Labour not for the meat that perisheth,...

[31gH9N.9.]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but recently every time I read John 6 :27 , I see it as Jesus commanding that His followers should not work for food. I know that this is contrary to many other teachings in the Bible, but I take thing very literal a lot of the time and this is just what it looks like to me. Does anyone care to expound on this subject?

 

[mukk_in]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but recently every time I read John 6 :27 , I see it as Jesus commanding that His followers should not work for food. I know that this is contrary to many other teachings in the Bible, but I take thing very literal a lot of the time and this is just what it looks like to me. Does anyone care to expound on this subject?

I don't think that the Lord forbid His people from working per se, as much as He was admonioshing them not to hoard treasures in this life. The Apostle Paul himself chastized the Corithians for being lazy and busy-bodies (as opposed to being busy). Those in full-time ministry also deserve their pay (the worker is worth his keep). The people of this world feel that their own efforts feed them, while we saints work for God's glory and utilize the blessings for His glory and don't hold onto them or hoard them. Hope that helps .

 

[mukk_in]

"admonishing", "Corinthians". Sorry .

 

[31gH9N.9.]

That's definitely something that seems pretty consistent with the rest of the Bible, and there is much to be said about laziness even before the New Testament. I make a point to read proverbs every morning and it seems to be a reoccurring theme that laziness is a sin.

 

[JIMINZ]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but recently every time I read John 6 :27 , I see it as Jesus commanding that His followers should not work for food. I know that this is contrary to many other teachings in the Bible, but I take thing very literal a lot of the time and this is just what it looks like to me. Does anyone care to expound on this subject?

.
Jesus was not speaking to us, He was speaking to those present at that specific moment.

Look at the context of what was spoken.

Joh 6:26,27
26) Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27) Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

They were only following Him for free food
Taking things literally isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Spiritualizing things usually leads to misunderstanding.

Not everything in the Gospels pertains to Christians.

 

[St_Worm2]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but recently every time I read John 6 :27 , I see it as Jesus commanding that His followers should not work for food. I know that this is contrary to many other teachings in the Bible, but I take thing very literal a lot of the time and this is just what it looks like to me. Does anyone care to expound on this subject?

Hi 31, I don't have much time this morning, so I'm hoping this commentary will help for now. For the sake of context, it looks, in part, at verses 26-29.

As it does throughout John’s gospel (e.g., 1:51; 3:3, 5; 5:24; 6:47, 53; 8:51, 58; 13:21), the solemn affirmation amēn, amēn (truly, truly) introduces an important truth to which Jesus wanted His hearers to pay careful attention. The Lord’s rebuke, “you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled,” laid bare their selfish, materialistic hearts. So blinded were they by their superficial desire for food and miracles that they missed the true spiritual significance of Jesus’ person and mission. “They were moved not by full hearts, but by full bellies” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 358). Though they had witnessed the miraculous signs Jesus had performed (v. 14), they failed to grasp the spiritual implications of those miracles. Amazingly, after the feeding of the crowd, even the Twelve “had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:52). They had failed to comprehend the full reality that God was in their midst, until He walked on water. Then they said, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (Matt. 14:33).​

When the Lord earlier calmed another storm on that same lake, they only asked the question, “What kind of a man is this?” (Matt. 8:27). Thus our Lord called them “men of little faith” (Matt. 8:26).

Jesus rebuked the crowd for their crass materialism. Instead of working for the food which perishes, the physical food they sought, Jesus exhorted them to pursue the food which endures to eternal life (Jesus Himself, the Bread of Life; vv. 35, 54). While He was certainly aware of their need for physical nourishment (cf. vv. 10–12), He was much more interested in their spiritual well-being. As He earlier had distinguished physical water from the “water springing up to eternal life” (4:14), Jesus here pointed His hearers away from literal food to Himself as the Bread of Life (vv. 33, 35, 48, 51). Rather than focusing on the decaying outer man (2 Cor. 4:16), they needed to seek the spiritual nourishment which only the Son of Man can give. After all, to gain the whole material world but forfeit one’s eternal soul profits nothing (Matt. 16:26; Luke 12:16–21). As the one on whom the Father, God, has set His seal of approval, Jesus has the authority to dispense the spiritual food that comes from God and satisfies the hunger for righteousness (Matt. 5:6).

