Lesson 15

 

        Text:  John 6 :1-14

Locate on Bible Map

1. Locate Sea of Galilee on a Bible map. According to the text of today’s lesson, what is another name for the Sea of Galilee? 

Jesus crossed over the Sea of Galilee.  On the other side many, many people followed Him.  The people who followed Jesus were called “disciples”.

Bible Dictionary Work

2. What is a disciple?

Jesus Feeds the Multitude

 

Jesus went up on a mountain and all His disciples followed Him.  He looked out at the huge crowd and the He called Philip near.  He asked Philip a very challenging question, just to test Philip to see what he would say.  In the time when Jesus lived there was not a McDonald's or a Subway nearby. There were no phones and pizza had not yet been invented! Therefore, they could not even call for pizza to be delivered.  Philip pointed out another problem: Even if they had had a McDonald's nearby, they did not have enough money to buy food for such a crowd.  The Bible tells us that Jesus already had a plan in His own mind of what He would do before He asked Philip.  Andrew, Peter’s brother, had been listening to the conversation between Jesus and Philip and he joined in with an observation. He said, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?”   Then an amazing thing happened.  Jesus fed the whole crowd with the little boy’s lunch!  How did He do that?

Jesus performed something that is called a miracle.  What is a miracle?  A miracle is an occurrence that is possible only by the setting aside of the laws of nature.  What is the law of nature?  God set certain natural laws into effect when He created the world.  For instance, if you are holding a basketball five feet off the ground and let go of it, what will happen?  It will fall to the ground.  Every time you drop it in this manner the same thing will happen.  You will not ever have to get a ladder to retrieve it from the ceiling.  The ball falls to the ground because of the law of gravity which God created. 

Another example of one of God’s natural laws is grapes growing on a vine.  This happens naturally when a vineyard is planted.  Grapes have been growing this way since God created the earth.  Men must pick the grapes and press out the juice in order to have refreshing grape juice to drink.

An example of a miracle occurred when Jesus bypassed the laws of nature and made wine (the liquid obtained from squeezing grapes) at a wedding feast one time.  He did not grow a vineyard.  He did not pick the grapes. He did not press the grapes to obtain their sweet, purple juice.  He simply turned water that was in water pots into wine.  You and I cannot make grape juice this way.  We must go through all the steps from planting to squeezing the juice to have grape juice.

Family Discussion

3. Take turns naming different laws in nature.  Next, take turns naming miracles.  These could be miracles that happened in the Bible or things that you make up that could only happen  if you set aside the laws of nature. Example:  If you put a lot of metal shavings into a box, shook it up and opened the box and found that the pieces of metal shavings had formed into a working clock, this would be a miracle.  (Please list the things you discussed.)

We learn in another place in the Bible that Jesus did miracles to cause people to believe He was who He said He was. (John 20:30)  We cannot do miracles today.  Miracles ceased after the New Testament was completed. 

True or False

4. The Sea of Galilee is also called the Sea of Mesopotamia.

5.  According to our lesson text, Jesus sat down in a boat to teach His disciples.

6.  When Jesus asked Philip how they could feed the great crowd, Philip said, “Let me take up a collection and then I will call Dominos!”

7.  Andrew told Jesus about a little boy who had fish and loaves of bread.

8.  Jesus fed everyone with the little boy’s 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish. 

9.  Everyone had all the food they wanted to eat.

10.  There were 10 baskets of fragments of bread left over.  

 

11.  The men who were fed knew that a miracle had been done and said that Jesus was the Prophet who was to come into the world.

 

Important Observation

12. After Jesus took the loaves and before He distributed the food, what did He do?  How important is it that we do the same thing before we eat?  Should people do this before they eat in public places like restaurants or when they are eating in their car after going through the drive thru?