28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
John 6:28-34 (ESV)
Duck and chicken talking
Have you heard the expression, 雞和鴨說 (chicken and duck talking)? The meaning is two people are talking and aren’t communicating. That’s kind of the picture here. Jesus is trying to get them to think on the heavenly / spiritual plane, but they are stuck in the early / material. We’ve seen this before in John with the woman at the well. Earlier, he talks about heavenly food, but they think of the earthly. Verse 34 seems to confirm this. Then He brings up spiritual work and they think of material works.
What works?
Jesus tells them what the work of God is – to believe in Him (see yesterday). So the crowd asks what work he will do. It’s as if they’re saying, “ You are telling us to do good works, but what works are you doing!?” Of course they are asking for more miracles to prove Jesus is who he says he is.
Bread from Heaven
Now they play the “Moses card.” they go back to their “patron saint” of sorts, Moses. He miraculously gave them bread from heaven in the wilderness. Can Jesus do the same? In verse 32 Jesus very deftly steers them back to the spiritual. First he corrects their statement: Moses did not actually provide the bread, the Father did. And, that was physical bread from the sky (heaven).
But my Father
Then, in the same sentence, Jesus points them back to the spiritual – bread from Heaven (not the sky but very Heaven). The NLT nicely translates this verse to show these two parts. “Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven.’” (John 6:32) Then verse 33 Jesus starts to make it clear that HE is that spiritual bread that gives life, the Bread of Life.
<- Reflection ->
- Have you tasted the true bread from Heaven? Do you have eternal life? It’s found in Jesus.
