Bible Study series: John 6:1-15. Jesus will draw many lessons from this miracle, later in this chapter
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Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 6:1-15
1 Afterwards, Jesus departed beyond the Lake of Galilee (also called the Lake of Tiberias). 2 A large crowd was following him because they saw the signs which he was doing for those who were sick. 3 Then Jesus left for the hill country and sat down there with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Feast of Passover was near.
5 Jesus, lifting up his eyes and, seeing the large crowd coming towards him, said to Philip, “Where should we buy bread from, so that they may eat?” 6 (He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was about to do.) 7 Philip answered: “Two hundred denarii to buy bread would not be sufficient for them so that each one could receive even a little bit of it!” 8 One of the disciples, Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, said, to him, Andrew, 9 “Here’s a child who has five barley loaves and two fishes, but what is this for so many people?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” (There was plenty of green grass in that place.) So the men, numbering about five thousand, sat down. 11 Jesus then took the bread, blessed it, and distributed it to those sitting down, and he did the same with the fish, as much as they were wanting.
12 When they were full, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the abundant fragments, so that nothing spoils. 13 So they gathered it and filled up twelve baskets with fragments, from five barley loaves, which were abundantly left over by those who had eaten.
14 Therefore, the men, seeing the sign he did, said, “This man is truly the prophet coming into the world.”
15 So then Jesus, knowing that they were about to seize him in order to make him king, withdrew alone to the hill country. (John 6:1-15)
Comments:
This is the only miracle that appears in all four Gospels (Matt. 14: 13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17). They are remarkably similar.
Here is a table of the signs, but John also clarifies in various places that Jesus performed many other signs. So now we see that John’s narrative is highly stylized and edited, to suit his purpose.
The signs in bold font appear in John 6, this chapter.
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THE EIGHT SIGNS OF JOHN’S GOSPEL |
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| Sign | Verses | |
| 1 | Turning water into wine | 2:1-11, the “beginning” or “first” sign |
| 2 | Healing an official’s son | 4:43-54 “the second sign” |
| 3 | Healing a disabled man at a pool | 5:1-15; see 6:2, where many healings are summarized |
| 4 | Feeding 5000 | 6:1-14 (see 6:14 and 6:26) |
| 5 | Walking on water | 6:16-21 |
| 6 | Healing a man born blind | 9:1-12 (see 9:16 and “such signs”) |
| 7 | Raising Lazarus from dead | 11:1-44 (see “signs” in 11:47 and “this sign” in 12:18) |
| 8 | Rising from the dead | 20:1-31 (see many other signs in 20:30) |
| Source: BTSB, p. 2141, slightly edited. I repost it here because this is cyber-space, so we don’t need to worry about cost per printed page. | ||
And here is the purpose of the signs, without a complicated commentary:
30 So then Jesus performed many other signs in front of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 These were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)
The signs are for us to believe that he is the Messiah (or Christ), the Son of God. They are signposts, which point to Jesus and his glory. Evidently, Messiahship and Sonship are interchangeable here.
“sign” is used as a synonym for miracles and works, and works is another term for miracles. They confirm the message and Jesus himself, but they are designed to help people in need:
What Are Signs and Wonders and Miracles?
The verb believe and the noun faith have to penetrate one’s whole being. Now let’s study them more formally.
The noun faith is used 243 times in the NT. Its basic meaning is the “belief, trust, confidence,” and it can also mean “faithfulness” and “trustworthy” (Mounce p. 232). It is directional, and the best direction is faith in God (Mark 11:22; 1 Thess. 1:8; 1 Pet. 1:21; Heb. 6:1) and faith in Jesus (Acts 3:16; 20:21; 24:24; Gal. 3:26; Eph. 1:15; Col. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:13). Believing (verb) and faith (noun) is very important to God. It is the language of heaven. We live on earth and by faith see the invisible world where God is. We must believe he exists; then we must exercise our faith to believe he loves us and intends to save us.
A true acronym:
F-A-I-T-H
=
Forsaking All, I Trust Him
One has to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus.
The bottom line is that for John’s Gospel believing and faith must not get stuck in an intellectual assent. “I believe that God exists and Jesus lived.” Instead, everyone who believes or has faith must put their complete trust in God’s Son.
Word Study on Faith and Faithfulness
Now let’s move on.
1-4:
These four verses set the scene for the miracle. We know where they are (eastern side of the lake) and what time of the year it is. “Afterwards” means that the next event happened after the healing of the man in Jerusalem and Jesus’s long speech to the Jerusalem establishment.
