John 6:7, commentary and pictures

Philip's answer was given when Jesus tested him with the question where bread could be bought for the hungry multitude, though Jesus already knew how He would provide. Looking at the vast crowd in a desert place by ordinary means, Philip judged that two hundred pennyworth of bread could give each only a little and could not be sufficient. His calculation was on the side of unbelief, measuring need by money and resources though he had seen Christ's works, and it calls believers to depend on Christ as sufficiency rather than human strength. Christ took the meager store, blessed and broke it, and multiplied it in the hands of those who distributed it until all ate and were filled. The feeding points beyond temporal food to Christ as the Bread of life sent down from heaven, whose words are to be received and shared as spiritual food for eternal life.

Feeding Setting and Crowd

Philip's answer belongs to the feeding of the multitude after Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee and sat with His disciples on a mountain with the Passover nigh, when a great multitude followed Him because they saw His miracles on the diseased. The question Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat was followed by Andrew pointing to a lad with five barley loaves and two small fishes, after which Jesus had the men, about five thousand, sit down and fed them with thanksgiving as much as they would. The crowd was five thousand men besides women and children, near the time of Passover. It is described as about ten thousand persons including five thousand children, and as above ten thousand persons fed from a few small loaves and fishes. They were gathered on a mountain-side and on a beach by the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum, where much of His ministry was passed and many miracles were done, within sight of where the disciples later gathered.

Jesus had retired to a secluded place for rest with His disciples, but the people came and still came by land and boat until a great multitude waited. Though interrupted and robbed of His rest He was not impatient but was moved with compassion toward them because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, receiving no help from the priests and rulers. Leaving His retreat for a convenient place, He ministered to their greater necessity, teaching them the way of salvation as the healing waters of life flowed from Him. They had followed Him on foot from place to place until weary and hungry.

The people were faint and hungry after following and listening all day in a desert place until sunset, without food all day. Jesus pitied the weary and hungry thousands who followed to hear His teaching, and He knew their hunger. He had compassion on them and would not let them go home hungry or faint on the way. Hungry listeners could not fully benefit from His teaching, for their physical needs mattered to Him while they gathered to hear Him. His care for their practical needs was shown in miraculous power that supplied food until everyone was satisfied and all were fed. He would not send them away hungry to return home unrefreshed, unlike His refusal in the wilderness to work a miracle to satisfy His own hunger.

The feeding stands together with Christ walking on the water and His declaration to His hearers that He is the Bread of life, a saying and teaching that caused some of His disciples to turn from Him and walk no more with Him. It was a wonderful miracle wrought on the barren shore, and the multitude fed there left Him on that shore knowing no boat was left for Him to depart. On the following morning they returned to the spot where they had last seen Him, the miracle having taken place the preceding day. News of it spread far and near and people arrived in large numbers by land and water, coming looking for Jesus the next morning.

The same breaking and dividing of bread and fish on the mountainside identified Jesus when after His resurrection He fed the seven disciples on the shore. With fire and food already present, He bade them bring some of the fish just caught and come and dine, then broke the food and divided it among them. That manner and action brought the earlier feeding distinctly to their minds and made Him known and acknowledged by all seven. They were left in silent and mysterious awe as they gazed upon the risen Saviour, a meal also recalled when He later shared bread and fish after His resurrection. The later miraculous draught of fishes made the earlier feeding more impressive to teach that, though deprived of His personal companionship and of sustenance from their own fishing, the resurrected Saviour still cares for and provides for them while they do His work.

Philip's Tested Calculation

Jesus asked where bread could be bought to feed the crowd in order to prove and test Philip and the disciples, though He Himself already knew what He would do and how He would provide. The question came after going over the Sea of Galilee and sitting with the disciples on a mountain with the Passover near, when a great multitude followed because they saw miracles on the diseased, and it was followed by Andrew pointing to a lad with five barley loaves and two small fishes and then by seating about five thousand men and feeding them with thanksgiving as much as they would. Philip answered that two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for the great company, that every one might take only a little, judging the need by ordinary means, available money, and the size of the vast crowd in a desert place where bread could not be obtained. His answer measured the need by the money available and focused on the size of the crowd and the apparent impossibility of providing enough.

His answer highlights the apparent insufficiency and practical impossibility before the miracle, with only a few loaves and two small fishes available and no possibility of buying enough for each to have even a little. The contrast stands between the meager store and the vast assembly, the small supply that could not feed the multitude set against the food that afterward did not diminish but increased as it was distributed until all were satisfied. Human calculation counts feeding the multitude impossible, measuring need by money and resources and looking over the sea of heads to judge it beyond their means. No human power could create from five barley loaves and two small fishes food sufficient to feed thousands of hungry people at sunset in a desert place after they had been all day without food.

