Feeding the 5000

Though there were several accounts of Jesus feeding the multitudes of people who followed Him, my favorite telling of these stories is the one found in John chapter 6.

Jesus had been teaching the people all day and now it was late. They were in a remote place and had no food. The people were hungry and Jesus was concerned for them.

This was not the only feeding of the multitudes Jesus did.
This was not the only feeding of the multitudes Jesus did.

But Jesus also saw an opportunity to teach His disciples. He asked Philip where they should buy bread. There were no markets around. They did not have enough money to feed everyone even if there was a place to buy food. But Jesus was not asking because He was concerned for the outcome. He was asking so that He could get the disciples to see the gravity of the situation and consider the miracle that was about to take place.

Andrew brought a boy to the Lord who had a small lunch. It consisted of five loaves of barley bread and two small fish.

Jesus took the simple offering and prayed over it. He broke it into smaller pieces and distributed them to His disciples who doled the pieces out to the people. I think we would have been just as surprised as the disciples to find that the food we were handing out never depleted. They even gathered up the fragments of food after everyone had their fill and there was much more bread than they had started with.

This passage says there were 5000 men. We also know there was at least one child and probably hundreds, if not thousands, of women and other children.

This was not the only feeding of the multitudes Jesus did. That is why you will often see various numbers of people cited in the Gospels for how many people were fed.