John 6:1-15: The Feeding of the Five Thousand

Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript

From the Pulpit

Commentary

6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.

 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

1. “a great crowd of people followed him”
   1. Notice that the crowd followed Jesus out into the wilderness without any food to begin with.  One can’t help but be impressed by their devotion.
   2. “Here we see, in the first place, how eager was the desire of the people to hear Christ, since all of them, forgetting themselves, take no concern about spending the night in a desert place. So much the less excusable is our indifference, or rather our sloth, when we are so far from preferring the heavenly doctrine to the gnawings of hunger, that the slightest interruptions immediately lead us away from meditation on the heavenly life.” -John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentary on John
2. “The Jewish Passover Festival was near.”
   1. This detail adds another interesting dimension to the miracle.  Passover commemorates the freedom of the Hebrew people from Egypt, after which people journeyed into the wilderness to reach the promised land.  In the wilderness, the people were sustained by miraculous bread from God.  At the upcoming feeding of the five thousand, here we are again, with people going into the wilderness and getting sustained by miraculous bread from God.  What God did once long ago, he does again here.

5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

1. The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle, besides the resurrection, found in all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).
   1. “Therefore as to this miracle, since we have heard how great it is, let us also search how profound it is; let us not only be delighted with its surface, but let us also seek to know its depth. This miracle, which we admire on the outside, has something within.” -Augustine, Tractate 24 on John, 2.
2. The Book of Luke tells us that Jesus also taught and healed while he was in the wilderness with the crowd.
3. “…to test him…”
   1. Notice that Scripture explicitly says that Jesus was testing Philip.  There’s intentionality behind his choice to go into the wilderness without food.  This is no accident.
   2. “Or to shew others it. He was not ignorant of His disciple’s heart Himself.” -Theophylact’s Commentary on John 

7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a] to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

1. Philip failed the test by relying on earthly calculations, estimating more than a year’s wages would barely suffice. He focused on his capacity instead of Jesus’s.

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

1. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, isn’t mentioned in Scripture a lot, but when he is, he’s consistently bringing people to Jesus.
   1. John 1:40–42 Andrew meets Jesus and then runs to Simon to introduce him to Jesus as well.
   2. John 12:20-22 A group of Greeks are in Jerusalem for the passover and want to meet Jesus.  Philip turns to Andrew to make that introduction.
2. “…five small barley loaves and two small fish…”
   1. Notice that the word “small” is used twice to emphasize just how insufficient this particular meal is.
   2. Barley, the cheapest grain (about a third the value of wheat), was “peasant food.” The meal was meager.  If this happened today, it may well have been five slices of Wonder Bread and a tin of tuna.

10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

1. “(about five thousand men were there)”
   1. The crowd numbered at least 5,000 men, not including women and children—possibly totaling 7,000 to 15,000.
2. Notice the three steps that Jesus takes:
   1. 1. Took: Jesus took the loaves and fish, signaling that God’s work often involves offering what we have to him. God desires human participation in his work.
      2. Gave Thanks: Jesus gives thanks for the tiny insufficient meal.  In his hands, it is more than enough.  Sometimes, we may feel insufficient, but the way God sees us is different.  In his hands, we are more than enough.
      3. Distributed: He distributed the food, and everyone ate “as much as they wanted.”  In God, there isn’t just enough.  There’s MORE than enough.

12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

1. “…twelve baskets…”
   1. The miracle of Jesus doesn’t just give people enough; it gives them more than enough.
   2. “[W]hy did He give the fragments to His disciples to carry away, and not to the multitude? Because the disciples were to be the teachers of the world, and therefore it was most important that the truth should be impressed upon them.” – Chrysostom, Hom. xlii. 3

14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

1. “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
   1. “He was the Lord of the prophets, the fulfiller of the prophets, the sanctifier of the prophets, but yet a prophet also: for it was said to Moses, I will raise up for them a prophet like you. Like, according to the flesh, but not according to the majesty…. And the Lord says of Himself, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country. (Jn 4:44)” -Augustine, Tractate 24 on John, 7.
2. “…they intended to come and make him king by force…” 
   1. They wanted to make Jesus an earthly king by force, likely expecting him to overthrow Romans and fix their economy.  They saw Jesus as a tool to achieve their goals.
   2. There are also many people today who want to harness God for their own personal gain.  Preachers of the “prosperity gospel” make all kinds of claims about how God will give people exactly what they want if they only respond in the way that the preacher is insisting they should.
   3. Rather than trying to make God follow our agenda, we need to serve His.
   4. Be hungry for the bread of life, not just a life of bread.