Philip answered on the side of unbelief with no faith to meet the need, though he had seen Christ's works and felt His power. Sincere yet slow of heart to believe and weak in faith, his failure to trust fully grieved Jesus. The chapter to which the estimate belongs calls believers to depend on Christ rather than on human strength or wisdom and to look to Jesus as their sufficiency. The shortage placed Jesus where provision depended on God and illustrates dependence on God in need. People lose heart when they see great need and scant resources, while Christ's command to provide is backed by divine power.

Christ's Compassionate Provision

The small supply was brought to Him, and He commanded the men numbering about five thousand to sit down on the grass, gave thanks, blessed and broke the bread, and placed pieces of bread and fish in the disciples' hands to carry to the hungry and return for more until all ate and were filled. A hymn was sung as He commanded the people to sit down, and the food was divided and scattered to the multitudes until all were satisfied. He then commanded gathering up the fragments so nothing would be lost, and twelve baskets full were taken up, amounting to five or seven bushels.

The food did not diminish as it was distributed but multiplied in distribution, the loaves multiplying and the fish increasing in the hands of those who distributed them. What looked by human means a meager store far too little for the vast assembly became in His hands enough for all, with supply continuing as He kept giving until everyone was satisfied.

He who would not work a miracle to satisfy His own hunger in the wilderness would not allow the multitude, faint after a day without food, to suffer for lack of food or return home unrefreshed to faint by the way. He works intelligently to meet necessity and satisfy hunger, never to exalt His power or to add glory to His disciples, and in providing what was needed He depended on His heavenly Father.

This mighty miracle proved He is indeed the Messiah and divine, no human power being able to create from five barley loaves and two small fishes food sufficient to feed thousands bounteously. It showed omnipotent power and beneficence, the Father's works done through Him, and Jesus as the world's Redeemer with power to provide abundantly. It was evidence heaped upon evidence sufficient to convince any mind open to evidence, crowning growing conviction from His pure doctrine, healing, comforting and tender benevolence with entire belief, so that thoughtful and candid witnesses took exalted views of His character and office while those whose understanding was closed heard only with their ears and had no faith.

He is the same One who supplied bread and clear flowing streams in the wilderness and who fed one hundred men in Old Testament times, the Coming One who declared Before Abraham was, I AM, who walked earth in lowliness and poverty yet is greater than Moses. By the grace of God upon it and the touch of His hand the small portion that looked insufficient becomes all-sufficient, for God's hand multiplies it an hundredfold and increases scanty provision until sufficient for all, able from His resources to spread a table in the wilderness for more than a million people.

The power that multiplied the loaves and supplied bread for the multitude works continually for human good in the growth of seed and the harvest, through rain, air, sunshine, and human labor to feed millions. Human work in tending grain and making bread does not replace this divine agency. People should recognize God's agency in their daily food, give Him the glory, and use His gifts as blessings rather than for selfish ends.

Bread of Life Doctrine

John 6 reveals Christ as the Bread of life and the living bread sent down from heaven who gives life to the world, and the feeding of the great multitude points beyond temporal food to His greater gift of spiritual food for eternal life. In that chapter Christ's words are spirit and life, and believers find lasting satisfaction in Him. The whole chapter is very instructive yet only faintly understood, containing most precious and important lessons for all being educated in schools and wonderful truths to be brought into practical life by those who want an education that will endure through time and eternity, that students may take in Christ's words to understand their privileges and what He is to them individually and what advantage it is to eat His words, realizing He Himself is the great center of life.

The miracle serves as a figure and forceful picture of His work: as ordinary bread gives the body health and strength, so faith in Christ and obedience to His teaching give the soul spiritual vigor, strength, and everlasting life. Studying the Word means eating it by receiving and assimilating Christ's words until they become part of oneself, bringing revealed principles home to the soul, keeping the precepts, bringing truths into daily life, grasping the mysteries of godliness, and exercising the whole life in understanding and practice. That eating is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, and it requires being diligent students of the Word and making its divine principles a part of the life, with continual growth in grace and with the nourishment becoming part of daily life in order to understand and value truth.

God has revealed in His Word what is necessary for salvation, and life comes by living by every word He has revealed rather than leaving it for human suppositions, with His revealed Word guiding life. The Bible contains the heavenly bread by which mind and spirit are built up, for men and women are built up spiritually from the food they give the mind, so time must not be spent on books and magazines that lead the mind astray and hinder growth, and God must be asked for clearness of understanding to comprehend the chapter and its important statements about the bread sent down from heaven. As the bread of life the Word of God represents the body and blood of the Son of God, not addressing the understanding alone as a book of mathematical formulas addresses the intellect, but aiming at the heart, addressing the moral nature, taking possession of the will, casting down imaginations and every high thing exalting itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to obedience.

Eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood is the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world plainly expressed in the chapter as God's will for His people, by which a believer has eternal life and will be raised up at the last day. Even if he dies as Christ died the Saviour's life is in him, for his life is hid with Christ in God, made one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity with life more abundantly, and faith in the Son and the efficacy of His blood are the means of eternal life and protection from Satan's power through receiving and obeying His life-giving words. The bread points to the living Word and Christ's living oracles as life-giving spiritual nourishment and spiritual food, which brings no one who receives it into spiritual hunger, while the insufficiency of ordinary bread belongs to this teaching about the need for the bread of life.

Eating and drinking Christ is tasting that the Lord is gracious, an actual experience belonging to everyone who names Christ, meaning true conversion and the new birth learned like newborn babes desiring the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby, obtained by opening the mind to the entrance of God's Word with determination to practice it, which brings light because the Word gives understanding to the simple. The chapter also defines the righteousness of Christ necessary to be clothed with the wedding garment and made fit for the marriage of humanity with divinity. The education of the chapter shows the importance of feeding upon Christ's words as His very flesh and blood, and teaches youth about the law of Jehovah and the penalty of transgression, and that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in their behalf if they are obedient to that law. Feeding on the rich manna of heaven gives spiritual strength and comfort, creates soul hunger for God, and presses the choice of whom to serve as a question of life or death requiring an undivided heart, while keeping the transactions of the theater before eyes and ears takes away that hunger, closes the heart to rays of light from God's throne, and leaves no peace, no joy, no hope, with dying assurance and dying love for Bible religion.

Receiving to Impart

Christ used the circumstances of the hungry multitude to become a field preacher, at times sitting on a hill in the chair of state as a teacher having authority, not sitting at ease, to give the people the Word which is the bread of life. He fed them not by giving the Scriptures but by a miracle enlarging a small substance of temporal food after giving thanks, until the loaves multiplied in distribution and the fish increased in the hands of those who distributed them and five thousand were satisfied and the fragments were gathered up. Temporal food supplied to the hungry opens the way to place Him in the chair of instruction, and that occasion would be long remembered, with the distribution of grace in words and the free-will offering of enlarged food preparing His way in many places.

He brought His disciples forward before the large numbers to give them reputation, so that many would recognize in their workings that they worked as Christ had worked, and His deeds of mercy open a door for His disciples. God's blessing rests on the food and on the disciples as they break the bread of life to the necessities of hungry souls. The disciples received food from Christ and distributed it to the people, showing that Christ is the source of what His followers need and that they are channels and appointed means of communication between Him and the people, receiving from the Father through Him to pass on. They are to rely fully on Him for their supplies, for they can impart spiritual nourishment only as they receive it from Him.

They can give only what they receive from Christ, and as they continue to share they continue to receive, with the gift increasing as it is shared. All however weak are to feed souls needy of instruction, speak the truth in love, retain the impression made on the heart to repeat to others, and gather all Christ's words as the bread of life and give them to the multitude. Christ never wrought a miracle to exalt His power or to add glory to His disciples, but works intelligently to meet necessity and satisfy hunger.

The feeding showed the disciples their work as His representatives to give the people the bread of life, and they were not to send anyone away unfed. Their human resources would often prove insufficient when facing people hungry for spiritual food and feeling helpless, so they must seek spiritual food from God in order to have something to give. They should make it possible for seekers to hear the Word of life and should not neglect them when they are weary or hungry, finding practical ways to help and remove obstacles that make the way burdensome. Those united to Christ receive the bread of life from Him to share with others, to the glory of Him rather than the instruments, trusting Him fully to provide and sustain those who serve.

Judas assisted in distributing the food to the hungry multitude and helped bring the sick and suffering to Christ, seeing the benefit it was in his power to impart to others and feeling the satisfaction that comes in service and in seeing the relief, joy and gladness that come to human hearts through healing power, which might have taught him Christ's methods. But blinded by his own selfish desires and his fixed idea that Christ would reign as king in Jerusalem, he was first to take advantage of the enthusiasm excited by the miracle of the loaves and set on foot the project to take Christ by force and make Him king, with high hopes and bitter disappointment. Christ rebuked that move with greater authority than He usually used, and that rebuke provoked Judas and left him dissatisfied and more separated in feeling and love from Jesus.

