João 6

Food for 15,000

5 Then, raising His eyes and observing that a huge crowd was coming toward Him, Jesus says to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread so that these folks may eat?"*According to the other three accounts, the disciples had already suggested to Jesus that He send the people away to the surrounding towns to buy food. But let’s stop and think. How many bread stores would a village have, and how much bread would a store still have on hand at 5 p.m.? If they could have gone to every store within a radius of 30 miles, I doubt that they would have found even 10,000 loaves available. The Lord’s question shows that their suggestion was really a cop-out. 6 Now He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He was about to do. 7 Philip answered Him, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread*How much bread can you buy with the wages for 200 days of manual labor? Probably an awful lot of it. But the crowd was so huge that Philip figured that even that much would not do it. [If a day’s wage would buy 50 small loaves, for instance, that would make 10,000 loaves—more people than bread.] would not be enough for them, so that each of them could receive a little."