Daily Bible Reading 1st August 2026 // Luke 9:10-17
10 On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who needed healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and made them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
Furthermore, there is a significant association of ideas between these verses and the previous ones. We spoke of Christ's compassion for the multitudes as being the basis of His sending out His disciples; and here we read that 'He spake unto them of the kingdom of God' (11). This, then, was His way of shepherding the lost sheep - by His Word. And when we take this with John's straightforward interpretation of the miracle in the spiritual terms of Christ as the bread of life, we get a wonderful picture of the meaning and purpose of the miracle as being to show that Christ, Who is the bread of life, is made available to men in the Word of the gospel. It is in the preaching of the Word that the living bread is given to men.
We have already spoken of how the miracles of Jesus demonstrate His Lordship and Kingship, and this was surely never so graphically seen as here. But it was not only a manifestation of power, but of creative power. There can be only one adequate explanation of it - it was the action of God! The miracle has been a problem to many, but it can be difficult only for those who do not understand or realise Who He is. When we realise that this is He by Whom all worlds were made, and by Whom all things are maintained in existence, then there can be no difficulty in believing that He multiplied the loaves and the fishes. He created the world out of nothing: why should this be difficult for Him? Why, indeed!