Verse 10 says there was plenty of grass in the hill country around the Lake of Galilee, and the Passover is in March / April, when the rainfall was abundant. So the grass would of course be green. Mark 6:39 also confirms that the grass was green.
The Lake of Galilee is also named Kinnereth in the OT (Num. 34:11 and so on), which means “lyre,” because of its shape. It was also called “Lake Tiberias from the city which Herod Antipas founded on its western shore about A.D. 20 and named in honour of the Emperor Tiberius. The lake had probably not acquired this new name at the time of Jesus’ ministry, but it was generally so known by the time this Gospel was written (cf. John 21:1)” (Bruce, comment on vv. 1, 2).
Three Passovers are mentioned: John 2:53 and 11:55. (The best manuscripts do not call the festival of the Jews in 5:1 the Passover.) So rather than going up into Jerusalem for the Passover, as was customary, he withdrew to the hill country around the lake. Jesus did not feel the need to get to Jerusalem. He went by the Father’s timeclock and followed the Father. He was not bound to keep the Passover as the religious authorities demanded it. He had just had a major confrontation with the religious establishment there in John 5, so he retreated, to minister to his home region, up north in Galilee.
For a description of the Passover, click back to John 2 and scroll down to v. 13:
“Disciples”: the noun is used 261 times in the NT, though many of them are duplicates in the three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. BDAG, a thick lexicon, says of the noun (1) “one who engages in learning through instruction from another, pupil, apprentice”; (2) “one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views, disciple, adherent.”
5-6:
John 1:44 and 12:21 say that Philip was from Bethsaida, and Luke 9:10 says that the miracle happened near Bethsaida, on the north shore of the lake. So of course Jesus would ask a local man where they could get food to feed so many people.
Why was Jesus testing Philip? He wanted to find out if Philip had the faith to trust God to work a miracle. Jesus knew that they did not have the money to buy food to feed all the people. Jesus knew their backs were against the wall. Could Philip have faith in God and his Son?
Now for the verb “test.” It can mean both “tempted” and “tested” in the right context. Here are the nuanced meanings and their verses: “try, attempt” (Acts. 9:26; 16:7; 24:6); “try, make trial of, put to the test” (Matt. 16:1; 22:18, 35; Mark 10:2; John 6:6; 1 Cor. 10:13; 2 Cor. 13:5; Heb. 2:18; 11:17; Rev. 2:2; 3:10); make trial of God, which is not a good idea (Acts 5:9; 15:10; 1 Cor. 10:9; Heb. 3:9); “tempt, entice to sin (Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2; Gal. 6:1; 1 Thess. 3:5; Jas. 1:13; Rev. 2:10). The context determines the nuanced meanings.
Temptation: To provoke you to do evil, in order to ruin and sideline you
Testing: To find out what is in your character, in order to improve and grow you up
The context here is to test. Jesus was not provoking Philip to do evil, but to build his faith. It is true, however, that Philip was thinking in natural terms and did not believe that God would work a miracle as he did for Elisha.
In Exod. 16 story God gave the manna to the people, and here Jesus does the same, becoming the giver of manna that satisfies the multitudes. In 2 Kings 4, Elisha fed one hundred with twenty loaves of bread. Jesus is about to feed many more.
7-9:
A denarius was the pay for an agricultural worker’s daily work (Matt. 20:2), if he could get work, since it was seasonal. Philip calculated that 200 denarii would not be enough to buy enough food (Mark 6:37 also says 200 denarii.). If we add in women and children, then there may have been 10,000 to 20,000 people. I reject the views of postmodern critics who are hyper-skeptical about miracles. I accept them, and I advise you to do the same.
Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, both of whom were also originally from Bethsaida (John 1:44), speaks up because he saw a child carrying five barley loaves (and all the Gospels agree on five, flat, disk-like pieces) and two fish (all the Gospels agree on two fish). Then he did not pass the test because he asked the nature-bound question: What good would this tiny amount be for so many people? The disciples had little faith, but would we be any better and have gigantic faith? I wouldn’t think of OT precedence in Elisha’s miracle.
10-11:
Jesus told the disciples to have the people recline (literally the Greek says this, because their posture was to lay down while they ate), but most translation go with “sit down” to make it more culturally relevant for our times. Mark says they sat down in companies of hundreds and fifties, while Luke says in groups of about fifty (Matthew does not mention these organizing divisions.) Clearly the disciples organized the five thousand men (and Matt. 14:21 adds that women and children were there in addition to the five thousand men), for ease of distribution. Jesus knew what he was about to do (v. 6), so everything was done in order and harmony. I trust that your family dinners are set out in this kind of harmony.