1.  

1.  

Full Transcript

If God has infinite power, why doesn’t he use it to solve my problems? If God has infinite power, why don’t I have a new car? Why don’t I have a million dollars? He has miracles, right? Why doesn’t he whip up a miracle and give me a million bucks? That would be a good miracle in my book. Why doesn’t he give me health and wealth? Why doesn’t God do that? Some people will tell you that he does.

Some people will say that’s exactly how God works. God wants to give you a million dollars; God has that new car waiting for you. The problem is you just don’t believe enough. If you have enough faith, he’s going to give you all that and more. We call those people prosperity gospel preachers. The prosperity gospel is the belief that God will solve all of your problems exactly the way you want them solved if you do something. Maybe you need to have more faith, or maybe you need to give him money. Maybe something needs to be done, and then you will get everything you’ve ever dreamed of. You’ll get the money, the car, the health, and the wealth. You’ll get all of it. This is surprisingly popular.

It is wildly popular. The last time I went to Barnes & Noble, the majority of books prominently featured in the Christian section were by prosperity gospel writers. I’m sure anyone who’s ever seen a preacher on TV knows that televangelists are famously associated with the prosperity gospel. That doesn’t mean all authors and all TV preachers are like that, but a lot of them are. It’s a popular thing because it’s attractive. Who doesn’t want a silver bullet out there that’s going to solve all their problems? That would be great! Now I don’t have to worry about it; I just need that “thing.”

The problem, of course, is that it’s not true. That should be pretty obvious, at least because if you think about the Bible, you have to ask: was Jesus rich? This is not a theoretical question; this is for you. Was Jesus rich? Jesus was not rich. Was Peter rich? Was John rich? Was Andrew rich? None of them were rich. This is a faith about a crucified God. The apostles mostly were martyrs, with the sole exception of John, who died in exile. None of them got rich quick. The fact that people somehow hijack Christianity to claim that you can get rich quick today just doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t fit, but that has not stopped people from making the claim anyway.

This past week, I looked through some prosperity gospel preachers just to see the kind of things they say. Here were some of my favorite quotes: “Don’t wait for the pie in the sky by and by when you die. Get yours now with ice cream and a cherry on top.” “Sow a seed on your Mastercard, your Visa, or your American Express, and when you do, expect God to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing.” “You must believe and then you’ll receive.”

My personal favorite apparently made headlines. There was one televangelist who explained to everyone that he had heard from God, and God told him that he was going to “call him home” unless his congregation could fundraise eight million dollars in three months. It’s just shameless. A lot of stuff like this is out there, and it’s just shameless. God doesn’t work like that.

The core idea here—that God wants to solve all of your problems on your terms—is half true. God wants to solve our problems. The biggest thing that gets in the way is that we don’t even know what our biggest problems are. We think we know. We think if God would just give us a million dollars, that would solve the problem. But God says, “That’s not your biggest problem. There’s some other stuff that’s way bigger in your life, and I’m working on that.”

Let’s dive into chapter six. Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. As you can probably surmise from the theme of this chapter, the crowd is going to get a lot of stuff wrong in the coming verses. But I like how we start. We start in a good place. These people are excited to know Jesus. Jesus is going to the other side of a sea, and their response is to go to the other side of the sea, too. They didn’t even have anything to eat. Thousands of people went to the other side of a sea just for the opportunity to spend more time with Jesus. That is a level of enthusiasm that is admirable regardless of what follows.

Are you that excited this morning? I hope you are. I hope you have that level of excitement in you because you should be excited. I think it’s easy for some folks to get ho-hum about church because we can’t see the spiritual reality of it; we only see the physical reality. We see the same walls and the same people. But we are in the house of God and Jesus is with us, and we get the chance to know him better. You should be excited. If you’re not excited, get excited.

Here are some people who are excited. They know how great Jesus is, and they want the chance to know him better. Verse three says: “Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover festival was near.” Why are they telling us that detail? On one hand, they are telling us this because it helps you locate it in the time of the year.

