Hearing Jesus: Daily Bible Study, Christian Affirmations, Hearing God, Prayer, Holy Spirit, Daily Devotional

Bible Study 101: How Do You Know If It's God Speaking? Hearing Jesus,
Devotional

This is the last day of the color method, and yellow is different from
every color before it. The first five marked things that were already on the
page. Someone could look over your shoulder and check your work. Yellow marks what God showed you, which means nobody can check it but you.

That's exactly why Rachael saved it for last. If she'd handed you all six
colors on day one, most of us would have reached for yellow immediately and skipped the work. Instead you spent five days looking at Him before you spent one minute looking at you.

This episode covers what to do with what you heard. Three filters to run
it through before you act on it, what Paul meant when he told the Thessalonians not to quench the Spirit, and the two ditches on either side of this road that people fall into.

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Chapters

0:00 The last color

0:30 Why yellow was saved for last

1:27 What yellow actually marks

1:54 The verse her eight year old highlighted

2:51 Why you would have grabbed yellow first

3:25 Five days looking at Him before one minute looking at you

4:04 Reading John 6:1-15

6:00 God speaks in other ways too

7:02 His voice will not contradict His word

8:20 Reading 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

9:30 The two ditches

10:22 What quench actually means

11:20 The other ditch

12:17 Notice the order Paul puts it in

12:41 What to highlight in yellow

13:33 The three filters

14:17 The third filter, and what happened in Babylon

15:04 What biblical meditation actually is

16:13 How to respond

16:59 Prayer

17:57 Homework

18:31 Don't compare your yellow to hers

What is the color method?

It's a way of studying Scripture that Rachael developed while teaching
sixth and seventh graders who had never been shown how to read the Bible for themselves. She published it in her first book, She Hears.

You take a short passage and mark it with colored pencils or
highlighters, one question per color. Green marks the who. Blue marks the
supernatural. Red marks the action words. Purple marks timing. Orange marks numbers. Yellow marks what God showed you.

This week the passage has been John 6:1-15, the feeding of the five
thousand, one color per day.

What does yellow mark, and why is it last?

Yellow marks what God impressed on your heart. It doesn't come from the
page the way the other colors do. It comes from what happened in you while you were in the word.

And that's precisely why it goes last.

The first five colors are observation. You didn't invent anything, you
noticed what was already there, which means your page and Rachael's page look mostly the same. Yellow isn't like that.

Yellow also feels like the most spiritual one. The others can feel like
English class. Yellow feels like hearing from God, which is exactly why most of us would reach for it first if given the chance and skip the work entirely.

Rachael learned this at home. Years ago she had her kids highlight
whatever stood out to them in their daily reading. Her eight year old landed on a verse in Song of Solomon that was wildly inappropriate for her age. She
didn't understand it, she just thought it sounded poetic. It was innocent, and
it made the point. Impression without context goes sideways fast.

So instead, look at what you actually did this week. You looked at who the passage was about. You looked at what only God could do. You watched who moved first. You found a sentence about a festival that unlocked the chapter. You lined up the numbers and felt the gap between five and five thousand.

You spent five days looking at Him before you spent one minute looking at
you. So by the time you pick up yellow, you're not guessing at what God is like in this passage. You've been staring at it all week.

Does God only speak through the Bible?

No. Sometimes it's an impression while you're praying. Sometimes it's a
thought that doesn't feel like your own thoughts, one that carries more weight. Sometimes it's a sense that God wants you to do something or stop doing something. Sometimes it's a person who walks up and says God told me to tell you this.

That's the reality of a Spirit filled life.

But God's voice will never contradict His word. That's the standard. Something may come to you outside of your Bible reading, and the way you find out whether it's really Him is by holding it against who He says He is in Scripture. That's how you tell the difference between God, the enemy, and your own head.

Rachael has had someone say something to her that was so damaging it was
clearly not from God, and was aimed at stopping what God had called her to do. Scripture is how you test that.

What does it mean to quench the Spirit?

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test
them all. Hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil. That's 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22.

