Is the Feeding of the 5,000 About the Boy? | Bible Study 101
Today the color method actually starts. One color, one question: who is
this passage about? You'll mark every name, every title, and every pronoun in John 6:1-15 in green, and by the end you'll be looking at something most of us have never seen laid out visually. The boy with the loaves and fish, the one
we've heard entire sermons about, gets exactly one mark. Jesus is in nearly
every verse. Rachael walks the passage verse by verse so you can do it
alongside her.
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Chapters
0:00 Moving from the why to the how
0:59 What you need in front of you today
1:28 Why we always start with the who
2:19 What gets marked in green
3:14 What if my whole page turns green?
4:34 Why pronouns carry more than you think
6:22 A bonus habit: draw a line back
7:20 Reading John 6:1-15
9:44 A note about your translation
10:46 Do this before you read your study Bible notes
11:44 Why Rachael uses a separate Bible for this
13:35 Marking the passage verse by verse
20:19 Now sit back and look at your page
21:45 The boy in verse 9
23:49 The title in verse 14, and what the crowd wanted
25:44 Prayer
What does green mark in the color method?
Green marks the who. Every name, every title, and every pronoun that
refers to a person.
So in John 6 that means Jesus, God, the Lord, but also Philip, Andrew,
the disciples, the crowd, the boy. And it means all the pronouns attached to
them. He, she, them, we, you, I.
Yes, that's a lot of marking. On some passages your page will be almost
entirely green, and that's fine. That's information, not a problem. It's
telling you something about the passage.
Why does marking pronouns matter?
Because pronouns carry meaning we skip right past.
Here's a sentence in plain English: he gave it to him because he asked
for it. If you're not paying attention, you might read that as one person.
It's two. All three pronouns are masculine, and you have to slow down to sort
out who is who.
Scripture is full of this. In a single paragraph Paul can be referring to
God, to Jesus, to himself, and to the church he's writing to, all through
pronouns. If you build this muscle on an easy narrative passage now, the
letters get significantly easier later.
There's a bonus habit worth picking up. When you hit a pronoun and you
don't immediately know who it points to, go back and find out, then draw a
small line or arrow connecting them. It forces you to make a decision instead
of assuming you know. Rachael has been doing this for years and still gets
tripped up and has to work backward three or four verses.
Watch out for pronouns that aren't people
Verse 9 has a trap in it. Here is a boy with five small barley loaves
and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?
That "they" is not people. It's the loaves and the fish. So it
doesn't get marked.
Verse 13 does the same thing. So they gathered them and filled twelve
baskets. The "they" is the disciples, so that's green. The
"them" is the leftover pieces, so it isn't.
That's exactly the kind of thing you never catch at reading speed.
Is the story of the five loaves and two fish about the boy?
No, and the green makes that impossible to miss.
Look at what actually happens with that boy. He appears in verse 9 and
nowhere else. He has no name. He never speaks. He's introduced by Andrew inside a sentence whose whole point is how far his lunch is from being enough. Then he's gone, and he isn't mentioned again in the remaining six verses.
Now think about how you've heard this story taught. Most of us have sat
through entire sermons about that boy. His generosity. His obedience. Give
Jesus your little and watch Him multiply it. And there's truth in that, Rachael
isn't denying it.
But look at the page. That boy is one green mark out of dozens, and he
shows up as a detail inside someone else's sentence. Meanwhile Jesus is in
almost every verse, and in most of them He's the one doing something.
This is what it looks like when the thing we've been saying all series
stops being theory. The people in Scripture are not the model. Now you can see
it in proportion, right there in front of you.
Should I read my study Bible notes first?
Do the color method first, then read the notes.
Rachael isn't telling you to skip commentary. She uses study Bible
dictionaries and encyclopedias constantly when she's preparing to teach. But the order matters. When you read the commentator's take before you've looked at the text yourself, your heart closes off a little to what the Holy Spirit wants to show you.
So let Him reveal what He wants to reveal first. Then go back and use the
notes as evidence, to check whether you're on the right track.
What if my translation is different from Rachael's?
She's reading NIV in this episode. If you're in the NLT or the ESV or
something else, your wording and your pronouns may not match hers exactly.
That's normal, and it means you'll need to pay attention rather than just
copying her marks. It's also good practice.
Two more things to notice
In verse 5, Jesus asks Philip, Where shall we buy bread for these
people to eat? Not where shall you buy bread. We. Worth drawing a line and
making a note.
And in verse 14, the crowd hands Jesus a title. Surely this is the
Prophet who is to come into the world. Then verse 15 tells you what they
wanted to do with Him, which was make Him king by force. There's something in this passage about the gap between what the crowd wanted Jesus to be and what He actually came to do, and the green is where you first start to see it.
FAQ
What do I need for today? Your Bible or a printout of John 6:1-15, and something green.
What if my page ends up completely green? That's fine. Not every color shows up in every passage, and in this one green is heavy. It's information.
Can I pause and do it myself first? Yes, and Rachael encourages it. Pause, mark the passage on your own, then come back and compare.
What's the homework? Go back over your page and make sure you caught them all. Pray and ask God to show you what He wants to say through this. Send a SpeakPipe with what you noticed. And don't add any other colors yet.
What's tomorrow? Blue. It's Rachael's favorite, and she'll explain why.
Is there a workbook version? She Hears, on Amazon, teaches this over six weeks. All the Scripture is printed in the workbook, so if you'd rather not write in your Bible at all, that solves it.
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