First of all, I want to state it as plainly as possible:  God cares about us . . . period.  He cares about our physical bodies, and He cares about our spirit.  It is not an “either – or” proposition.  This article is merely an attempt to help people understand the emphasis that Jesus placed on spiritual matters, as opposed to physical concerns.  It is not that He ignored physical concerns – He did not.  But He used physical things to teach spiritual lessons.  Many people completely missed that.  I am trying to help people see the points Jesus was trying to make.  Let’s begin.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

In John 4, Jesus and His disciples are travelling through Samaria.  His disciples continued into town looking for food while Jesus remained by a well to get water.  A woman came to the well and Jesus asked her for a drink.  She was surprised that He spoke to her, as He was a Jew and she was a Samaritan, and Jews did not speak to Samaritans.  Jesus responded by saying that if she understood who was speaking to her, she would have asked Him for a drink of living water.  She was confused, noting that He didn’t even have a bucket to get any water out the well.  She was clearly focusing on physical water, but Jesus was talking about living water . . . spiritual sustenance.   After Jesus told her if she drank His living water, she would never thirst again.  She thought this was great, since then she would not need to come to the well to get water on a daily basis.  However, she was still thinking about physical water.  By contrast, Jesus was showing her need for a spiritual drink that would sustain her, not just for a few decades, but rather something that would sustain her forever(eternally).

Jesus and the 5,000

In John 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 plus people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish(a miracle).  The next day, some of the people came looking for Jesus . . . and another free meal.  He confronted them and accused them of coming after Him because He gave them free food(and they wanted more) instead of coming after Him to hear more of His message(which was the lesson they should have learned from His miracle).  As a result, He tells them that He can give them bread that they could eat and never be hungry again.  If this sounds familiar, it is because it is very similar to the conversation Jesus had with the woman at the well, only that was water and this is bread(both symbolic of sustenance).  Jesus proceeds to tell them that He is the Bread of Life.  If someone comes to Him, they would never be hungry again.  This sounded great to the people, who were thinking about physical bread and physical hunger.  When finding something to eat on a daily basis is a struggle, the thought of never being hungry again had to sound amazing.  But Jesus was not offering them some physical bread to eat to sustain their physical bodies for a few decades.  He was offering them Himself.  If they would come to Him and if they would believe in Him, they would never hunger or thirst again(John 6:32).

Real Life

It is easy to see how people would have been confused by some of the things Jesus was saying.  But it must be remembered that they had Jesus right there with them.  If something was confusing, they could ask questions.  The Samaritan woman and the 5,000 clearly did that.  The people in the village where the Samaritan woman lived asked Jesus to stay for 2 days, just so they could hear Him speak more.  They invested the time to hear and understand His message.  The 5,000 did not.  Both groups expressed their misconceptions and gave Jesus the opportunity to explain further.  Some listened longer; others simply left.  The same is true today.

Results

The Samaritan woman believed Jesus.  Not only that, she went to her village and told people about Jesus and they believed in Him, too(John 4:39-42)!  Not so with the 5,000.  They left Jesus, disappointed by what He said(John 6:66).  In on of the saddest moments in Jesus’ teaching, He asks His apostles if they are going to leave Him, too.  Peter responded, asking who they would go to, since Jesus had words leading to eternal life(John 6:68).  They might not have understood everything completely, but they knew that Jesus had the information they needed, and they were going to continue to follow, listen and learn.  We can learn several lessons from Peter’s response.

Conclusion

Jesus used physical things that people understood to teach spiritual lessons.  People needed to now Him.  People needed to understand their spiritual needs.  Physical needs are important, but pale in comparison to spiritual needs.  Physical sustenance can sustain us for decades, but spiritual sustenance will sustain us forever!  Jesus knew that, and that is why He emphasized our spiritual needs over and above our physical needs.