The word quench means to put out a fire, to extinguish a flame. Paul is
picturing the Holy Spirit's work in a believer, or in a room full of believers,
as something like a fire that can be smothered.

He's not warning against being too intense. He puts it right next to
"do not treat prophecies with contempt," which means he's talking
about specific ways a church shuts down what the Spirit is doing. Dismissing a word. Shutting down someone who shares what they sense God saying. Resisting a prompting because it's uncomfortable or inconvenient.

What are the two ditches?

Rachael lives in rural Pennsylvania, so she pictures a road with a ditch
on either side. In the first ditch are people who got burned. Someone said "God told me" and it was manipulative, or overused, or flat out wrong, and it hurt. So now anything that isn't printed on the page feels unsafe. Paul is talking to that person when he says don't quench the Spirit.

In the other ditch are people who accept anything with a spiritual label
on it. If it sounded holy and the person seemed sincere, it gets taken at face
value and never checked against the word. That ditch is where church abuse
happens. It's where the stories in the news cycle come from.

Paul answers that one too. Test them all. Keep the good and throw out the
rest. Or as one of Rachael's mentors put it, chew the hay and spit out the
sticks.

And notice the order. Paul says don't quench first, then test. He doesn't start from suspicion. He starts open to the Spirit and then adds discernment.

What are the three filters?

Before you act on anything you wrote in the margin, run it through these.

Does this match who God is? Not who you want Him to be. Who He reveals Himself to be in Scripture.

Does this line up with the Bible? And not just whether a verse can be attached to it, because anyone can cherry pick a verse. Does it fit what Scripture actually teaches in context. God does not contradict Himself. If something is telling you to do what Scripture says not to do, that is not His voice.

Do I want this to be true? This one is there to check your bias, and it's the hardest of the three. Think about Jeremiah 29. There were prophets in Babylon telling the exiles they'd be home in two years, and God said something specific about them. He said the people were encouraging those dreams. They wanted it to be true so badly that they helped create the lie.

What is biblical meditation?

If what you heard passes all three filters, sit with it.

Meditation here isn't emptying your mind. It's closer to chewing.
Remember the Hebrew word in Deuteronomy 6 for teaching your children the word, shanan, which means to sharpen like a blade. Repeated contact until something has an edge on it.

You've been doing it all week. You've had John 6 in your teeth. So do
that with the yellow. Carry it around. Say it to yourself in the car. Pray
about it. Ask God what He wants you to do with it.

Then respond. Is there something here to obey? Something to confess? Something to thank Him for? Does this change how you see Him? Highlighting it in your Bible is a different thing than the obedience He's calling you to.

FAQ

Do I need to have heard the earlier episodes? No, though this one is the payoff of the week, so the earlier ones will make it richer.

What do I need today? Your marked page and something yellow.

What if I didn't get anything? That happens, and it doesn't mean you did it wrong. Sometimes a passage opens six months later. Write the question you're stuck on in the margin and move on.

Should I compare what I got to what Rachael got? No. She has been teaching this for years, has a seminary degree, and has spent a great deal of time in John. Don't measure one week of the color method against that. It isn't a competition and there's no shame in a shorter list.

What's the homework? Take whatever you highlighted in yellow, run it through the three filters, and then respond however He's calling you to, whether that's obedience, confession, or gratitude. If you'd like more, read the rest of John 6 and mark it too.

What's next? Rachael replays her original teaching on John 6 from last year's John series, then a Q&A episode, then the fall Bible study begins in the Gospel of Luke, followed by Acts. The Hearing Jesus for Kids podcast returns alongside it.

Where can I go deeper on the color method? She Hears, on Amazon, teaches it over six weeks through the stories of six women in the Gospels.

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Wednesday Affirmations: Casting Your Worries: Christian Affirmations, Biblical Affirmations, Affirmations

In today’s Wednesday Affirmations episode, Rachael leads listeners
through declarations of peace, trust, and confidence grounded in Scripture. As the world feels overwhelming, these affirmations anchor the listener in God’s promises. From surrendering anxiety to trusting God’s timing, each statement is followed by a full Bible verse designed to renew faith and calm the heart. This episode is a gentle reminder that God’s peace isn’t just a feeling—it’s a promise.



