Tag Archives: feeding 5000

Bread in the Bible – Feeding Many

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Jesus feeding many people at one time in the Bible is found in all of the Gospels. The stories are important because it was one of the signs that the Jews had decided their coming Messiah would do. There are many lessons that you can find in the story of the mass feedings. Here are the references for each Gospel.

  • Matthew 14 – 16
  • Mark 6 – 8
  • John 6
  • Luke 9:10 -17

The timing of these events is important. John the Baptist has been beheaded and Jesus is headed to Jerusalem. This puts these feedings near the end of His forty months of ministry. Matthew and Mark have a feeding of 5,000 in Israel and then a separate feeding of 4,000 people near the Decapolis on the east side of the Sea of Galilee (See Mark 7:31 and 8:1). The miracles and conversations in and around these miracles are important in the big story. The leftovers were epiousios provision.

Luke – This is the basic story; it is before the Transfiguration which agrees with Matthew and Mark. Like them, it has an interesting thought in it. Jesus broke the bread, and the disciples gave it to the people. I see the Great Commission in that simple statement. John has Jesus disturbing the food; that is not a big deal but it is in line with him proving Jesus is the Son of God.

John – The French printer did a great job with Chapter 6 when he selected where to start and end the content of the chapter. Most of the chapter is about bread and Jesus as the Bread of Life. Remember, John is proving Jesus is the Son of God by highlighting miracles. John has more than seven great miracles in his book, but people tend to focus on the major seven.

Starting in verse 25, Jesus covers a lot of theology. His introduction of communion and comparing Himself to manna and the Bread of Heaven upset many Jews. This section does mesh well with the section in Matthew.

Mark and Matthew – The Chosen had good drama in Season 3 that ended with Jesus feeding the masses and Peter’s walk on the water. Our Gospel writers and the Holy Spirit did a better job (lol). The in-between and after is what has gotten my attention. So, please do not separate the two feedings, but view those chapters as one big section with a lot of traveling between the two main courses. My points will not be in order. John’s beheading, for me, is the start of the third block of teaching on the Kingdom of God.

  • Matthew 15:2, the Pharisees, and Clean/Unclean – Both times after Jesus fed the masses the Pharisees swooped in and challenged Him. After the 5,000 they complained all those people in the wilderness did not wash their hands before eating. Jesus took charge and changed the subject to put the focus on them and they did not like it. After the 4,000 they wanted another sign; think of the miracles in John. They had a list of things the Messiah would do and again Jesus did not play along. At this point, they had several years’ worth of miracles to choose from, but religious paradigms are very hard soil for things to sprout and grow in.
  • Yeast/Leaven – In the natural yeast changes the wheat and water and, in the process, makes a gas that causes the bread to rise or grow. (Take several Muse Moments in this section.) To say that yeast is always compared to sin and is bad is not completely correct. The grain offering at Pentecost was two loaves baked with yeast (Leviticus 23:17). Jesus also compared the kingdom of God to yeast that was put into a large amount of dough (Matthew 13:33, Luke 13:21). Yeast bread was part of the daily diet and possibly it was used to make beer; another common food.  The hypocrisy of the leaders is what Jesus did not want His disciples to consume. He had been giving them pure leaven and wanted that to fill them, not the teachings and mindsets of the Pharisees.
  • Travels – Jesus knew His time was about over. He was teaching His followers and wanted to be left alone. After the 4,000 He took His followers and went north to Caesarea Philippi, where Peter finally declared Jesus as the Son of the Living God. He also left the Galilee area after the 5,000 and went to the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. (Elijah met a widow there and helped her.) The distances were not great but the separation was what He wanted. This separation provided quiet but also protection for His followers. The destinations were a shadow of going to the nations.  
  • Matthew 15: 26 – This interaction with a Canaanite woman is a foundation stone for Peter and Paul to preach the Gospel to Gentiles. This woman just needed crumbs, leftovers from the full loaf of bread for her miracle. Because of her faith, she got exactly what she needed from Jesus. Matthew has this trip in between the feeding of the two great masses. Mark places the second feeding in the Greek-influenced east bank. Did the disciples pick up on the connection? First to the Jews, then to the Gentiles. 5,000 were fed with twelve baskets of leftovers, then 4,000 and seven baskets were filled. Jesus gave “crumbs” to a Canaanite mother and then fed many in the Decapolis.
  • Reteach – I am pulling this morsel from a completely different basket. Our Master and Teacher gave His disciples a test and a lesson with the feeding of the 5,000. As a teacher, I see the feeding of the 4,000 as a retest, Jesus wanted them to do the miracles. I do not believe they got an A in that particular lesson.

