We endeavor to create a safe and welcoming environment condusive to learning. The curriculum can only provide so much. It is motivation and engagement with the material the provides the most success. Below you will find notes to help you add to the workshop lessons..

The Feeding of 5000 (John 6:1-15)

For this rotation, we are teaching about a “miracle”. According to The New Compact Bible Dictionary, a miracle is “an extraordinary event, inexplicable in terms of ordinary natural forces, an event which causes observers to postulate a super-human personal cause, and/or an event which constitutes evidence of implications much wider than the event itself”.

The miracles Jesus did were to show people his divinity, that he is the Son of God, and also to show people how much God loves them. They were not any kind of “magic”, which are manipulation of natural events by a person and not the work of God. You may notice now that many “magicians” are referring to themselves as “illusionists” to better portray their profession.

Some liberal commentators suggest that the real miracle was that one person’s offering of food inspired others to share what they had. This is no small feat considering the number of people in the crowd.

Jesus’ feeding of the multitude of people, “5,000 men, besides women and children” (Matthew 14:21) is recorded in all four gospels, so we know it was an important event in the lives of his disciples and the people who followed Jesus.

The background of the event is that it was Passover season (spring), and Jesus was taking his disciples away for a time of rest and retreat, probably planning to teach them privately. When Jesus and his disciples came to the place Jesus had chosen, on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, a large crowd of people was waiting for them.

Jesus “had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). Mark 6:34 states that “Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” Luke 9:11 adds that he “welcomed them and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.” John says (6:2) “a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he performed on the sick.”

Some of the disciples felt disappointed that Jesus didn’t send the crowd away, even as the day came to a close and people were obviously becoming restless and hungry. Instead, Jesus asked his disciples to provide food for the multitude! Philip, the practical one, told Jesus it would take “eight month’s wages to buy enough food for them each to have one bite” (John 6:7), but John points out that Jesus was testing his disciples, and that Jesus already knew his own plans. Jesus asked them, “How many loaves do you have?…Go and see.” (Mark 6:38) Andrew found a boy who offered his lunch to Jesus, “five small barley loaves and two small fish” (John 6:9), but Andrew wondered what good the small lunch would be among so many people. (The lunch was typical of people of the region, containing bread the size of little dinner rolls and probably dried and salted fish.)

Jesus was about to demonstrate to his disciples that he would always supply their need if they obeyed his command, just as he will do for us today when we trust whatever we have in his hands. Today Jesus still welcomes children to give him all that they are and have.

After he had told the disciples to have the people sit in groups of 50 and 100, Jesus took the boy’s lunch, gave thanks for it (John 6:11), blessed it (Luke 9:16), and began to distribute the loaves and fish to the disciples to give to the seated multitude. Here we have an allusion to the Last Supper where Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples.

Nobody knows how or when the food “multiplied”, but it appears that Jesus did a creative miracle such that as the food came from his hands there was always enough to give to the disciples to distribute. And to show that God is neither wasteful nor stingy, they collected twelve baskets full of the leftovers when everyone had eaten their fill. (John 6:13)

Sometimes it seems like God asks us to do the impossible, especially when we calculate, as Philip did, how to do it with the means at hand. Then when we obey God by faith and offer all that we have, God provides “more than enough”. God is able to multiply our talents, our time, our finances, our love, or anything else we offer.