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Today’s daily affirmations are for peace and trust in God’s plan. I
will say the statement, then pause so you can repeat it after me. Then I’ll
share the Scripture reference where it comes from.

Breathe in God’s peace… and exhale your worries. This day is a
gift, and no matter what’s ahead, you can trust that God is in control. His
love is steady. His plans for you are good. His presence goes before you. Let
these affirmations remind you to trust Him today.

Affirmations and Scriptures:



I am ruled by God’s peace today.

Isaiah 26:3



I cast all my
worries onto Jesus—He carries them for me.

1 Peter 5:7



I will not be anxious. I will pray and trust God.

Philippians 4:6–7



God’s plans for me are good, and I trust Him.

Jeremiah 29:11



I do not need to worry about tomorrow.

Matthew 6:34



I will rest in God’s presence today.

Exodus 33:14



God is my refuge and strength.

Psalm 46:1



I will not let my heart be troubled. I trust in God.

John 14:27



The Lord directs my steps.

Proverbs 3:5–6



Even when I don’t understand, I trust in God’s wisdom.

Romans 11:33



I do not have to be afraid because God is with me.

Deuteronomy 31:8



God is fighting for me.

Exodus 14:14



I am not alone. God walks with me.

Isaiah 41:13



God is my rock and salvation. I will not be shaken.

Psalm 62:6



I find rest in God alone.

Psalm 62:1



God’s love never fails me.

Lamentations 3:22–23



I have peace because I am in Christ.

John 16:33



I wait on the Lord and He renews my strength.

Isaiah 40:31



I will trust in God, even when I don’t see the whole picture.

2 Corinthians 5:7



God is working all things for my good.

Romans 8:28



God’s peace rules in my heart today.

Colossians 3:15



I give my burdens to the Lord and He sustains me.

Psalm 55:22



I will be still and know that He is God.

Psalm 46:10



I trust God’s timing and His ways.

Ecclesiastes 3:11



I will rejoice in the Lord always.

Philippians 4:4



Closing Prayer:

Father, I surrender my worries to You. I choose to rest in Your
peace today, trusting that You are in control. Fill my heart with faith instead
of fear, and let Your peace guard my mind. In Jesus’ name, amen.

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to
go deeper, just keep listening—your full Bible study episode is coming up next.



Listen daily and start your morning with
God’s truth so you can walk in faith, clarity, and confidence.



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#FaithOverFear #BiblicalTruth #MorningDevotions #RenewYourMind
#HearingJesusPodcast




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Bible Study 101: What Do Numbers Mean in the Bible? Hearing Jesus, Devotional

This episode is part of Bible Study 101, a series teaching a method
Rachael calls the color method. You take one short passage and read it several times, marking something different in each color, and by the end you can see things on the page you'd never catch reading at normal speed. This week the passage is John 6:1-15, the feeding of the five thousand.

Today's color is orange, and orange marks numbers and quantities. Numbers
matter in Scripture, and this is also the place where people go off a cliff, so
Rachael spends real time on the guardrail before she ever picks up a pencil.
What gematria is, why 11:11 is not a message from God, and why the Bible was never written as a code to crack. Then the marking, which turns out to tell the whole story on its own. And at the end, the question of why there were leftovers at all, and who had to carry them.

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Chapters

0:00 The last color of the week

0:37 What orange marks

1:18 Why numbers matter in Scripture

1:46 Verse numbers are not inspired

2:40 A caution about 11:11 and chasing numbers

4:35 What numbers tell you about scale

5:57 What gematria is, and where it goes wrong

7:49 Scripture was not written as a puzzle

9:13 The guardrail

10:11 A listener in a country where following Jesus costs something

11:29 Reading John 6:1-15

13:25 Marking the numbers

17:20 Line the numbers up in order

18:39 What John is actually doing

19:08 Twelve baskets and twelve disciples

20:35 What does this mean, not what does this mean to me

21:05 Why there were leftovers at all

22:23 Who had to carry the baskets

22:55 Prayer

23:49 Homework

What is the color method?

