Getting ready to feed 5,000.

John 6.1-7.

John didn’t write his gospel in chapters. Took a few centuries before some enterprising Christian divided the bible into chapters; took a bit longer before it was divided further into verses. But when John was divided into chapters, the editor largely did it right: In a lot of ’em, Jesus does a miracle, and there’s fallout as people argue over what this miracle means, and what it means about Jesus; and Jesus of course has to correct some of their wrong ideas. And today, popular Christian culture still pitches their theories about what these miracles and Jesus’s teachings mean, and the Holy Spirit of course has to correct some of our wrong ideas. Assuming we listen to him any.

So John 6 begins with the Feeding Five Thousand Story. All four gospels tell this story, ’cause it’s important: It reminds us God’s kingdom has unlimited resources. I’ll begin with the first part of the story.

John 6.1-7 KWL

1After these things, Jesus goes across the Galilean sea, Tiberias.

2A great crowd is following Jesus,

because they’re watching the signs

which he’s doing among the sick.

3Jesus goes up a hill with his students.

4It’s getting near the Judean feast of Passover.

5Jesus is lifting up his eyes,

seeing this great crowd come to him.

He tells Philip, “Where might we buy bread

so these people might eat?”

6Jesus is saying this test Philip,

for he already knew what he’s about to do.

7Philip is answering Jesus,

“The bread of 200 denarii isn’t enough for them!

—so each one might receive a little.”

The Galilean sea.

The 166km² freshwater lake in northern Israel—which we wouldn’t call a “sea,” but the ancient Galileans proudly did—was originally called כִּנְּרוֹת/Khinnerót, “harps,” although in modern Hebrew it means “violins.” Supposedly the name is because it’s harp-shaped. Meh; kinda. Considering that place names in the bible were regularly the result of something happening there, instead of what something kinda looked like, my bet is something involving multiple harps happened there—a contest, a festival, a popular harp-manufacturer; whatever. The origin is lost to history, of course.

Anyway, by Jesus’s day, Herod Antipas had renamed it Τιβεριάς/Tiveriás, “Tiberias,” after the city he’d founded on its southern bank, which he named to suck up to the Roman emperor, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus. There’s no evidence Herod suppressed the original name—Luke still calls it “the lake of Genessaret,” Lk 5.1 ’cause Γεννησαρέτ/Ghennisarét is how Greek-speakers mangled the name Khinnerót. But Tiberias is how people outside Israel came to know it, which is why John used that name thrice.

We don’t know where the feeding took place. Some Christians have speculated it happened at Tiberias—that this is why the word Τιβεριάδος/Tiveriádos is in verse 1—but no; John was just using the proper name of the Galilean sea. We only know it didn’t happen at Bethsaida, ’cause Jesus goes there later.

Anyway. Crowds heard about Jesus curing people, so they wanted to check him out for themselves. And he did cure some of them. Mt 14.14, Lk 9.11 Then he climbs a hill, not to get away from them (although there is some of that), but so he can be seen, and maybe heard. The other gospels say he took advantage of the situation and taught ’em all day long. Mk 6.34-36 Maybe the Sermon on the Mount again; maybe something else. We don’t know.

Time to feed them! Now, what with?

It’s March (’cause John mentions it’s near Passover), so the grass is still green, but it’s way too soon to go gleaning the fields. The wheat is still green too. Not ripe enough. True, you could eat grass, but c’mon; they weren’t gonna eat grass. And there’s no way the crowds can just pluck food off the edges of nearby farms.

The people have been listening to Jesus all day; they’re getting hungry. And maybe a little hangry. You know how people can get. So understandably—compassionately—Jesus starts thinking about their stomachs. As do his students, who weren’t that selfish:

Luke 9.12 KJV

And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.

Not literally desert; there was grass on the ground. Mk 6.39 “Desert” is King James English for undeveloped land. Nobody lives there, animals aren’t grazing there, there are no farms; it’s just empty fields. Maybe someone owned it; maybe no one did. (Yet. Everybody’s pretty much laid claim to everything nowadays.)

In the other gospels, Jesus’s response was “You feed ’em,” but in John he drops the idea into Philip’s head: “Where can we buy ’em bread?”

Which kinda broke Phillip’s brain a little. We would look at a stadium’s worth of people, and think, “If we bought them all a Lunchable and a bottle of water, that’s about three bucks a head; that’d be $15,000. Nope, don’t have the budget for that.” In Jesus’s day, money went further, but they still didn’t have the budget for that. Philip brought up 200 denarii, which is probably what Jesus’s team had on them—and Philip points out that’s in no way gonna be enough.

A denarius was the Roman $10, and is equivalent to $6.50 USD in today’s money. Some bibles translate denarius as “a day’s wages” (and therefore 200 denarii as “half a year’s wages” Jn 6.7 NIV) because in Jesus’s Equal-Pay Vineyard Story, that’s what the landowner paid everyone: A denarius. Hey, they agreed to it! But Jesus was using “denarius” as an example, not a literal common day’s wage. Wages varied. Money’s value varied.

The KJV translates it “penny,” because the translators figured British silver pennies were similar, but they’re actually a fifth the size of a denarius. In any case, 200 denarii is worth $1,300—and yes, if you’re buying those cheap 25¢ dinner rolls, that’d get you 5,200 of them, which is about as pathetic a meal as Philip was imagining. It’s better than nothing… but barely.

But y’notice Jesus doesn’t really intend for his team to buy anything. “He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” Jn 1.6 ESV And no, Philip didn’t fail the test, like certain commentators claim: Jesus didn’t expect him to say, “Oh, what do we need denarii for? Do a miracle, Master!” Jesus had made wine out of water before, so feeding 5,000 isn’t a miracle without precedent; it’s a far grander scale than a wedding party, but God can create worlds out of nothing. Still, I don’t believe it ever occurred to Philip what Jesus was planning—and Jesus knows Philip way better than I do, and knew Philip would probably do the math and say, “Yeah, we haven’t enough.” That was the whole point: To recognize physically, financially, they hadn’t enough. But God has plenty.

And that’s a lesson a lot of Christians still haven’t entirely learned. We look at ministries, at people we need to help, and think, “We haven’t enough. Let’s do a fundraiser!” Which is fine; I’m not saying Christians shouldn’t have fundraisers. (I do object to some of the kinds of fundraisers, of course. If they’re not ethical, don’t do those!) But you realize if we simply stopped stressing out, and asked the Holy Spirit for help, maybe he has a solution which doesn’t involve money. Maybe he wants us to stop looking at our bank accounts, and stop seeing them as the limits for what we can do. He can do greater; therefore we can do greater.