Jesus Tests
So we're in John 6 looking at Jesus feeding the 5000 and there's interesting words here in verses 5 and 6 where we read when Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards Him. He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people?” But in verse 6 it says He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do.
Tested for Growth
I think it's interesting that Jesus tested Philip in this way. Now remember God never tempts anyone. Tempting and testing are two different things and James makes this clear in James 1:13 where he says, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.” So that's a whole separate thing. Don't ever blame your temptations on God.
However, in this case, Jesus did test Philip by asking him this question, and I believe that what Jesus was doing was giving Philip an opportunity to grow or almost assessing how he was doing in his faith, not in order to shame him, not in order to hurt him in any way, but just to give him an opportunity to grow. Isn't that the point of a test? It's to grow your knowledge. It's to deepen your understanding.
When the Impossible Meets Faith
So Jesus asks him this question, kind of seeing what he would do, and he, in typical human fashion, like any of us would have, says it's impossible for us to buy enough food for this crowd. But Jesus already knew what was going to happen.
I wonder how often God does this with us. You know, we're figuring something out. We're trying to discover how we can do stuff, and He's already got in His mind what He's going to do. We're supposed to just move forward in faith and believe that He will do what He does best.
Lean Into the Test
I wonder if God has asked you something - asked you to do something that seems impossible, and you're like Philip saying, well, that's impossible and there's no point in even trying. Or you're walking in faith saying this, God can do anything. What might Jesus be teaching you in your life at the moment?
Philip could have just not learned from this, could have gone in one ear and out the other. But I'm sure that this confirmed his faith in Jesus once he figured out what Jesus had done. And so you're going through what seems like a test. Don't resent it, but lean into it. Who knows what Jesus might teach you if you look at it through His eyes.