It's a way of studying Scripture that Rachael developed while teaching
sixth and seventh graders who had never been shown how to read the Bible for themselves. She published it in her first book, She Hears.

You take a short passage, ten to fifteen verses, and mark it with colored
pencils or highlighters. Each color answers one question. Green marks the who. Blue marks the supernatural. Red marks the action words. Purple marks timing. Orange marks numbers.

The colors aren't the point. You can't put a color on a word without
making a decision about that word, and you can't make a decision without
slowing down enough to actually read.

What does orange mark?

Numbers and quantities that appear in the text itself. Five loaves, two
fish, 200 denarii, 5,000 men, twelve baskets.

It also covers quantity words that aren't digits. Every, none, both, few,
plenty, enough, nothing, all, as much as they wanted. Anything that counts or
measures.

Are verse numbers part of the Bible?

No, and this matters. Chapter and verse numbers were added centuries
later by scribes and scholars so people could find and reference passages.
Rachael's kids in children's ministry called them the addresses, which is a
good way to think about them. They're a filing system, not Scripture.

So John 6:6 doesn't get marked. The number six in that reference isn't
inspired and it isn't pointing at anything.

Is 11:11 a message from God?

No. And this is where Rachael spends real time, because numbers in
Scripture is the area where people most often go wrong.

Some people treat repeating numbers like 11:11 as a personal signal, and
then go looking up every 11:11 reference in the Bible as if it were a mandate.
But a chapter and verse address carries no more divine weight than the image printed on the cover of your Bible. God can use anything. That doesn't make it a message.

What is gematria, and should Christians use it?

Gematria is a Jewish practice of assigning number values to Hebrew
letters, which means every Hebrew word also carries a numeric value. People
began hunting for hidden codes in those values, convinced that cracking the
pattern would unlock a secret message.

Rachael's caution has three parts. We aren't reading Hebrew, so applying
that logic to English doesn't hold. It isn't something Scripture instructs
anyone to do, it's a practice people developed. And we follow God, not the
practices of the people around Him.

She learned about it in seminary, and points out that seminary also
teaches you about sin and witchcraft. Learning that something existed in a time period doesn't make it biblical.

Was the Bible written as a code to crack?

No. Scripture wasn't written as a puzzle. It was written to be
understood.

The plain meaning of the text, what the words say in their context,
carries far more weight than any value you could calculate by adding letters
together. When people go down the numerology road, it usually ends in a
prediction, which is how you get someone announcing the world will end on a specific date every few years. Jesus said nobody except the Father knows when that will happen, so those predictions are already ignoring the actual Bible. Here's the guardrail. Mark the number. See what it helps you
understand. Ask whether the writer seems to be pointing at something. Then stop, unless the text itself makes the connection for you.

How many people did Jesus actually feed?

More than five thousand. Probably closer to fifteen thousand.

Verse 10 says about 5,000 men were there. In that culture, counting the
men meant the women and children with them weren't included in the number. So John isn't giving you a ceiling. He's giving you the floor.

It's one thing to say Jesus fed people. It's another to hold five loaves
next to five thousand men and feel the size of the gap. That gap is the entire
point of the story.

What are the numbers in John 6:1-15?

Verse 2: a great crowd. Vague on purpose.

Verse 5: a great crowd again. John says it twice. Repetition is
usually significant.

Verse 7: half a year's wages, which some translations render as
200 denarii. A denarius was roughly a day's pay for a laborer, so that's 200
days of work. Also each one and a bite. Philip is measuring in
two directions at once, this much money spread across this many people equals about a mouthful each. That verse is entirely math.

Verse 9: five loaves, two fish, so many. And notice
the word small appears twice. Small loaves, small fish.

Verse 10: plenty of grass, about five thousand men.

Verse 11: as much as they wanted.

Verse 12: all, enough, nothing wasted.

Verse 13: twelve baskets, five barley loaves.

What happens when you line the numbers up?

Something deliberate.