In response to Jesus’ command in verse 27 to pursue the spiritual, nonperishing food of eternal life, the people said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” They filtered Jesus’ words through their own warped minds and thought He was saying they needed to do some works to earn eternal life. What was that work they should do, they wondered. Similarly, the rich young ruler asked Him, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16), and in Luke 10:25 “a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ ” It was a familiar matter for the Jews to pursue eternal life through their religion, so the question was common.

True salvation, of course, is not by works (Titus 3:5). Thus, Jesus answered their question by noting that the only work acceptable to God is to believe in Him whom He has sent. ~MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). John 1–11 (pp. 237–238). Chicago: Moody Press.​

--David

Matthew 6
25 Do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
.​

 

[St_Worm2]

While I'm at it, I might as well give you Dr. Carson's as well, v27-29 this time:

6:27. When Jesus tells the people not to work for food that spoils, he is rebuking their purely materialistic notions of the kingdom (cf. v. 15). Like the woman at the well who was eager to be supplied with an endless supply of natural water, a supply that would eliminate the need to make frequent trips to the well (4:15), so these people hanker after a miracle-worker who will fill their stomachs with bread (6:26). Though the bread they had eaten the day before was miraculously produced, it was after all merely physical, ‘destined to perish with use’ (Col. 2:22). Men and women should pour their energy into pursuing (i.e. they should ‘work for’) food that endures to eternal life (cf. ‘a spring of water welling up into eternal life’, 4:14). The continuing discourse shows that the ‘food’ is Jesus himself, but the idea is not so much that Jesus endures forever as that, because this food endures, the life it sustains goes on into eternity. On eternal life, cf. notes on 3:15.​

It is not entirely clear whether the antecedent of which is the ‘food’ or the ‘eternal life’. If the former, it will shortly become clear that Jesus not only gives the food, he is himself the bread of life (vv. 35, 53). Either way, it is the Son of Man who will give it. If the tense is genuinely future-referring, it is looking to the time after Jesus’ glorification when the Son’s gifts, mediated by the Spirit, are richly bestowed (7:39; 14:15ff.; 16:7). If they ought to ‘work for’ the food that endures unto eternal life, they must also recognize that it is the Son alone who can give it. Jesus prefers not to use a term such as ‘Messiah’ in the context of such heated messianic/political expectations; he opts for Son of Man, a more ambiguous term which nevertheless is increasingly laden, in John, with associations of revelation brought from heaven to earth (cf. notes on 1:51; 3:13; 5:27). This Son of Man, Jesus insists, is the one on whom the Father has placed his seal of approval. The idea is that God has certified the Son as his own agent, authorizing him as the one who alone can bestow this food. God has attested the Son, in much the same way that someone who accepts the Son’s testimony thereby attests or certifies (the same verb) that God himself is truthful. When God ‘placed his seal of approval’ on the Son is not specified. If we are to think of a specific time (though the aorist tense of the verb does not require that we so limit ourselves), perhaps the reference is to Jesus’ baptism (cf. 1:31–34).

6:28. The crowd misunderstands the thrust of Jesus’ prohibition. His words ‘Do not work for food that spoils’ (v. 27) did not focus on the nature of work, but on what is or is not an appropriate goal. His point was not that they should attempt some novel form of work, but that merely material notions of blessing are not worth pursuing. They respond by focusing all attention on work: (lit.) ‘What must we do in order to work the works of God?’ The expression ‘the works of God’ does not refer to the works that God performs, but (as in NIV) to the works God requires. Their question therefore resolves into this: Tell us what works God requires, and we will perform them. From John’s perspective, their naïveté is formidable. They display no doubt about their intrinsic ability to meet any challenge God may set them; they evince no sensitivity to the fact that eternal life is first and foremost a gift within the purview of the Son of Man (v. 27).

