This is the Bamao podcast with Marty Solman. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today I'm with Josh Bassa to examine John's six four second time. Looking at the test, Jesus gives to his disciples as they prepare to feed at the 5,000.

Yes, we've got ourselves a sticky little passage today. We're going to be looking at this very strange test that Jesus gives his disciples.

Before we jump into reading, I really want us to sit back and put our good question asking Bamao thinking caps on. As we're listening to this, I want us to really think what exactly is the test?

We're told Jesus is testing Philip here. We'll hear about that in a second. What is the test really? Brent, why don't you go and take it away, read the first six verses there.

One time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, that is the Sea of Tiberius. And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountain side and sat down with his disciples.

The Jewish Passover festival was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? He asked this only to test him for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

Again, what exactly is the test? How is he testing Philip here? What are we to make of this? We're not given a ton of information here, other than just knowing that it is a test.

We have a couple of pieces to the puzzle. We have the background setting, we have crowds following them around. Jesus has been doing signs and they're following him and Passover is near.

I think if we start thinking more about that, we have a lot of people following Jesus. There's a lot of signs, Passover is near, especially the Passover fact. He went out of his way to say that, especially because it says it's near Passover.

John is putting that detail there for a reason. If we think about Passover and signs and what is Jesus' question, where are we going to get bread so people can eat? That's a very Passover-themed question.

Bread is a big important part of Passover. In fact, what do you know the specific laws around Passover and bread?

You have to have completely different kind of bread than you would normally have.

Exactly. Fundamentally different kind of bread. You don't use any yeast, no leavening at all. Jesus' question is kind of weird in that respect too because there's not even be that much bread around.

If you say bread without the unleavened qualification, do people automatically assume it's just regular bread?

I would think so. Bread is a pretty big staple. I would assume that would be the case. It's also, as always, the Hebrew-to-Greek transition is going to be troublesome to us because the word for bread and Hebrew can also technically just mean food generically because bread kind of accompanies every single meal.

That's a good point. But presumably, it's not Passover yet. It's as Passover is near. But if people are getting the leaven out of their house, it's certainly not going to be as abundant as it would normally be.

To kind of get the background here, as to like, Jesus is asking Philip a question about the people. So if we're going to look at the people, the people are following Jesus, it's near Passover and Jesus is doing a bunch of signs.

If we're going to draw a big parallel from this, what would we be looking at? People are saying themselves, hey, it's almost Passover. Here's this guy doing miracles.

I know another Passover where there is a guy doing all these miraculous signs and wonders. That's Moses.

The very first one. Exactly. We're in captivity. We're in Roman oppression. We're ready to leave Egypt. We're looking for a Moses to lead us.

I wonder if that's probably what's in the back of the people's heads as they're following Jesus, especially around this time of year, even if they're not maybe explicitly thinking that yet. That's the vibe. We've talked elsewhere in Bama about how around Passover, they sent in extra Roman legions and leaders and stuff to make sure every game of stage ship shape because people get pretty rowdy when they think about Exodus.

They think about leaving Egypt when they're under oppression. The people are probably already in this frame of mind. I'm ready to leave Egypt. This guy looks like he might be up to the task.

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