about lunch. So he turned and asked them a string of questions, one after another: Do you not yet perceive? Is your heart hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember? And then: “How is it that ye do not understand?”

It is a fair question. And reading the Gospels straight through, the striking thing is how often he had to ask it.

Three years of it

Did they understand when he stilled the storm? They were too terrified to — “how is it that ye have no faithFaith (Greek pistis, Hebrew emunah) — trust and faithfulness, not mere belief or assent to doctrine. Scripture's own definition: faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1) — the hypostasis, "that which stands under," giving the unseen its standing and reality. Synonyms: trust, faithfulness, assurance. More?” he asked them. Did they understand after he walked on the water? It seems not: “they were sore amazed… for they considered not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened.”

Did they follow his parables? He sounds almost surprised that they didn’t — “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?” When he explained that what defiles a person comes from within, they were lost, and he said so: “Are ye also yet without understandingIn the New Testament this is synesis — a bringing-together: scattered pieces drawn into one cohesive whole, not a quantity of information accumulated. In plain terms it is connecting the dots — understanding is unification, not accumulation. Synonyms: synesis, unification, insight, discernment See The Importance of Understanding in Jesus Christ More?”

Did they grasp where it was all heading? Three times he told them plainly that he would be killed and rise again. Three times it slid off. “They understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.” “They understood none of these things.” And in the same stretch, they argued about which of them was the greatest, and two of them asked for the best seats in the kingdom — as if the cross he keptFrom the Hebrew shamar — to watch over, guard, protect, give attentive care to. A shepherd shamar the flock. The keeping the feasts and sabbath requires is the attentive, protective engagement that creates the conditions for seeing what they reveal — not external compliance with a schedule. Synonyms: shamar, observe, guard, watch over. More describing weren’t in the picture at all.

Even Peter’s high point doesn’t break the pattern. “Thou art the ChristNot a surname but a title: the Greek Christos, rendering the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) — "the Anointed." The anointing that set apart Israel's kings, priests, and prophets all converges on the one person it was pointing to. Synonyms: Messiah, Anointed, the Anointed One, Mashiach, Christos. See also: Logos More,” he said — and minutes later, when Jesus spoke of dying, that same Peter pulled him aside to tell him he had it wrong. He had the title and missed the man.

Even on the last night it held. Hours from the cross, he told them, “from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.” And in the very next breathFrom the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruach — both meaning breath or wind: invisible in itself, known by its movement and effects. The theological debates surrounding personhood and the Trinity are later developments; the original words are grounded in something physical and immediate. Synonyms: Holy Ghost, pneuma, ruach, Spirit of God, breath, wind. More Philip answered, “Lord, shew us the Father.” He had just told them the knowing was theirs — and Philip asked for the one thing he’d said they already had.

Once you start counting, is there any other way to read it? Right up to the end, not-understanding is simply what the disciples do. It is a theme of these men before the cross.

Through the cross, and still

The cross didn’t break the pattern; it deepened it. Watching him die didn’t explain anything to them — it devastated them. They scattered. Peter, who had sworn he never would, denied him and wept. The ones who had staked everything watched the everything die. Then three days of silence: buried hope in the dark, with nothing to do but wait — not even knowing there was anything to wait for.

And the resurrection? Even that didn’t switch it on. Two of them walked the road to Emmaus that very afternoon with the risen Christ beside them, telling him how it had all fallen apart — “we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” — and they did not know who he was. Weeks later, after he had been appearing to them and teachingFrom the Hebrew Torah — instruction, direction — rooted in yarah, to aim as an archer toward a target. Never primarily legislative. The stone tablets were hidden inside the ark, inside the most holy place, mediated by a priest. The promise was always to move that instruction from stone to flesh — from concealment behind a veil to working from within the person. Synonyms: Torah, nomos, instruction, teaching, commandment, mitzvah. More them, they were still asking, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Being there, it turns out, is not the same as being seen.

When it finally came

So when did they understand?

It came when he did something with them. On the road he “expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself,” and only afterward could they say, “did not our heart burn within us?” Then, with the others gathered, Luke says it as plainly as it can be said: “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”

Not then they figured it out. Then he opened it. And how did he open it? Not, it seems, by adding anything. He walked them back through what they already had — “beginning at Moses and all the prophets” — and showed them the whole of it pointing to himself. The scriptures they had always read in pieces, he read as one connected thing, gathered around a center. What had been missing was never information; it was the connections. And it didn’t arrive all at once, like a switch thrown — it began to open on that road, and went on opening.

And us?

These are the men we tend to place above ourselves — the apostlesFrom the Greek apostolos — one sent out on behalf of another. In the NT, applied to those sent by Christ as direct witnesses of his resurrection; the authority is tied to the sending and the witness, not to an institutional title that can be passed down. More, the pillars, the ones who were there. So it is worth sitting with what the Gospels chose to show: not their brilliance, but how long they didn’t see, and how their seeing finally came.

If the men who walked beside him for three years still had to have their minds opened, what does that tell us about understanding — is it earned by the clever and those close to him, or given, in its time? And if it was given to them that way, where does that leave the rest of us, who come so much later?

Maybe not behind them. Maybe on the same road — often not seeing what is right beside us, waiting for the same thing they waited for without yet knowing its name.

See also: The Importance of Understanding in Jesus Christ

Further Study

This doesn’t rest on a verse or two — read as few or as many as you like, and see the pattern for yourself:

• Mark 4:13 — the sower, not grasped
• Mark 4:40 — the storm, “how is it that ye have no faith?”
• Mark 6:51-52 — after he walks on the water, “they considered not the loaves… their heart was hardened”
• Matthew 14:31 — Peter sinks, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
• Mark 7:18 / Matthew 15:16 — “Are ye also yet without understanding?”
• Mark 8:17-21 — the leaven in the boat, “do ye not yet understand?”
• Mark 8:31-33 / Matthew 16:21-23 — Peter rebukes the cross
• Mark 9:19 — “O faithless generation”
• Mark 9:32 / Luke 9:45 / Luke 18:34 — the death foretold, “they understood not… and were afraid to ask”
• Mark 9:34 / Luke 22:24 — disputing who is the greatest
• Mark 10:35-40 / Matthew 20:20-23 — the request for the best seats
• John 14:5-9 — Thomas and Philip at the supper, “hast thou not known me?”
• John 16:31-32 — “Do ye now believe? … ye shall be scattered”
• Luke 24:11, 21, 25 — the women’s report dismissed; “we trusted…”; “O fools, and slow of heart”
• John 12:16 — “understood not… until Jesus was glorified”
• John 20:9 — “they knew not the scripture, that he must rise”
• Mark 16:11-14 — they would not believe he was risen; he upbraided their unbelief
• Acts 1:6 — “wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”