“I am the bread of life” – John 6 v.48
By Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
These are words of Jesus as recorded in the Bible, one of seven main ‘I am’ statements He made about Himself and all recorded in the Gospel of John.
https://faithisland.org/bible/the-7-i-am-statements-of-jesus-explained/
I thought I would tie this in to my previous post ‘From I to J to Y’. I would suggest you read this first if you haven’t.
In it I refer to the I am, Jam and Yam. Well, Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life’ and yam is a staple food to many people rather like bread and similar, but not directly related, to a sweet potato.
So Jesus could be considered as the ‘yam’ of life, and in essence He said he was the ‘I am’ in His teachings.
He summed this up when He said “Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8 v.59)
But there’s more.
Artos
The word in Greek for ‘bread’ is ‘artos’.
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/6-48.htm
Artos is an anagram of ‘taros’.
Taros are similar to yams!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro
Here is the biblehub extract re ‘artos’.
https://biblehub.com/greek/740.htm
740 ártos – properly, bread; (figuratively) divine provision; all the sustenance God supplies to yielded believers scene-by-scene to live in His preferred-will (2307 /thélēma).
Again note thelema is an anagram of ‘the meal’. So the desire of God and man is that we eat a meal. And as man must eat food for his body to live, his spirit or soul must have spiritual food.
As Jesus says, “Man cannot live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. Matthew 4 v.4
But why is the word that proceeds from the mouth of God so important?
Well, given that we are created by Him, He should know and understand how we are made and how we can live good and fruitful lives.
It therefore makes sense to listen to and follow His guidance. Things will ultimately go wrong if we don’t.
Let’s look at the word ‘bread’. Some anagrams.
Anagrams
B read – a book is read, so Jesus is someone to read. The ‘B’ represents a son as in Ben from the Hebrew.
A bred – this is as in breeding, and I hope we can say Jesus is bred, well-bred.
Be a Dr – Jesus is a doctor, or better the physician of our souls.
De bra – as in ‘the bra’, bra being a support or arm from the French.
Ra bed – as in Ra the sun god, and bed as a place of rest. In Jesus, the Son of God there is rest.
As He says “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
E bard – Jesus is a bard, which
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron’s ancestors and to praise the patron’s own activities.
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard
People have questioned whether William Shakespeare really wrote all those plays. Perhaps it was Jesus all along!
Let’s breakdown more from artos with more anagrams.
Astor – meaning ‘hawk’.
From a German and French surname derived from Occitan astur meaning “hawk”. The wealthy and influential Astor family, prominent in British and American society, originated in the Italian Alps.
from
https://www.behindthename.com/name/astor
This might remind you of the eagle associated with the Gospel of John, the way the book portrays the overview as from the heavens, the sky. The eagle espies things from far away.
As tor – a tor is
a large, free-standing rock outcrop that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest.
In the South West of England, the term is commonly also used for the hills themselves – particularly the high points of Dartmoor in Devon and Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(rock_formation)
The tor is a marker in a landscape, something to navigate by. Note that is derives from tower, in itself an anagram of ‘we tor’. Jesus is also a strong tower and a place of safety in a storm.
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”
O star – as in a guiding star that one can use to navigate by at night, such as the Pole Star.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star
OS art – this can be ‘Operating System art’, the means by which a computer is managed.
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Final thoughts and summary
There you go, Jesus as the bread of life, the ‘B’ read, His words to ‘Be’ read and lived. There is so much in the language, much more than one might at first imagine.
Chewing it over like I have is really what mediation is, breaking up the words, reassembling them to extract the full benefit and goodness. This is what happens when we chew bread and we only get the full use of all it contains if we do this.
So as has been written “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”
And let’s remember the I am, the jam and the yam.
‘I am the bread of life’ becomes Jam the bread of life. Jam is sweet and goes with bread.
‘I am the bread of life’ becomes ‘yam’ the bread of life, a staple food.
And as to why as yam is a yam, well really it is because it is ‘yam, yam’ or ‘yum, yum’ meaning good to eat!
Once again it’s all in the words, the Bread of Life.
And in the beginning was the Word…
P.S. Here is the ‘From I to J to Y’ post link again.
And if you need more on Jesus then you will find Him in my World Menu, particularly under THE REFECTORY. Just use your browser’s ‘find’ button or ‘search’ button top right hand corner. But as He is language you will find Him everywhere.
If you are interested in the types of bread available that people bake, I thought this was interesting.
Catching up randomly, Bald Michael…
This piece is truly wonderful!