Stewardship and Human Response

Though He had all the resources of infinity at command and could make such a feast whenever He chose, Christ would not waste a fragment but commanded that the fragments be gathered up so nothing was lost, teaching economy, thrift and faithful stewardship for all time. The careful gathering of what remained after five thousand were satisfied shows that God's gifts are not to be wasted, that careful use of provisions belongs to faithful stewardship, and that what remains is to be shared with others in need. Even when He miraculously provides for great need, the food left over is not to be wasted, a lesson in economy and thrift in difficult times and in times of need.

The lesson means more than saving food and teaches no extravagance in anything, requiring all, and especially those in leading positions and in institutions, to waste nothing and gather up what remains that nothing be lost. It calls for making sanitariums plain and simple yet with room to care for people and impress them, so that every act of giving leaves a lasting impression of truth on human minds, especially on those healed and seeing the miracle. Studied as the method for food work, the example calls for economical work with simple, inexpensive preparations and warns against letting selfish private interests obstruct it.

As the food multiplied in passing from Christ to those who received it and the remaining fragments were gathered at His direction so nothing would be lost, so truth multiplies as it is shared, which is why even small pieces of literature carrying truth should be preserved and distributed. Gifts that provide food for people in need also carry the bread of life for their souls, joining economy and care for the hungry.

Connection with Christ calls a person to do his best however small it is and then to cast the helpless soul upon Jesus as Saviour and Redeemer with a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. When human helplessness is exposed, with only a few loaves and two small fishes and no possibility of buying enough for each to have even a little, Christ has the little brought to Him, divides it, commands it to be given until all are satisfied, and then commands the fragments amounting to five or seven bushels to be gathered so nothing is lost. People should share what they have, considering those who lack the truth, and those who dedicate themselves to God may receive the Holy Spirit to share with others in need.

Means at hand are not the measure of advance in the work, for a very meager supply measured against the need of the great multitude still fed the multitude until all ate and were filled. Scattered supply placed in missionary work will be multiplied by God as it is imparted to others, so faith must lay hold upon God and expect success, doing what the hands find to do, practicing economy, binding about wants, saving something from a meager store to sustain God's cause, and planning and working in faith to diffuse the gospel over the whole earth instead of stopping work for lack of means.

What appears insufficient and far too little by human judgment can become more than sufficient and abundant in the Lord's hands, for Jesus can bless and multiply what is scanty until it meets great needs and leaves something to share with others. Offerings used in faith He will enlarge so many can be reached with the bread of life, and money gifts for soul-saving medical missionary work at Glendale and Paradise Valley, sent in with thanksgiving and prayer and put to the best use, will be multiplied and blessed so God enables His people to feed multitudes starving for the bread of life. The same provision gives wisdom, skill, talent and ingenuity to those unselfishly in line with Him to devise means to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, teach the ignorant, and experiment with the wholesome productions of the earth to manufacture necessary, wholesome, inexpensive foods to be sold to the poor at as low a rate as possible, a provision more needed in the Southern states than in any other part of America and to be sought by earnest prayer, with like blessing on gifts for Denmark and Norway and for European institutions.

What people possess, like food distributed among a multitude, is entrusted to them by God, and Jesus as heavenly Provider of all foods shows that the food business to supply necessity is one of the Lord's own instrumentalities. He will not leave His people in ignorance but will teach them how to prepare the best foods for all times and occasions. As source of power and blessing who provides food for the crowd that followed Him to hear instruction, Christ's example guides those carrying out God's work.

The miracle acted out before them, when weary and hungry thousands who had followed on foot were fed from a few loaves and fishes and many baskets full were taken up, gives an example of the simplicity of true godliness for leading children along and educating them to know God.

His pure and simple doctrine sinking into hearts, His healing of the sick and comforting of sorrow, and His tender benevolence winning hearts had nearly convinced the people of His divinity, and feeding them bounteously rather than sending them away hungering crowned their growing conviction with entire belief. Thoughtful and candid witnesses took exalted views of His character and office from evidence heaped upon evidence sufficient to convince any mind open to evidence, while those whose understanding was closed heard only with their ears and had no faith. Yet such display of compassion, love and benevolence did not ensure belief, for Jewish rabbis and priests closed their eyes to the light and in unbelief still demanded a sign. Those miraculously fed who later asked for a sign wanted Him to repeat the miracle so they could see how the food was increased and learn a method for their own benefit, treating the feeding as a wonder to reproduce rather than accepting its lesson and believing in Jesus as the Son of God and the Bread of life.

Many sought Him not because they saw the miracles but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled, coming only for temporal advantages and hoping for further material benefit without understanding the spiritual meaning. Fresh evidence of power did not persuade those who wanted an excuse to avoid the self-denial involved in following Him. Christ made the miracle the occasion of His sermon on the bread of life, and when they heard the conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom of God many went back and walked no more with Him, His popularity began to wane, and He refused to become their king.