Fish and Bread, a meal fit for a king!

There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?

John 6: 8,9

Most people who read about the feeding of the 5,00 focus in on the miracle that Jesus performed. But there is so much more behind the story then we can think of.

Jesus approached Philip and asked him were they could buy bread to feed the 5,000. According to my notes there was 5,00 men, that was not even including women and children so there could have been upwards of 6,000 people.

When Jesus approached Philip he knew what he was doing he was just testing him. Philip replied that it would take a small fortune to feed these people and it probably would.

Jesus asked Philip were can we get food to feed these people and all Philip thought of was how he can get the food. Philip was overwhelmed. Jesus asked him because he was from the area, he expected a much different answer.

Andrew saw a young boy who had five barley loaves and two fish. Barley loaves were the poor mans bread. So even with there being that amount of bread it still was not the best kind of bread. I have to imagine the boy gave Jesus the bread but it’s not recorded in scripture.

This was a perfect chance for Jesus to flex his muscles so to speak, this was his chance to prove to everyone that he was the messiah.

Jesus split the bread up and the fish and all were feed, and there was even leftovers. When the people saw this miracle they knew that he was the prophet that they were expecting.

In this story you have the disciples and the young boy who had nothing. Who do you think Jesus had favour with? The boy who had little and gave little, or the disciples who had much and doubted the power of Jesus.

If we offer nothing to God he will have nothing to use but he can take what little we have and turn it into something amazing.