You start with a vague crowd. Philip converts it to money, and 200 days
of wages still isn't enough for one bite each. Andrew brings the resources, and they're five and two, and twice they're called small. Then the crowd gets a hard floor of five thousand.

Then the miracle, and John refuses to quantify it. As much as they
wanted.

Then he counts again on the other side. Twelve baskets.

John establishes how impossible the math is in two directions through two
different disciples, refuses to measure what Jesus did, and then counts the
leftovers precisely. So you know it wasn't barely enough. There's an entire layer of this passage told in nothing but the numbers.

What do the twelve baskets mean?

It's hard to read twelve in a gospel and not think of the twelve
disciples, especially in a passage already pointing back to Israel and the
exodus and the twelve tribes. This is a thread woven into the same fabric as
the Passover, the wilderness, the mountain, and the prophet like Moses.

But here's the question worth sitting with. The miracle was complete when
everyone ate. Everybody had as much as they wanted. The point was already made. There didn't have to be anything left over.

And yet Jesus stops and tells them to gather it so nothing is wasted, and
it fills twelve baskets from five small loaves.

Who picks them up? The disciples. The same men who had been running the
numbers a few minutes earlier and reporting that this was impossible. Philip
with his 200 denarii, Andrew with his what good is this. And now each of them is holding a basket of what was left after thousands of people ate as much as they wanted.

Jesus made sure they had to handle the evidence with their own hands. Rachael's read is that this miracle
may have been more for them than it was for the crowd.

FAQ

Do I need to have heard the earlier episodes? No. This one explains what it needs
to as it goes, and they're evergreen if you want to catch up later.

What do I need to follow along? A Bible or a printed copy of John 6:1-15 that you're comfortable
marking, and something orange. You can print the passage free at Bible Gateway.

What if a passage has no numbers in it? That happens, and sometimes more than one color goes
unused. Do the read-through anyway. The repetition is what builds the
observation.

Is it okay to write in my Bible? Yes. There's an episode earlier in this series that deals with that
directly if it makes you uneasy, or use a printout instead.

What's the homework? Write two numbers in the margin next to verse 10. Five and five
thousand. Sit with those, and pray about them.

What's next? Yellow, the last color, and the most important day of the week. Rachael
explains why it comes at the end instead of the beginning.

Where can I go deeper on the color method? She Hears, on Amazon, teaches it over six weeks through the stories of six women in the Gospels. All the Scripture is printed in the workbook, so you don't have to write in your Bible if you'd rather not.

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This Tuesday episode offers powerful, Scripture-based affirmations to help you step into your week with boldness, peace, and purpose. As the world demands more, God invites you to rely on His strength. Through these promises, you’re reminded that you are never alone, never powerless, and never without purpose.

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Today’s daily affirmations are for strength and confidence for the week ahead. Whatever this week holds, you are not facing it alone. God is with you—strengthening you, guiding you, and fighting for you. No matter what challenges you encounter, you can walk in faith knowing that God has already prepared the way for you.

Affirmation: I am strong and courageous in Christ.

Joshua 1:9

Affirmation: I do not fear because God is with me.

Isaiah 41:10

Affirmation: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

Affirmation: I am victorious through Jesus.

1 Corinthians 15:57

Affirmation: I have the power of God working within me.

Ephesians 3:20

Affirmation: I will not be shaken because God is my refuge.

Psalm 62:6

Affirmation: I walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7

Affirmation: No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

Isaiah 54:17

Affirmation: God fights my battles and I need only to be still.

Exodus 14:14

Affirmation: I am not afraid because God has overcome the world.

John 16:33

Affirmation: I have authority in Christ over every attack of the enemy.

Luke 10:19

Affirmation: I am rooted and established in God’s love.

Ephesians 3:17

Affirmation: I have divine wisdom and strength for today.

James 1:5

Affirmation: I am resilient and I will persevere through trials.

Romans 5:3-4

Affirmation: I am filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1:8

Affirmation: I will not grow weary in doing good.

Galatians 6:9

Affirmation: God’s grace is sufficient for me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Affirmation: I have peace that surpasses understanding.