I think another reason they’re invoking Passover here is that Passover is about remembering the plagues. That’s the final plague that came on Egypt. The angel of death came to Egypt because they would not free the Hebrew slaves and killed the firstborn of all the Egyptians. After that day, Pharaoh said to let the Israelites go free. That is really what we’re celebrating here: the freedom and what happened right after they were free. They went into the wilderness for a long time and were sustained by bread from heaven. Isn’t it interesting? Here are some people going into the wilderness to be sustained by some miraculous bread. God does something once, and then he does it again later. It’s almost like echoes of something that already happened—in this case, an even bigger instance of something from the past.

Verse five says when Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” By the way, this particular miracle is the only miracle in the entire four gospels that appears in each one of them, barring the resurrection. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are a lot of stories that make it to two or three gospels, but this is a miraculous story that appears in all of them. This is really helpful because it tells us some of the details if you read across the breadth of scripture.

People are just coming up to Jesus, and he says, “We have to get food ready.” What are they doing out there? Are they just going to get a meal? Luckily, Luke fills in some of the details. It tells us that Jesus, during their time out here, also taught them and healed them. That is just a little that can be filled in by looking at the other scriptures.

Picking up again, when Jesus saw a great crowd coming towards him, he turned to Philip and asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. It’s important that it tells us he was testing him. Can you imagine if that little detail wasn’t there? It would change the feel of the whole thing. Jesus turns to Philip and asks if they have any way to feed these people, Philip says they don’t because it’s too expensive, and then Jesus says he guesses he has to pull a miracle out. It would make the whole thing feel unintentional, like an accident where Jesus doesn’t understand money and has to do something to make up for it. It changes the whole vibe if you don’t know it’s a test.

God knows everything. He already knows what’s going to happen. He gives people the opportunity to do what’s right and show that they get it, or he gives people the opportunity to show that they need a little more time being educated. That’s what’s happening to Philip here. It’s important to note that because it happens throughout the Bible. Sometimes God asks someone a question when he already knows the answer. Sometimes God says one thing and then later does it a little differently because someone has spoken with him. It seems almost like he’s changed his mind, but God didn’t change his mind; he gave someone the opportunity to speak truth in a way that was good.

God tests people, and it’s true with us, too. Sometimes we go through some stuff and it’s not what we expect. God tests us. He gives us the opportunity to do what’s right or to show we need some more education. Philip, unfortunately, fails this particular test. He responds by saying it would take more than a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. Faced with this crazy task, Philip immediately relies on himself. He’s from the area and knows things pretty well. He seems to be able to look at the crowd and think about where he could get food. He probably at some point has spoken with Judas, the treasurer of the group.

How crazy is that to think about, by the way? Jesus chose Judas to be the treasurer. Thank goodness we have Charity and Todd; I’d hate to have a Judas in that position. So, Philip knows about how much money they have. He knows the tools he has and what he brings to the table, and he knows this is not possible. He relies on his skills rather than on Jesus. He needs a little more education.

Then Andrew comes up in verse eight. Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Every time you see Andrew, he is introducing someone to Jesus. We saw him earlier in the book of John, and Andrew was introducing other people who would become disciples. Here, he’s introducing a young boy with loaves and fishes, and later on, he’s going to be introducing Gentiles to Jesus. Andrew is always introducing people to Jesus; it’s just one of those things he’s good at.

He introduces this boy who has five small barley loaves and two small fish. Notice that “small” is used twice here. This is not a big meal; it’s a boy’s meal. Some translations even say it’s a young boy’s meal. You have to imagine it’s not particularly big. Sometimes when you see Christian art, the boy comes forward with five nice, thick Italian loaves or big baguettes. Sometimes he’s got King’s Hawaiian—which, why wouldn’t you? It’s one of the best bread choices you can make. Those are all visually appealing, and there is nothing wrong with that, but in scripture, it’s not anything big. It’s five small barley loaves.

Barley loaves are not nice. Barley would have been the cheapest grain you could get; you can read about it in Ezekiel and Revelation. Barley comes up in both of those books as something that is not particularly valuable. If you give your kingdom away for a few handfuls of barley, you’ve given it away for nothing. Barley is worth about a third of what wheat is worth, so barley loaves are peasant food—commoner food. They’re not nice, and no one is necessarily excited to get them. It will fill your stomach, but it’s not particularly fancy.

