Join us in processing the last few devotions by grabbing a notebook, or take notes on your phone or computer.
Places along the Path
- Bread is an ancient food enjoyed by many different nationalities. Bread is sometimes just a familiar, everyday staple, but other times it is a rare and delicious delicacy.
- What is your favorite bread to eat, or perhaps to make?
- What accounts for the central place bread holds in the diets of nearly every culture in every age?
- Review the incident sometimes called, “The Feeding of the 5,000” from John 6:1-15.
- In the story, Jesus asked Philip where they could get bread to feed all the people. What might Jesus have been trying to accomplish with this question?
- How would you have answered Jesus’ question?
- Jesus performed this miracle using food that was already present in that place: five loaves of barley bread and two small fish.
- How would it have changed the miracle had Jesus multiplied his own bread and fish? Explain.
- What does it say about Jesus that he was willing to use what is already present in a community to do his work? What insights or new hope do you glean from this?
- Have you ever seen God perform a great work using humble ingredients? If so, tell the group about it.
- The crowds that day experienced the miracle, enjoyed the meal, and wanted to make Jesus their king. They saw in Jesus a steady and inexhaustible source of free food. The disciples experienced the miracle, listened the next day as Jesus explained its deeper meaning, and began to wonder if they were willing to complete the journey with Jesus they had begun. Read John 6:47-51.
- What makes Jesus’ explanation hard to understand?
- How does eating bread, fruit, cheese or any other food cause that food to become a part of you?
- How does faith in Jesus and in the forgiveness he won for you on the cross make him a part of you?