Philippians 4:7

Affirmation: I am never alone. God is always near.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Affirmation: I am protected under the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 91:1

Affirmation: God’s Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105

Affirmation: I stand firm in faith and do not waver.

James 1:6

Affirmation: I am free from fear because God’s perfect love casts it out.

1 John 4:18

Affirmation: I have a spirit of power, love, and sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7

Affirmation: God is working all things for my good today.

Romans 8:28

Closing Prayer

Lord, I surrender my fear to You. Fill me with boldness, courage, and confidence in You. No matter what today holds, I trust in Your strength. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Listen daily and start your morning with God’s truth so you can walk in faith, clarity, and confidence.

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Bible Study 101: Why Does John Mention the Passover in John 6? Hearing Jesus, Devotional

This episode is part of Bible Study 101, a series teaching a method
Rachael calls the color method. You take one passage and read it several times, marking something different in each color, and by the end you see things on the page you'd never catch reading at normal speed. This week the passage is John 6:1-15, the feeding of the five thousand.

Today's color is purple, and purple marks timing. Words like then, after,
already, when, near. That sounds like the least interesting color of the week
until you get to verse 4, which is six words about a festival. It has no people
in it, nothing supernatural, and nobody doing anything, so it sat blank on the
page for four straight days while everything around it filled in. It's also the
sentence that tells you what kind of story you're actually reading.

Links

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Join the newsletter

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Chapters

0:00 What we're doing this week

0:28 The difference between reading and studying

0:55 What purple marks

1:24 Why timing is so easy to miss in Scripture

2:30 The two things timing words do for you

3:53 Reading John 6:1-15

5:41 Marking the timing words

8:29 Back to verse 4

9:23 What Passover actually is

10:26 A crowd in a wild place with no food, during Passover season

11:33 This is not a story about a picnic

12:03 Why the crowd calls Him the Prophet

12:46 Why this is the argument for the whole method

14:19 Writers don't waste sentences

16:06 The grass, and the green pastures

17:03 The mountain, twice

17:32 Prayer

18:20 Homework

What is the color method?

It's a way of studying Scripture that Rachael developed while teaching
sixth and seventh graders who had never been shown how to read the Bible for themselves. She later published it in her first book, She Hears.

You take a short passage, ten to fifteen verses, and mark it with colored
pencils or highlighters. Each color answers one question. Green marks the who. Blue marks the supernatural, the things only God could do. Red marks the action words. Purple marks timing.

The colors aren't the point. The point is that you can't put a color on a
word without making a decision about that word, and you can't make a decision without slowing down enough to actually read. Most of us skim familiar passages without noticing. This makes it impossible.

What does purple mark?

Timing. Think of purple as the clock.

You're looking for when something happened, how long it took, what came
before, and what came after. Words like then, immediately, during, already,
when, after, again, the next day.

Why does timing matter so much in the Bible?

Because Scripture handles time in a way that reading a normal book
doesn't prepare you for.

There are 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the
beginning of the New. You turn one page and four centuries have passed, and nothing on the page tells you that. Inside a single passage you can cover
generations in three sentences.

Timing words do two things. They tell you the order events happened in,
which matters because our memories compress stories and lose the sequence. And they locate the passage inside the larger story of Scripture, so you know whether you're before the rescue or after it, before the kings or after the kingdom fell apart, before Jesus or after.

What are the timing words in John 6:1-15?

Verse 1: Sometime after this. Right at the start. And notice what
that assumes. After what? Something happened before this, which means John is connecting this scene to chapter 5. Most of us open to a chapter and read like the story begins there. It doesn't.

Verse 3: Then Jesus went up on a mountainside.

Verse 4: The Jewish Passover Festival was near. Mark this one even
though it may not look like timing yet.

Verse 5: When Jesus looked up.

Verse 6: He already had in mind what He was going to do. That's
timing telling you something happened before the conversation even started.

Verse 10: There was plenty of grass in that place. Mark this too,
at least with your pen.

Verse 11: Jesus then took the loaves.

