Exponential Multiplication

Tabgha's Mosaic (480 C.E.)

"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" John 6:9

Nicky Gumbel told this story (Ref 1), Hatti May Wiatt, a six-year-old girl, lived near Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia, USA. The Sunday school was very crowded. Russell H Conwell, the minister told her that one day they would have buildings big enough to allow everyone to attend. She said, "I hope you will. It is so crowded I am afraid to go there alone." He replied, "When we get enough money we will construct one large enough to get in all the children."

Two years later in 1886, Hattie May died. After the funeral Hattie's mother gave the minister a little bag they had found under their daughter's pillow containing 57 cents in change that she had saved up. Alongside it was a note in her writing: 'To help build bigger so that more children can go to Sunday school.'

The minister changed all the money into pennies and offered each for sale. He received $250 - and 54 of the cents were given back. The $250 was itself changed into pennies and sold by the newly formed Wiatt Mite Society. In this way her 57 cents kept on multiplying.

Twenty-six years later, in a talk entitled, 'The history of the 57 cents', the minister explained the results of her 57-cent donation: a church with a membership of 5,600 people, a hospital where tens of thousands of people had been treated, 80,000 young people going through university, 2,000 people going out to preach the gospel - all this happened because Hattie May Wiatt invested her 57 cents. 

This story reminds me of a famous miracle by Jesus, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Today this miracle is commemorated at the Church in Tabgha by the shores of the Sea of Gallilee. This miracle, described in John 6:5-13 has some similarities with the Hatty May story. From a meagre 5 loaves and two fishes of a small boy, first divided and then multiplied several times, five thousand men and more women and children were fed. A measly 57 cents savings of a small girl divided into pennies, then multiplied by donations into a foundation that provided charity and humanitarian relief to countless people. 

These two miracles demonstrated a mathematical concept of exponential multiplication in which something multiplies by itself over and over again; such as the pennies, fish and loaves. Just a few pennies? The answer is found in the passage in Matthew describing the miracle of exponential multiplication in which Jesus instructed, "Bring me what you have." 

"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fishes," they answered. "Bring them here to me," He said. Matthew 14: 17-18 

Whenever we offer to the Lord our ordinary resources, Jesus Christ will work a miracle of transformation to answer a need in the community and in our lives. 

John Bunyan in the Pilgrim's Progress posed a riddle, 

'A man there was, though some did count him mad

The more he cast away the more he had.'

Çharles Spurgeon commented, "It is certainly so with talent and ability, and with grace in the heart. The more you use it, the more there is of it."

It is not the numbers of loaves nor the fish that matter. The boy packed just enough to feed himself that day. The point was that he gave to Jesus all that he had and from that donation, the miracle of exponential multiplication could ensue. 

Another real-life account of giving all that one had is recounted in Mark 12:41-44

'Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling His disciples to Him, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all that she had to live on."  

My father in law the late Rev James Kao Jih Eng, a Chinese-speaking Methodist Pastor, took this two coins lesson to heart. I watched him collect milkmaid tin cans, washed them, restored the covers and wrapped them up with a donation appeal for the church building fund. He placed them at the door of the church. He told me that he noticed only the poor and elderly ladies collected those donation tin cans. They would dutifully save whatever they could, small change, and hand over these tins during the offering. 

I watched my father in law empty those cans and count them at end of the Sunday. The men and the young people seemed to be too proud or embaressed to take those tin cans, they were happy to donate their money in the offering bags. Little though these tin-can donations may be, I know that my father in law raised money to build Foochow Methodist Church and Geylang Chinese Methodist Church in Singapore, Chin Hock Methodist Church in Kampong China, Sitiawan and another church on Pingtan Island in China. 

It does not matter how much or how little you give, God will multiply your gift many times over. He owns the Cattle on a Thousand Hills

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills
The wealth in every mine,
He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills,
The sun and stars that shine,
Wonderful riches more than tongue can tell
He is my Father so they're mine as well
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills
I know that He will care for me.

Lionel

Ref 1: Nicky Gumbel, The Bible in One Year 2020, Day 55