John 6:8-11 - Time to eat

6:8,9

Then Andrew, another of the disciples, brought a boy to Jesus, and this boy had the famous five loaves and two fish. John emphasises that the loaves and fish were both small, though he could hardly have been carrying around two large fish! Barley loaves were the food of the poor.

Why did Andrew bring the boy and the food to Jesus? It could be because the boy wanted them brought to Jesus and had taken the initiative. However, this seems unlikely given the lack of importance children had in that society. Or maybe his parents had made the suggestion. Whatever the case, Andrew didn’t have much faith that this was going to help much.

It is worth looking at 2 Kings 4:42-44. There they had twenty loaves and one hundred men to feed and this wasn’t thought to be enough. There Elisha told them just to give the food to the men and promised that they would have more than enough.

6:10,11

Jesus instructed His disciples to get the people to sit down, Mark 6:39,40 tells us more about this, with the people being ordered into groups of fifty or a hundred. That the grass was green indicates that it was in the spring, ie consistent with it being Passover time. This is another of those little incidentals that adds to the authenticity of the account.

The number of men was five thousand, Matt 14:21 tells us that there were women and children as well, so the grand total was probably around ten thousand.

Jesus then took the bread and gave thanks. Our starting point in any situation should always be to give thanks for what we do have, rather than worrying about what we don’t have.