How should we preach this passage?

by Matthew

John 6
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

35 ¶ And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.


In the preaching class run by my pastor, we were talking about how to preach this passage. The men in the class favoured making this passage relevant to believers by talking about the need to 'daily feed on Christ' and 'feeding on the Word.'

I appreciate that a sermon is not pure exegesis. One can apply a text in a sermon in ways that are not directly addressed in a text. This can be helpful. However, I think making the application my friends favoured would be counter-productive because it would detract from the meaning of this text.

Our Lord teaches in this passsage that the one who comes to Him will never hunger. If one never hungers again, one does not need to feed daily! What our Lord teaches here is actually the opposite of the application my friends were making.

It is true that we need to daily feed on the Word of God, but as this has nothing to do with what this passage teaches and rather detracts from it, I think it would be confusing. Better to make the Gospel of Grace the focus of any sermon on this text.