It was nearly time for the Passover Jesus had been in Galilee where he healed the son of an official. He had been in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, where he healed a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. This made the religious leaders really angry. It seemed to them that he was trying to put himself on a level with God. So Jesus got in a boat and crossed the Sea of Galilee He climbed a hillside and sat down with his disciples.
Stretched out across the hillside, down into the valley, and right up to the edge of the Sea of Galilee was a huge crowd of people. There were men, women, and children as far as the eye could see. They had heard about this man Jesus. Maybe some of them had seen Jesus heal the sick. Others had heard about it from their friends and relatives. Some of the crowd probably hoped Jesus would heal them, too. Others were only curious.
When Jesus saw that this large crowd had arrived, he said to Phillip, " Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?" Jesus already knew what he was going to do, but he said this to see what Phillip would say.
Phillip was astonished. He said," Two hundred pieces of silver wouldn't be enough to feed all these people. There wouldn't be enough for each person to even have one piece of bread!"
Then Andrew, Peter's brother, spoke up. " There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that's hardly enough for him, much less for all these people."
Jesus looked out over the crowd, and over the green grass of the hillside. "Make the people to sit down, " he said to his disciples.
All over the hillside, people began to sit down, all five thousand of them.
Then Jesus took the bread, gave thanks to God and began handing the bread to the seated people. He did the same with the fish. All over the hillside, down in the valley and up to the edge of the Sea of Galilee, people received bread and fish. Everyone had plenty to eat.
When everyone had eaten as much as they wanted, Jesus said to his disciples, "Go and gather the leftovers so that nothing will be wasted. When the disciples were done, they found they had twelve large basketsful.
The people realized that this was God's work and they began to say, "This man must surely be a prophet!"
The story of feeding the five thousand is found in every one of the four gospels, but the boy who shared his lunch is found only in John's gospel.
Back to kids 4 being healthy