#4: The Bread of Life
I Kings 17:13-16 (Part 2)
In Matthew 16:13, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples reported that some said Elijah. Why do you think some people had the wrong idea that Jesus was Elijah? Just before the Matthew 16 interaction with the disciples, Jesus had done a great miracle in chapter 15 when He fed “four thousand men, besides women and children,” with only seven loaves and a few small fish. When they had eaten their fill, seven baskets of food remained. Perhaps some wrongly said Elijah because they remembered the miracle at Zarephath but forgot who actually brought about the miracle.
Elijah went to the widow of Zarephath without food in a time when the people in Zarephath were dying of starvation. He delivered to the widow the Word of God and she believed it. God then testified to His Word by miraculously preserving flour and oil all the days of the famine.*
Consider the type of miracle: the miraculous provision of food. We should learn from this miracle at Zarephath and Jesus’s miracles of feeding thousands at a time, something of our Lord and Savior. He is the God who sustains and feeds all people. Whether from ordinary means of planting, growing, and harvesting, or extraordinary means of making more than 4,000 complete meals from a few loaves and fish, our God provides our daily bread.
However, this daily provision, as good as it is, cannot sustain us forever. We get hungry quickly after meals and at some point, food will no longer sustain our lives and we will die. The physical provision of the Lord is a great blessing, but it is limited in its benefit because it does not keep away death. Eventually, the widow and her son died, and we will die too if the Lord tarries.
So what is the Lord teaching us? The bread of this world, provided by God, does not sustain life forever. But do not be afraid, Jesus Christ is life and gives life. Only Jesus Christ is the bread of life and all who believe in Him will never hunger for life again for they will have it! “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst…I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:36, 51).
Elijah could not feed this woman of his own power; the Lord said He would feed her, and He did. One greater than Elijah came to men some 2,000 years ago and fed 4,000 people at one time and 5,000 at another time. He is no mere man. He is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) This Jesus is life and He alone freely gives life.
May you eat of this Bread today and give thanks to God.
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*This is the way the Lord works in Scripture so that we might believe. He testifies to His Word with power. Jesus does not simply tell the lame man that his sins are forgiven but rather, so that the lame man and we today would know that Jesus has power to forgive sins, He tells him to rise up and walk (Mark 2:1-12). The Lord does not merely call the widow to feed Elijah her last bread but promises to provide for her time of need, and He gives her that which He promised.
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