Feeding of Five Thousand John 6:1-14 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Feeding the five thousand is one of the most famous miracles that Jesus ever did.  This miracle is documented in all four gospels.

Everything in the Bible has these applications: the historical application, doctrinal application, and spiritual application.  This lesson will study the historical application of this miracle.

Matthew Luke, Mark, and John are not contradictory; they are supplementary.  Four people recording the same event would not have the same report; each person would record what seemed important to him.  Only by piecing together all four do you get all the details of this miracle.

The miracle occurred in a desert place near Bethsaida (Luke 9:10). You can get there by boat from Bethsaida (Mark6:45).  You can get there by foot (Matthew 14:13). This is not a sandy wasteland, this is merely an uninhabited area (Mark6:39).  There had been a healing and a teaching time that lasted till the end of the day (Luke 9:12), so the miracle took place in the evening (Matthew 14:15).  Lodging near the wilderness, eating in the wilderness and attempting to buy something to eat have a very important doctrinal application [Tribulation references] to be studied in the next lesson.  Jesus said that the people didn’t need to leave because he would feed them there (Matthew 14:16).  It would take 200 penny worth of bread to feed that many people (Mark 6:37).  A penny is a day’s wage (Matthew 20:9).  Jesus asked them where they could buy enough bread (John 6:5).  Peter answered that 200 pennyworth would not be sufficient to feed them all (John 6:7).  Jesus asked how many loaves they had (Mark 6:38).  Andrew discovered the lad with the five loaves and two fishes (John 6:8).  One commented that they still had to buy some food (Luke 9:12).  Jesus told them to bring him the bread and fish (Matthew 14:18).  Jesus made them sit down by hundreds and fifties (Mark 6:40).  After they sat down, Jesus looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the fish, and gave thanks.  He gave the loaves and fish to the disciples and they to the multitude (Matthew 14:19).  They all ate and were filled.  After they were filled, they took up twelve baskets of leftovers (Mark 6:42).  There were five thousand men.  They didn’t count the women and children, so there could have been far more (Matthew 14:21).  The people knew that Jesus was a prophet (John 6:14) from Deuteronomy 18:15-18.  This is important for the doctrinal application.  They could cross reference this with John 6:31.