John Chapter 6

(Tap footnote to read it.  Old Testament quotations are underlined.  "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.¹"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love".  However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior.  It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings.  (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".)  Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé".  Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing.  It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )

Feeding five thousand

1. After these things, Jesus departed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called Tiberias).
2. And a great crowd was following Him because they were observing the signs that He was doing on the sick men.
3. And Jesus went up to the mountain and was sitting there with His disciples.
4. And the Passover – the feast of the Jews – was near.
5. So having lifted up His eyes, and having seen that a great crowd is coming to Him, Jesus tells Philip: “Where might we buy bread so these men might eat?”
6. (And He was saying this to test him, for He had known what He was intending to do.)
7. Philip answered Him: “Two hundred denarii¹“denarii” is the plural of denarius, which was a 1st century coin that was the standard wage for a day’s worth of unskilled labor. worth of loaves aren’t enough for them, so that each might receive a little piece.”
8. One of His disciples – Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter – tells Him:
9. “There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.  But what are those for so many?”
10. Jesus said: “Make the men recline to eat.”  And there was much grass in the place, so the men reclined.  Their number was about five thousand.
11. Therefore Jesus took the bread, and having given thanks He distributed it to the men reclining, and He did likewise with the fish, distributing as much as they were wanting.
12. And when they were satisfied, He tells His disciples: “Collect the pieces which remain so that nothing might perish.”
13. So they collected them and filled twelve baskets of pieces from the five loaves of barley which remained from the men who had eaten.
14. So having seen that sign He did, the men were saying: “This is truly the prophet coming into the world.”
15. So Jesus – having known that they intend to come and to seize Him so they might make Him king – went back to the mountain again, by Himself alone.
16. Now, when it became evening His disciples went down to the sea.
17. And having entered into a boat, they were going across the sea to Capernaum.  And it had already become dark and Jesus hadn’t come to them.
18. And the sea was being stirred by a great wind blowing.
19. Therefore, having rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia,²a “stadia” is ~606 English feet, which is ~185 meters. they see Jesus walking on the sea³quotation/allusion to Job 9:8 and Job 38:16 and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.
20. But He tells them: “I Am;⁴“I Am” the Greek construction here is identical to John 8:58, where Jesus proclaims His Deity.  However, it could also be translated “it is I”, which is more common.  This is possibly a reference several Old Testament passages, primarily Exodus 3:14 where God appears to Moses and reveals His name is “I Am”. don’t fear.”
21. Therefore they were willing to receive Him into the boat.  And immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

The bread of life

22. The next day, the crowd that was *standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat except one, and that Jesus didn’t embark into the boat with His disciples, but His disciples departed alone.
23. But other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord gave thanks.
24. So when the crowd saw that Jesus isn’t there, nor His disciples, they themselves embarked in the boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.
25. And having found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him: “Rabbi, when did you *come here?”
26. Jesus answered and told them: “Amen, amen I tell you: you seek Me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the bread and were satisfied.
27. “Don’t work for the perishing food, but for the food remaining into the life of ages, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father set a seal on Him.”
28. So they said to Him: “What might we do, so we work the works of God?”
29. Jesus answered and told them: “This is the work of God: that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
30. So they said to Him: “Then what sign do you do so we might see and believe you?  What work do you do?
31. “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it’s *written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”⁵quotation/allusion to Psalm78:24
32. So Jesus told them: “Amen, amen I tell you: Moses didn’t *give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33. “For the bread of God is the One coming down from heaven and giving  life to the world.”
34. So they said to Him: “Sir, always give us this bread.”
35. Jesus told them: “I am the bread of life.  The man coming to Me definitely won’t hunger, and the man believing in Me definitely won’t ever thirst.”
36. “But I told you that you have also seen Me and yet you don’t believe.
37. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the man coming to Me I definitely won’t cast out,
38. “because I have come down from heaven; not so I might do My will, but the will of the One who sent Me.
39. And this is the will of the One who sent Me: that of all that He has given Me, I lose none of it; but will raise it up at the last day.
40. “For this is the will of My Father: that every man gazing at the Son and believing in Him should have the life of ages, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
41. So the Jews were grumbling about Him because He said “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”
42. And they were saying: “Isn’t this Jesus?  The son of Joseph, whose father and mother we *know?  How does He now say ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43. Jesus answered and told them: “Don’t grumble with one another.
44. “No one is able to come to Me unless the Father – the One who sent Me – draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
45. “It is *written in the prophets: ‘And they will all be instructed of God.’⁶quotation/allusion to Isaiah 54:13  Every man who heard from the Father and learned comes to Me.
46. “Not that anyone has seen the Father except the One from the God; He has seen the Father.
47. “Amen, amen I tell you: the man believing has the life of ages.
48. “I am the bread of life.
49. “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.
50. “This is the bread coming down from heaven, so that anyone might eat of it and not die.
51. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live through the age.  And the bread that I also will give – My flesh – is life for the sake of the world.”
52. So the Jews were arguing with one another, saying: “How is this man able to give us His flesh to eat?”
53. So Jesus told them: “Amen, amen I tell you: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you don’t have life in yourselves.”
54. “The man chewing My flesh and drinking My blood has the life of ages, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55. “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
56. “The man chewing My flesh and drinking My blood remains in Me and I in him.
57. “Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so also the man chewing on Me will also live because of Me.
58. “This is the bread which came down from heaven, and not as the fathers ate and died; the man chewing this bread will live through the age.”
59. He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60. So having heard this, many of His disciples said: “This is a hard message; who is able to hear it?”
61. And Jesus, *knowing in Himself that His disciples grumble about this, He told them: “Does this offend you?
62. “So, what if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
63. “It’s the Spirit giving life; the flesh benefits nothing.  The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life.
64. “But there are some of you who don’t believe.”  For Jesus had known from the beginning who the men not believing are, and who is the man who will betray Him.
65. And He was saying: “Because of this, I have told you that no one is able to come to Me unless it has been given to him by the Father.
66. From this, many of His disciples departed to go back home, and were walking with Him no longer.
67. So Jesus said to the twelve: “Don’t you also want to leave?”
68. Simon Peter answered Him: “Lord, to whom will we go?  You have the words of the life of ages,
69. “and we *believe and *know that you are the Holy One of God.”
70. Jesus answered them: “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve?  And one of you is a devil.”
71. And He was speaking of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, one of the twelve; for he was intending to betray Him.

 

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