Baking bread
Has anyone baked bread? What are the steps involved?
It’s a lovely smell when you bake bread yourself. Bread is a key part of our diet in our country. In fact, looking at some statistics – bread is bought by 99.8% of British households.
How many loaves of bread do you think are sold each day in the UK?
11 or 12 million loaves
Bread in the Bible
Bread crops up a lot in the Bible. The word is mentioned at least 492 times.
It has a variety of uses and meanings. Sometimes it refers to general daily provision or the daily work to put food on the table and sometimes more specifically to baked bread.
Feeding of the 5000
Perhaps one of the most well-known stories of bread in the Bible, involving real – involving real loaves of bread is when Jesus fed over 5000 people with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish and there was more than enough.
When Jesus and his disciples went over to the other side of the lake, the people went to find him and Jesus said “you are coming because you ate the loaves” – Jesus proceeded to tell them about the true bread, the bread of life, who he was.
“I am the bread of life.” He said.
They compared what Jesus had done with the loaves, with the manna that came down for the whole of Israel, not just 5 or 10,000.
Well, Jesus speaks to them – firstly Moses didn’t give you that bread. God gave the people the manna, but that was just bread for their physical life, they still died. That bread you ate yesterday, was also just normal bread it fills you up, but you have to eat again to survive.
Jesus points to himself: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
He isn’t saying God doesn’t provide, Jesus cared for the physical needs of those people but God has a much more precious gift to give. He has given us his Son, who came down from heaven, to give life. Not just life from day to day like normal bread, but eternal life beyond death to all those who believe that Jesus is their Saviour.