Verse 12: When they had all had enough to eat.

Verse 14: After the people saw the sign.

Verse 15: He withdrew again to a mountain. And notice what
"again" tells you. He'd already done this once, back in verse 3. He
went up, He came down into all of this, and now He's going back up.

Why does John mention the Passover in John 6?

Because it tells you what kind of story you're in.

Passover is the meal Israel ate the night before God brought them out of
Egypt. It's the festival where every Jewish family remembers the rescue. Lamb, bread, deliverance.

And remember what happened right after that rescue. They went out into
the wilderness with no food, and God fed them bread from heaven every morning for forty years.

Now look at this scene. A huge crowd in a remote place with no food. It's
Passover season, so these people are already thinking about the exodus, because that's the entire point of the festival. And in the middle of that remembering, a man goes up on a mountain, comes back down, and hands them bread that should not exist.

This is not a story about a picnic. John put one sentence in verse 4 that gives you the frame for the whole passage.

Why does the crowd call Jesus the Prophet?

Because of everything above. In verse 14 they say, Surely this is the
Prophet who is to come into the world.

That's not a random title. In Deuteronomy 18, God said He would raise up
a prophet like Moses. These people had Moses on the brain because it was Moses season, and they had just watched a man do something Moses-shaped. They connected it immediately.

And they weren't wrong. Which is what makes verse 15 land the way it
does, when they try to make Him king by force and He walks away. They had the right person and the wrong idea of what He came to do.

Why is this the argument for the whole method?

Because of how it was found.

For four days that verse sat white on the page. No people, so no green.
Nothing supernatural, so no blue. Nobody doing anything, so no red. Everything around it filled in and it stayed blank.

The only reason it got looked at is that purple forced a stop on it and
made a decision necessary.

There's nothing special about the colors. If this method doesn't work for
you, that's fine. But what it does is force your brain to slow down on the
things it would otherwise glide past, especially the things a modern reader
isn't wired to catch. We aren't ancient Israelites with Moses on our minds. We
don't feel Passover season coming.

Two small details worth noticing

Verse 10 says there was plenty of grass in that place. That seems
like a strange thing to mention. But in that part of the world, grass means
spring, which lines up with Passover. It also means this crowd sat down in
green pasture, which may bring something else to mind. A shepherd who makes people lie down in green pastures and prepares a table for them.

And the mountain shows up twice. Verse 3, He goes up. Verse 15, He goes
back up. Mountains matter in Scripture. It's where Moses met God and where the law was given, and John has put Jesus on one twice in fifteen verses.

Writers don't waste sentences

John says at the end of his gospel that he saw many things Jesus did that
he chose not to write down. Scripture is God breathed, and God worked through a person who made real decisions about what to include.

Rachael works as a ghostwriter, and she'll tell you that when someone is
paying you to write, you don't waste sentences. You choose what goes in and what stays out.

So out of everything that could have been included in this scene, one
line is about the calendar. If it's in there, it's because God wanted you to
know it.

FAQ

Do I need to have heard the earlier episodes? No. This one explains what it needs to as it goes.

What do I need to follow along? A Bible or a printed copy of John 6:1-15 that you're comfortable marking, and something purple. You can print the passage free at Bible Gateway.

Do I need special supplies? No. Colored pencils from a kid's school supply drawer work. Wax Bible highlighters are nice because they don't bleed through, but a pencil will do.

Is it okay to write in my Bible? Yes. If that makes you uneasy, there's an episode earlier in this series that deals with it directly, or use a printout instead.

What if I mark different words than Rachael does? That's fine. Some words go either way, and God shows different things to different people from the same text.

What's the homework? Pray. Then read Exodus 16, or just verses 1 through 15, which is the account of God feeding His people with manna in the wilderness. Then come back and look at your page again.

What's next? Orange. It's the shortest color of the week and it matters more than it looks like it will.

Where can I go deeper on the color method? She Hears, on Amazon, teaches it over six weeks through the stories of six women in the Gospels. All the Scripture is printed in the workbook, so you don't have to write in your Bible if you'd rather not.

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