John 6:8 - Printer Friendly

ESV: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,

NIV: Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up,

NASB: One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, *said to Him,

CSB: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,

NLT: Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up.

KJV: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,

NKJV: One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him,

Jesus has posed a challenge to His disciples: how to feed five thousand men, along with women and children. Jesus knows how He will respond, but tests His followers in order to illustrate a valuable lesson (John 6:6). After trying to ignore the problem (Mark 6:36), they offer several solutions. Philip, probably with heavy cynicism, notes that even buying a small snack for everyone would cost the equivalent of eight month's wages for a common laborer (John 6:7).

Andrew, on the other hand, approaches the situation with optimism, at the very least. Andrew is frequently seen bringing people to meet Jesus, as he did in bringing his brother Simon (Peter) to Jesus in chapter 1. Here, he approaches Christ with a young boy, who seems to have offered his lunch. It's possible Andrew had begun to ask for food donations from the crowd. In any event, the focus of Andrew's solution is human effort, and the fact that the available resources seem pitifully small for the task at hand.

As Jesus will show, however, the proper approach to solving our problems begins with trust in God, and a complete submission to His will (John 6:10–11).

John 6:1–15 describes Jesus' feeding thousands of people—the fourth of the gospel of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ's divinity. This is the only miracle recorded in all four of the gospel accounts. When the crowd complains of hunger, the disciples who are mentioned each react in unique ways. Starting with only a tiny lunch of bread and fish, Jesus miraculously divides the food, filling everyone, and leaving more left over than they had to begin with. The people are astounded by this, and immediately react by proclaiming Jesus as ''the Prophet'' who has been promised. Jesus, however, is not yet ready to be publicly announced. He also knows the true motivations of this crowd and will attempt to explain the real importance of the miracle to them the following day.

In chapter 6, Jesus feeds thousands of people who had been following Him. He does this by miraculously dividing the contents of a small lunch, leaving more left over than He had to begin with. At first, the crowd is amazed and they enthusiastically praise Jesus. After sending the disciples across the Sea of Galilee, and rescuing them from a storm by walking on the water, Jesus once again addresses the crowd. This time, He emphasizes the spiritual lesson behind His prior miracle. In response, most of those who had been praising Jesus turn away from Him in disappointment.

John chapter 6 occurs some months after the events of chapter 5, bringing the narrative to about one year prior to Jesus' crucifixion. As with the rest of the Gospel of John, the purpose is not to repeat information from the other three Gospels, but to focus on Jesus' status as God incarnate. This chapter continues to expand the list of Jesus' miraculous signs and the witnesses to His divine nature. Here, Jesus also gives the first of seven ''I AM'' statements found in this Gospel. Chapter 7 will once again skip ahead to a major public step in Jesus' path to the cross.

The gospel of John was written by the disciple John, decades later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls “signs”—in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in all of the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.