Teens in the Bible - the Boy with Fishes and Loaves

Chapter 23 - Boy with fishes and loaves

After Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded Jesus tried to slip away across the Sea of Galilee to grieve. But a great crowd of people followed him, as usual, because they had seen all the miracles he performed. Jesus tested one of the disciples, Philip, by asking him where they would buy bread for all these people to eat. Philip, though he had witnessed all the previous miracles, seemed stumped and fixated on the great amount of money it would take to buy bread for such a crowd (around $4000 in today's money).

Another of the disciples, Andrew, spoke up and presented a boy who had five small barley loaves and two small fish. I think Andrew had tremendous faith and was the optimist to Philip’s pessimist. But let’s look at the boy, probably a young teen, who has his lunch with him – just a snack to a growing boy. This kid was neither stingy nor secretive. He openly and willingly shared what little he had. I’ll bet he was more like Andrew than Philip and expected a miracle. Faith – that’s what he had. Simple faith. And generosity. And you know what? That faith was rewarded. Jesus blessed the five loaves and two small fish and had his disciples pass out the overflowing abundance of bread and fish that resulted from this miracle.

I wonder what happened to the boy. Somehow I doubt that he took any credit at all for his part in this phenomenon. After all, we never found out his name.

Next Saturday the Shulamite maiden