Listen to the lecture here:
There are a few different narrations of this story. The text below is slightly different than the video above.
It was just after mid-day when a villager decided it was about time he went to visit some friends in another village far away. He hadn’t visited his friends for a long time.
He had been walking for an hour or so when he saw a figure in the distance. He thought to himself “It would be nice to have someone to walk with”, so he decided to run and catch up with the man. Now the man he had seen in the distance wasn’t just any man, he was no less than Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him.
When the man finally caught up with Prophet Jesus he was a little out of breath and asked if he would mind if he accompanied him. The man did not recognize the Prophet, he thought he was just another ordinary traveler like himself.
Prophet Jesus agreed, so they walked along together until they reached the bank of a river where they decided to rest for a while. Now between them they had three loaves of bread to share. The man ate one, Prophet Jesus ate another and there was one left over. After Prophet Jesus had finished eating his loaf, he went down to the river to drink some water. The water was cool and very refreshing and he thanked God for all His blessings.
When Prophet Jesus returned to his companion he looked for the third loaf of bread but there was no sign of it — not even a crumb, so the Prophet asked: “Who has taken the loaf?” The man looked at the Prophet, shrugged his shoulders and said: “I don’t know.” Jesus made no comment and the two set off again on their journey.
Farther down the river they came across some trees growing besides its bank. The leaves fluttered gently in the breeze, and there, among the trees stood a deer with its young fawn. Prophet Jesus called and it came to him. Then he slaughtered and roasted it and the two men enjoyed a fine meal.
After they had finished eating, Prophet Jesus turned to the remaining portion of the deer and said: “By the permission of God, stand up!” And the deer became whole and stood up just as if nothing had ever happened and ran off into the trees. It was indeed a wonderful miracle.
Prophet Jesus asked the man again: “I ask you by God who has shown you this sign, who took the loaf?” The man looked at him and replied: “I don’t know.”
The two men walked on for a long, long time until they reached a flooded valley. There was absolutely no way in which they could cross it. So, Prophet Jesus took the man by his hand and together they walked over the water by the permission of God. It was another miracle.
When they reached the other side of the valley, Prophet Jesus asked the man once again: “I ask you by God, who has given you this sign — who took the loaf?” The man looked at him and replied yet again: “I don’t know!”
They traveled on until they reached a desert and then sat down to take another rest. While they were resting, Prophet Jesus gathered some grains of sand, made a pile and said to it: “By the permission of God, be gold,” whereupon the grains of sand turned into gold. The man could not believe his eyes!
Prophet Jesus divided the gold into three piles and said: “One pile is for you, the other is for me, and the third is for whosoever took the loaf of bread.”
The man’s eyes stared with greed at the gold and without hesitation admitted: “I took it!”
Prophet Jesus turned to the man and said: “Take all of it,” and left him with the three piles of gold in the desert.
Soon after, two strangers chanced to come along, and saw the man with his piles of gold — but he did not see them. The two strangers were mean spirited people. They huddled together and planned to rob the man of his gold and then kill him. They crept up quietly behind the man, but just then, the man looked up and saw them. Fearing for his life he said: “Let us divide it into three — there is more than enough for all of us!”
The strangers agreed and one suggested that one of them should go into the village and buy some food so that they might celebrate their good fortune. So, one of the two strangers went off to buy the food. On his way to the village, the stranger’s satan started working extra hard on him, and prompted him to think to himself: “Now if I poison the food, they will eat it and die, then, I can have all the gold for myself!” So he bought the food and poisoned it.
Meanwhile, the satans of the other men were working very hard as well. They talked to each other and decided it would be much nicer if there were only two to share the gold. So, they decided to sit in ambush then jump out and kill the other man when he returned with the food. And that is exactly what they did.
Then they picked up the bundle of food the dead man had been carrying and went back to divide the gold. After they had finished dividing it they opened the bundle of food, ate it and died! So, the gold did no one any good.
A few days later, Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, and a new companion happened to pass by and saw what had happened. Prophet Jesus turned to his companion and said: “Look, see what has happened and be warned!”
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