Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote the famous song “We are the World”. The song has this part: Send them your heart / so they’ll know that someone cares / and their lives will be stronger and free / As God has shown us by turning stone to bread / so we all must lend a helping hand. It is possible that Mr. Jackson and Mr. Ritchie got the inspiration for this part of the song from the following story.
One day, Jesus asked His disciples to take stones and to bring them up a hill. Peter took the smallest stone since he thought that going up a hill bringing a big stone would be a heavy burden. On the hill, Jesus prayed and turned the stones to bread. Peter was disappointed because he got the smallest bread. He ran back down the hill to take a bigger one. He showed the stone to his Master and asked Him to turn it to bread. Jesus said, “What are you doing, Peter? The time to turn stone to bread is over.” This story is not mentioned in the Bible (there is no such a story in the Bible). Jesus never turned stone to bread and will never do so. Yes, He blessed 5 loaves of bread and fed more than 5.000 people, even 12 baskets full of bread left. He performed a lot of miracles, but none of these was about turning stone to bread. The idea of turning stone to bread came from the Devil when he tempted Jesus.
People nowadays face the same temptation. People are tempted to turn stone to bread that is to get easy money. People are tempted to get as much money as possible without struggling or doing effort.
Many of us fail when we are tempted to turn stone to bread. When there is an opportunity to get easy money (by committing corruption and the like) we tend to make use of it. Why? It is because materialism has become a new modern god.
We Are the World
