This week's primary text was HUGE, so I've tried to pull out the most pertinent nuggets of information I found. If you spend even an hour or two in a good commentary you'll a wealth of additional information, but here's some of the stuff that didn't quite make the cuts:
Primary Text: John 6:25-60
This entire passage serves as a parallel to John's account of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:1-26). In both cases Jesus is making use of the common actions of eating and drinking and teaching about deeper spiritual truths through metaphor.
v. 28 - "works" (Gk. ergon) - the people are looking for works or actions they can perform to please God, this attitude is in direct contrast to Jesus' response in v. 29.
v. 29 - "believe" (Gk. pisteuo) - the Greek word is in the family of the word typically translated "faith" (pistis) and carries a similar meaning. Jesus is saying that the it's all about their belief in the one God sent (him), not works that they perform.
v. 35 - Jesus exclamation "I am the bread of life." is one of several places in John's gospel where Jesus uses the "I am" (Gk. ego eimi) formula to speak about an aspect of himself common elements. The list roughly is as follows, Bread (6:35), Light (8:12), Gate (10:7,9), Good Shepherd (10:11, 14), Resurrection & Life (11:25), Truth (14:6), and the True Vine (15:1,5).
v. 37 - "come" (Gk. heko) - the word here means more than simply being physically present. The word carries a relational nuance and could be translated "seek intimacy" or even "become followers".
v. 41 - "the Jews" - in John's gospel this phrase often is not necessarily meant to be seen as a description encompassing exclusively (or all) Jewish persons, but rather those who set themselves up as Jesus' adversaries.
v. 47 - "believes" (Gk. pisteuo) - this word is in the present active tense and carries a sense of "continues to believe". The point being that simply believing for a moment is not enough, but rather a present belief that continues indefinitely into the future is what is being described here.
v. 49 - "manna" (Gk. manna) - this word is transliterated from Hebrew into Greek and then again into English. The word itself literally means "what is it" and expresses the Israelites initial confusion at what they were seeing/experience in Exodus 16.
v. 53 - "blood" (Gk. haima) - the reference here to ingesting blood, was more than disconcerting to Jesus Jewish audience, if taken literally his prescription to drink his blood was directly opposed to Jewish law (Leviticus 17:10-14).
v. 54 - "raise him up on the last day" - this is a clear reference to the resurrection of the dead, a belief that was not adhered to by all Jews (most notably the Sadducees). Therefore any rejecting the resurrection would have been given further reason to reject Jesus' teaching here.
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