Jesus Feeds 5000

Jesus feeds 5000 men

John 6:8-12 Jesus Feeds 5000

JOHN 6:8-10 8 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?” 10 Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.

Did the crowd number “about five thousand” (John 6:10)?
The “men” (John 6:10) numbered about 5000. Including the “women and children” (Matthew 14:21), the crowd probably numbered about 15000 or more.

What other clues are there to the size of this crowd?
One denarius (plural: denarii) was the wage for one day's labor, so “two hundred denarii worth of bread” (John 6:7) was the amount of bread that could be bought with about eight months' (including rest on the Sabbath) income. Imagine spending what you earn in eight months to buy just bread and it still being “not sufficient for them, that every one of them may receive a little” (John 6:7). This was a massive crowd.

What was Andrew describing when he said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two small fish” (John 6:9)?
The “barley loaves” would be comparable to today's dinner rolls, and the two fish were “small”; this was a kid's meal.

How did Andrew find it?
Jesus had told him and the other disciples to go and look for bread among the crowd: He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they knew, they said, “Five, and two fish” (Mark 6:38).

What does their answer imply?
Reporting back about a kid's meal and even mentioning fish, which Jesus didn't ask about, implies that they looked for all food items, including bread, and the kid's meal was all that they found.

JOHN 6:11-12 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks, distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the pieces that remain so that nothing is lost.”

Honestly, do you believe the account above?

How can anyone feed 5000, 15000 or even more people with a kid’s meal, and then end up with more food afterward than before?

Do you believe a baby can complete a marathon?

Do you believe an Olympic marathoner could?

What is the point?
We call something a “miracle” when someone does something that exceeds our estimation of their ability. But our estimation can be an underestimation, and mistaking an Olympic marathoner for a baby is a far smaller underestimation than mistaking the Creator of the universe for a creature. For Jesus, the Creator God - “For by Him all things were created, those in the heavens and those upon the earth, those visible and those invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16) - feeding a few thousand people with even nothing at all would have been a piece of cake, and this applies to all of His other miracles recorded in the Bible.