Jesus Feeds Five Thousand

Tuesday, January 07, 2014        Jesus Feeds Five Thousand

John  6: 1-15

The Bible is a continuous story of God working to redeem His people. John, as well as the Apostle Paul, is a master at weaving the themes of the Old Testament redemptive story into the life of Jesus and his New Covenant church. The feeding of the multitude, which is told in all four of the Gospels, is an example.

John mentions the Passover at the beginning of this passage. This is the second time he connects the Passover to something significant in Jesus’ life. (The first was when Jesus cleansed the Temple. He will mention the Passover a third time when Jesus returns to Jerusalem for the last time.) John is showing us that Jesus is the Messiah, and he is leading people out of slavery, just as Moses led the people out of Egypt in the first exodus. In today’s passage, the Passover connects Jesus to the exodus, by setting the scene in the wilderness. In the first Passover exodus wilderness, the people were in the wilderness and had nothing to eat, and God provided manna from Heaven. Here, in the wilderness, Jesus distributes food to the people. 

This passage presents us with solid food for our devotional time. We all experience times when we don’t have enough of . . . (insert your particular need). Andrew is a good example for us in such times. Although he couldn’t see how it would make a difference, nevertheless, he went to Jesus with what he had: “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish” (John 6:9a). When we find that we are lacking something in our life, like Andrew we can look around and gather what we do have and give it to God. Then we can choose by faith to trust God to take it from there and fulfill his promise to “supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.