loaves and fishes

loaves and fishes

Tangible benefits or rewards, especially when they serve as one's motivation for action. The phrase refers to the Bible story in which Jesus blesses a small amount of fish and loaves of bread, resulting in the disciples having enough food to distribute to thousands of people. Paul hasn't helped us with this project at all, but you know he'll be there for the loaves and fishes if we win the contest!
See also: and, Fishes, loaves
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

loaves and fishes

personal profit as a motive for religious profession or public service.
This idiom developed from a biblical passage in John 6:26: ‘Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled’.
See also: and, Fishes, loaves
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • where (one) is coming from
  • where one is coming from
  • where somebody is coming from
  • where someone is coming from
  • (one's) mask slips
  • mask
  • run out of steam
  • run out of steam, to
  • know where (one) is coming from
  • know where someone is coming from
References in periodicals archive
Mark Wooldridge, owner of Anarchy Disc Golf, Games & Hobbies in downtown Pana has offered his store as a drop-off point for donations for the Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry.
It costs PS64,000 a year to run Loaves and Fishes and with no funding from government, the volunteers rely solely on donations.
Ramallah, June 18 (Petra) -- Extremist Jewish settlers Thursday burned the Loaves and Fishes Church on the shores of the Sea of Galilee inside the 1948 Palestinian occupied territories.
A BIRMINGHAM student has scooped a major writing award for a vivid, first-person account of the loaves and fishes miracle.
She served as a hospice volunteer as well as an assistant at the Loaves and Fishes program at Devens and Harvard Help Inc.
He said: "I support the homeless in Glasgow through a charity called Loaves and Fishes.
The Loaves and Fishes event in Glasgow was in danger of being cancelled before Naismith stepped in last winter, and the former Kilmarnock player is even working towards setting up a trust when he retires.
During the months of November and December, The Auction House is hosting special fundraisers for Loaves and Fishes, Toys for Tots and 14-year old Jaycie Cassidy, who has been hospitalized for more than 30 days.
Kim Roseberry, Team Leader for the Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry, said, "Between the prepping of boxes on Monday, the unloading of food Tuesday morning, and the handing out of food in the afternoon, at least 30 volunteers are needed" to operate smoothly.
If faith as small as a mustard seed can lift a mountain into the sea, imagine what a few loaves and fishes can do.
Catholic Charities of Tennessee, which covers the 38 counties of the Nashville diocese, runs the Loaves and Fishes thrice-weekly soup kitchen.
From Gazpacho (Cooking at the Natural Cafe in Santa Fe); Zuni Succotash (Southwest Indian Cookbook); Burgundy Venison Steak Tips (Sassy Southwest Cooking); and Chicken Tacos with Avocado (Beyond Loaves and Fishes); to Ruidoso Winner (Savoring the Southwest); Bavarian Apple Torte (Recipes from the Cotton Patch); Applesauce Cake (Billy the Kid Cook Book); and Berry-Pecan Flan (The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook), each easy-to-prepare recipes has a complete list of readily acquired ingredients and step-by-step preparatory instructions.
FREE food will be given out at a Northumberland church during their annual Loaves and Fishes event.
Tell that to Loaves and Fishes, a North Carolina food pantry that lost its funding from the evangelical Central Church of God, which said it would "abstain from any ministry that partners with or promotes Catholicism." The Central Church also will no longer support the Charlotte Rescue Mission because that agency allowed three Muslim students from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to help serve a meal.
How many mouths savoring the miracles of water and wine, milk and meat, loaves and fishes. How many babbling rivers of table talk, swirling and whirling, the chaos and hubbub, the laughter and arguments, the new children swimming in new scents, the old men remembering foods of the past.