A modern equivalent might be to imagine one of the kids that came up for the children’s moment. Imagine there was a church meal afterward and nothing had been prepared. One of those kids comes forward and they’ve got five slices of Wonder Bread and a tin of tuna. That’s what we’re looking at. This is not grand. People were probably thinking this wasn’t going to work. Even Andrew says as much: he notes the boy has some stuff to offer, but doesn’t know how far it’s going to get them.

But Jesus says, “Have the people sit down.” There is plenty of grass, so they sat down—about five thousand men were there. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He begins by taking it. Obviously, the kid offered it; Jesus isn’t stealing the loaves, but he is taking them. The kid can’t hold on to the meal and still see this miracle happen. Jesus takes it so the miracle can follow, and that’s important to remember.

Whenever we see a miracle—like when Jesus turned water into wine—notice that he asked them to gather water. Here, we see him feeding five thousand people, but he asks this boy for a meal. Whenever Jesus does great things, he wants humans to participate. He wants us to do something. He’s not just a genie who poofs things out of nowhere. He could if he wanted to, but he wants us to participate in what he’s doing. He wants us to do something so he can magnify it and make it even greater. It’s really humbling the way he allows us to participate in the greatness of what he does. He takes the loaves, and more will come of them because of that. You have to imagine that even for the kid, this is a good deal: he gives up one lunch and he gets as much as he wants down the road.

Everyone benefits because this kid was willing to hand over his meal. After Jesus takes the loaves, he gives thanks. There’s a great quote I came across from Charles Spurgeon referencing Augustine. You’ve got the “Prince of Preachers” invoking the “Father of Orthodoxy.” He says, “For five little cates and two sprats, God gave thanks to the Father. Apparently a meager cause for praise. But Jesus knew what he could make of them, and therefore gave thanks for what they would presently accomplish. God loves us,” says Augustine, “for what we are becoming. Christ gave thanks for these trifles because he saw whereunto they would grow.”

Jesus gave thanks for these breads and fishes knowing that, in their current form, they weren’t enough to feed five thousand people. But in the hands of Jesus, they could. That’s good news for us because, in our current form, we can’t do a whole lot. We are limited and we make mistakes. We are certainly not capable of a lot of things, but in the hands of God, we are capable of incredible things. We’re capable of miracles, just like those loaves and fishes.

Then he hands out as much as people want. It says there were five thousand men, a number that does not necessarily involve the women or the children. So how big was the crowd when all was said and done? Was it seven thousand? Ten thousand? Fifteen thousand? It’s a massive crowd. Of those seven thousand people, how many might not have had many resources? How many might have been hungry or didn’t know where their next meal was coming from? Food insecurity is real today, but it was infinitely more so in this era.

Some of these people may never have had the opportunity to genuinely eat as much as they wanted with no concern about how it would impact them tomorrow. But Jesus does that. He makes this feast where people can eat as much as they want. This was something they likely had never seen; they didn’t have all-you-can-eat buffets. This was not necessarily fancy eating—it was still barley loaves and small fish—but they got enough. That’s the thing about the Christian life: sometimes we may not always get the fanciest stuff, but God will provide. He will give us what we need.

When they had all had enough to eat, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over. Jesus doesn’t just provide enough; he provides more than enough.

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the prophet who came into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

The crowd gets to thinking: “Man, that guy can make loaves and fishes out of nothing. I bet he can use those powers to solve a lot of our other problems. The Romans are in charge and they’re pretty brutal. We’ve got economic problems; we’ve got tons of problems in Israel. Let’s get this guy to solve them all. Let’s make him our king.” Notice it doesn’t say they asked him if he wanted to be king; it says they wanted to make him king by force. They want to take God and get him to serve them. They don’t want to serve God.

They have just seen a man they are convinced is, at minimum, a prophet. They saw him multiply bread and fish with their own eyes. Instead of saying, “You must know something—how can I serve you and be a part of what you’re doing?” they say, “I’ve got some jobs for you.”

Jesus knows they do not get it, so he leaves. We will see more of this because that mentality doesn’t depart from them easily—the idea that God wants to give me “stuff,” that God can solve all my problems, and that he’s going to be the best employee I’ve ever seen by giving me money, a new house, and the perfect life. But Jesus is looking for people who want to look on a grander scale. He wants people who are hungry for the bread of life, not people who are just hungry for a life of bread.

We’ll see more of that next week as we see Jesus walk across the water. Amen.