6:29. Jesus sets them straight: The work of God—i.e. what God requires—is faith. This is not faith in the abstract, an existential trust without a coherent object. Rather, they must believe in the one [God] has sent. Such language may reflect a specific Old Testament passage, such as Malachi 3:1 where God promises to send, in due time, the ‘messenger of the covenant’, but in fact the language is reminiscent of the entire ‘sentness’ theme in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is supremely the one who reveals God to us, precisely because, unlike any other person, he has been in the courts of heaven and has been sent from there so that the world might be saved through him (e.g. 3:11–17). Faith, faith with proper Christological object, is what God requires, not ‘works’ in any modern sense of the term. And even the faith that we must exercise is the fruit of God’s activity (cf. notes on vv. 44, 65). Although the noun ‘faith’ is not used, this ‘work of God’ turns out to be nothing else than faith, making this ‘work of God’ diametrically opposed to what Paul means by ‘the works of the law’. As a result, the thought of the passage is almost indistinguishable from Paul: ‘For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law’ (Rom. 3:28). ~Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (pp. 284–285). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.​

--David

 

[31gH9N.9.]

While I'm at it, I might as well give you Dr. Carson's as well, v27-29 this time:

6:27. When Jesus tells the people not to work for food that spoils, he is rebuking their purely materialistic notions of the kingdom (cf. v. 15). Like the woman at the well who was eager to be supplied with an endless supply of natural water, a supply that would eliminate the need to make frequent trips to the well (4:15), so these people hanker after a miracle-worker who will fill their stomachs with bread (6:26). Though the bread they had eaten the day before was miraculously produced, it was after all merely physical, ‘destined to perish with use’ (Col. 2:22). Men and women should pour their energy into pursuing (i.e. they should ‘work for’) food that endures to eternal life (cf. ‘a spring of water welling up into eternal life’, 4:14). The continuing discourse shows that the ‘food’ is Jesus himself, but the idea is not so much that Jesus endures forever as that, because this food endures, the life it sustains goes on into eternity. On eternal life, cf. notes on 3:15.​

It is not entirely clear whether the antecedent of which is the ‘food’ or the ‘eternal life’. If the former, it will shortly become clear that Jesus not only gives the food, he is himself the bread of life (vv. 35, 53). Either way, it is the Son of Man who will give it. If the tense is genuinely future-referring, it is looking to the time after Jesus’ glorification when the Son’s gifts, mediated by the Spirit, are richly bestowed (7:39; 14:15ff.; 16:7). If they ought to ‘work for’ the food that endures unto eternal life, they must also recognize that it is the Son alone who can give it. Jesus prefers not to use a term such as ‘Messiah’ in the context of such heated messianic/political expectations; he opts for Son of Man, a more ambiguous term which nevertheless is increasingly laden, in John, with associations of revelation brought from heaven to earth (cf. notes on 1:51; 3:13; 5:27). This Son of Man, Jesus insists, is the one on whom the Father has placed his seal of approval. The idea is that God has certified the Son as his own agent, authorizing him as the one who alone can bestow this food. God has attested the Son, in much the same way that someone who accepts the Son’s testimony thereby attests or certifies (the same verb) that God himself is truthful. When God ‘placed his seal of approval’ on the Son is not specified. If we are to think of a specific time (though the aorist tense of the verb does not require that we so limit ourselves), perhaps the reference is to Jesus’ baptism (cf. 1:31–34).

6:28. The crowd misunderstands the thrust of Jesus’ prohibition. His words ‘Do not work for food that spoils’ (v. 27) did not focus on the nature of work, but on what is or is not an appropriate goal. His point was not that they should attempt some novel form of work, but that merely material notions of blessing are not worth pursuing. They respond by focusing all attention on work: (lit.) ‘What must we do in order to work the works of God?’ The expression ‘the works of God’ does not refer to the works that God performs, but (as in NIV) to the works God requires. Their question therefore resolves into this: Tell us what works God requires, and we will perform them. From John’s perspective, their naïveté is formidable. They display no doubt about their intrinsic ability to meet any challenge God may set them; they evince no sensitivity to the fact that eternal life is first and foremost a gift within the purview of the Son of Man (v. 27).