Bruce makes the connection that five thousand men would be enough for a powerful militia or guerilla-force to back up their new king (comment on vv. 10, 11). This is what the people wanted to do (v. 15).
Then Jesus took up the bread, held it up, and looked upward to his Father in heaven and blessed it. The traditional Jewish blessing for bread: “Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the world, who bringest forth bread from the earth” (Bruce comments on vv. 10, 11). He did the same for the fish.
“bless”: it literally means to “speak well.” BDAG defines the term, depending on the context, as follows: (1) “to say something commendatory, speak well of, praise, extol”; (2) “to ask for bestowal of special favor, especially of calling down God’s gracious power, bless”; (3) “to bestow a favor, provide with benefits.” Here it is the second definition. Some translations have “he gave thanks.” Being grateful even for food shows gratitude and an acknowledgement that God is the source.
Note: He did not bless the food, but he blessed God!
12-13:
John uses here the Greek word for abundance, both the noun (abundance in v. 12) and the verb (abounding leftovers in v. 13). Translators go with different renderings, but whatever they say, they had twelve baskets full, and the people ate until they were “full” or “fully satisfied.” All the Gospels agree, by the way, that there were twelve baskets full of leftovers. Of course we can’t miss that these were twelve disciples by now in the Synoptic Gospels, so no doubt that by this time, Jesus had already called the twelve. Is the number both literal (there really were twelve baskets) and symbolic (twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles)? Possibly. Probably. If so, then the symbolic message is that God could supply the spiritual needs of Israel at this time, but they could not see their Messiah right in front of them. And when they believed him to be their prophet (Deut. 18:18), they were about to make him their military king. They were spiritually blind.
Mounce: “Not only do we learn the practical lesson of not wasting food, but we learn the practical lesson that however bountifully the Lord bestows his grace, there is always more than enough to go around” (comment on v. 13).
Carson: John portrays this as a miracle, not a eucharist mouthful, still less an ethical lesson on how to shame people into sharing their lunches. This is the provision of the Lord who declares, ‘My people will be filled with my bounty’” (Jer. 31:14) (Carson, comments on vv. 12-13).
14-15:
When the people saw this sign or miracle, they wanted to make him their king. Presumably, they would hole up in the Judean or Galilean hills, and Jesus could feed them every day by the miracle of bread and fish, similar to what God did for the children of Israel and manna, “the bread of heaven” (Exod. 16:4). He might even be able to call down fire on Roman soldiers, like Elijah did on the two companies of fifty soldiers sent by the king of Samaria (2 Kings 1:9-14). The new military of five thousand men would be unstoppable, much like the Israelites were in the wilderness as they were heading towards the Promised Land. This time unbelief and fear would not overtake and disqualify them from entering the New Promised Land (Num. 13:30-14:12), because Jesus would lead them. No doubt some of the men envisioned that the numbers would increase to many thousands beyond the five thousand; then they could march on Jerusalem and conquer it for the LORD, and God’s People would live as they were destined to be—a mighty nation, beaming out some sort of light to the nations.
However, Jesus either learned of their plan or he knew it by supernatural knowledge. In either case, he withdrew from the twelve and the five thousand eager men, alone in the hill country. It was best to do this, for God had a different plan—to rescue the whole world from their spiritual darkness, if people would exercise their faith in the Lord. He would save them from their sins, not from the Roman army. His mission was spiritual, not military.
Jesus seemed to slip away from them, much as he did in these two verses:
29 They got up and drove him out of the town and led him up to the edge of the hill on which their town had been built, to throw him off. 30 But he passed through the middle of them and left. (Luke 4:29-30)
In those two verses in Luke, they intended to seize him by force to throw him off a high point. But he miraculously walked through them, as if he had a divine hedge of protection surrounding him and keeping them away. Here in John 6:15, he slipped away. Either way, his Father was not going to allow his Son to follow people’s will and plans.
Satan tempted him to bow to him and take all the kingdoms of the world (Matt. 4:8-10; Luke 4:6-8). He said no.
Finally, let’s discuss the differences in the four Gospel accounts of the feeding of the five thousand. What struck me is how similar the stories are in their details, down to the five loaves and two fish. However, critics will always find fault with the differences.
For a reply, see this chapter and scroll down to vv. 13-21:
GrowApp for John 6:1-15
1. Jesus tested Philip to find out how much faith he had. How has Jesus tested you in your walk with him? Did you fail or pass the test?
2. Good news: when we fail the test, we get to take it again! Have you ever had to take the same test over again? How did it work out?
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 