I see the test of feeding the 5,000 as the end of the lesson from them going out 2×2 in Matthew 10. It has a connection to when the Children of Israel did not ask and seek God for provision AFTER He delivered them out of Egypt.

Bible Map: Genneseret (bibleatlas.org)

It is time to put a wrap on this study of Feeding the Masses. Yes, there are more lessons and things to look at; I did not touch on the symbolic meaning of the numbers involved. The most important reference to bread is left, communion.  

A few musings I picked up along the way.

  1. It takes many individual kernels of grain to make a loaf. They have to be picked, cleaned, ground up, mixed together, and baked.
  2. Were there people who ate twice of the miraculously multiplied bread? Besides His immediate followers.
  3. With Jesus a little can become a lot.

What is your favorite thought of bread?

Feeding 5000 – A Kingdom Lesson

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For this post, I see the feeding of the 5000 as one of several Kingdom lessons for the disciples as to who Jesus was, the Son of God and Messiah. This is in the third block of teaching about the Kingdom of God/Heaven. This lesson is found in all four of the Gospels and is one that John uses to stress the fact that Jesus was the Son of God. The references are Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30 – 44, Luke 9:10 – 17 (See Bible 911-Luke), and John 6:1 – 15. Feeding the 4000 is in Matthew 15: 29 – 39, and Mark 8:1-10.  

The sending out of the Twelve (Block #2) is around or before the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the seventh month after Passover. The final harvest for the year is in and the people have no crops to gather, so more people would have been free to listen. John, Chapter 7, states these miracles and teachings about the kingdom happened before the Feast.

John the Baptist’s death was a gate that opened for Jesus to move forward. The sign of the feeding combined with the anger from John’s death would have pushed people to make Jesus king.  Saint John extends this thought through Chapter 6, where some followers find it very difficult to continue with Jesus.

Feeding the 5000 was a “parable” for the disciples who had returned from their first solo ministry trip. They did not understand they could have fed the people; the anointing was upon them. The lesson was taught and later explained to them. Matthew and Mark add the feeding of the 4000 and the teaching about where “clean and unclean” come from and the example of the yeast of religious leaders.

In the narrative, the actual miracle is very short, with just one verse. Since I am viewing this as a teaching lesson, do not discount the prep work and follow-up material that reinforces the main point.  

The leftovers are important because the little boy (I think it was John Mark) was paid back so that his cup ran over. They became part of the lesson (Matthew 16) and a blessing for people who were not there and were fed later. Miracles can keep on giving if you let them.

I have fun doing these. Below is a combination of all four Gospel accounts of the story from the KJV. The verse numbers were left to give you an idea of which Gospel they came from. Mark and John were used the most, my choice, but I think I got all of the major thoughts in. Anything in italics was added by me.

30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught and when Jesus heard about John’s death.

31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

32 And they departed into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida by ship privately over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. When the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.

2 And a great multitude saw them departing, and followed him, because they knew him, and saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. They ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him.

14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick. He received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.

3 And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. 4 And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

 34 And Jesus, when he came out (of the boat), saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

35 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed:

36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.

He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? (Philip was from Bethsaida)

6 And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.

7 Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

38 He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see.

8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him,

9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?

10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.

40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.

15 And they did so, and made them all sit down.

41 And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

42 And they did all eat, and were filled.

12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.

15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.