John 6:7-9 Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.” One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?”
John chose to record this miracle because it was a public, impossible to deny, pivotal event in Jesus’ ministry. The Jews in Jerusalem had rejected Jesus, but the Jews in Galilee wanted to make Him king, but for the wrong reason: material comfort and gain. This lesson is important for us for many reasons.
First, the magnificence of the miracle was the Father’s testimony regarding His Son. This was an unparalleled act of love for the crowd. When Jesus asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?” Everyone knows the answer to that question. There’s no place that has that much bread (assuming 5000 men with one wife and child accompanying them, with each eating 1/3 of a loaf, that’s 5000 loaves of bread or about 1 and 1/2 semi-tractor trailer loads). And if there were a place that had that much bread, it was unaffordable. It would take around 6–8 months of normal wages to pay for it all. Perhaps 200 denarii was what they had, but Philip said that was insufficient. So feeding 15,000 people was quite a generous expression of God’s love and provision. This encourages us to be generous in our hospitality, looking to God for His supply.
Second, we can be encouraged by Andrew’s faith. Would you offer as an answer to this problem a boy’s lunch of 5 loaves of bread and two fish? That seems incredulous unless you figure in faith. We aren’t told why Andrew mentioned the boy’s lunch, but it is possible that Andrew believed Jesus could do something big with such a little thing. And if that’s the case, I pray, “Lord, make us more like Andrew!” We are encouraged that Jesus can take whatever we have to give to Him, and He will use it for the glory of God. That’s exactly the attitude we should have as we live to love with Jesus.
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