6:29. Jesus sets them straight: The work of God—i.e. what God requires—is faith. This is not faith in the abstract, an existential trust without a coherent object. Rather, they must believe in the one [God] has sent. Such language may reflect a specific Old Testament passage, such as Malachi 3:1 where God promises to send, in due time, the ‘messenger of the covenant’, but in fact the language is reminiscent of the entire ‘sentness’ theme in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is supremely the one who reveals God to us, precisely because, unlike any other person, he has been in the courts of heaven and has been sent from there so that the world might be saved through him (e.g. 3:11–17). Faith, faith with proper Christological object, is what God requires, not ‘works’ in any modern sense of the term. And even the faith that we must exercise is the fruit of God’s activity (cf. notes on vv. 44, 65). Although the noun ‘faith’ is not used, this ‘work of God’ turns out to be nothing else than faith, making this ‘work of God’ diametrically opposed to what Paul means by ‘the works of the law’. As a result, the thought of the passage is almost indistinguishable from Paul: ‘For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law’ (Rom. 3:28). ~Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (pp. 284–285). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.​

--David

Thank you very much David for taking the time to write all that. I am going to reread it probably. In my readings last night I came across the story of the wedding in Cana. In verse 11 of chapter 2 in the Gospel of John it says :
This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.

I think that's pretty much straight forward that these signs that He did were to make known who He was to the world.

 

[St_Worm2]

Thank you very much David for taking the time to write all that.

You're welcome, but I didn't type it, I'm actually blessed to own the electronic versions of both of those commentaries, so I just copied and pasted all of it. I didn't have time for anything else the other morning unfortunately.

John 6 is one of the most amazing (and most difficult to understand/do a proper exegesis of) chapters in the entire Bible, IMHO. It's like a Mahler Symphony, because there's so much in there that it seems like no matter how many times you look at it/study it, there's always more to learn

Yours and His,
David

 

[chunkofcoal]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but recently every time I read John 6 :27 , I see it as Jesus commanding that His followers should not work for food. I know that this is contrary to many other teachings in the Bible, but I take thing very literal a lot of the time and this is just what it looks like to me. Does anyone care to expound on this subject?

I read something recently that made me have a better understanding of that verse. You do have to read verse 26, too. It's written:
Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
(Joh 6:26-27)

This is from a Jewish website and it helped me understand those verses:

"We as Jews need to concentrate on this distinction, and ensure that our work is Melacha, rather than Avodah. The Talmud [Beizah 16a] remarks “These foolish Babylonians eat bread with bread.” The Baalei Mussar (Masters of Ethics) interpret this Gemara allegorically. It does not mean that they sat down at their meals and had a bread sandwich, with a slice of rye between two slices of whole wheat. It means that they worked for their bread, merely so that they could obtain more bread. Bread was both the means and the ends of their life. They worked for a living and they lived only to make a living.
If that is one’s life cycle — getting up in the morning to work so that he can eat so that the next morning he can work again, etc. — that is debilitating. That is not Melacha (constructive labor), it is Avodas Perech (vain toil). Life’s purpose must be greater than making a living."
Work, Work, Work • Torah.org

So basically, the people had been filled with bread and were seeking Jesus to get more bread. He is telling them their lives should be more than that, that they should labor for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life....

 

[31gH9N.9.]

I try to look at it that way but no matter how much I read it, it still just seems to be a prohibition against working at all for food. This would have to include even growing your own food and even doing work-trade for food for someone else.
I'm distraught about this, I already don't work and am preparing to be homeless, and if people ask me why I won't do regular labor, I will have to tell them I work for God by sharing the word, and Jesus said not to work for food anyways. If I'm wrong than I will be spreading false teaching and that's the last thing I want on my records at judgement day.

 

[chunkofcoal]

I try to look at it that way but no matter how much I read it, it still just seems to be a prohibition against working at all for food. This would have to include even growing your own food and even doing work-trade for food for someone else.
I'm distraught about this, I already don't work and am preparing to be homeless, and if people ask me why I won't do regular labor, I will have to tell them I work for God by sharing the word, and Jesus said not to work for food anyways. If I'm wrong than I will be spreading false teaching and that's the last thing I want on my records at judgement day.

Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.
(2Th 3:8-12)

 

[31gH9N.9.]

After Jesus' first miracle in Cana it says this-

This is the beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
-John 2:11

This verse really speaks on what the purpose of these signs were, so that people would believe in Him. This does shed some light on the Bread of Life discourse in ch. 6.