Devotional Thoughts: Who do you say that I am?

Matthew 16:13-20 described a dialog between Jesus and Simon Peter and the disciples.

Jesus simply asked (v. 13 and 15), who do you think I am?

The disciples gave various answers in v. 14 but Peter in v. 16 said, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (New Living Translation)

Jesus commended the answer.

In some other translations, Christ is used instead of Messiah. It turns out that the two words mean the same thing. Christ is Greek and Messiah is Hebrew for "anointed one."

I ran a search on Biblegateway to see how often the word Christ and Messiah is used in Matthew within the New American Standard Bible translation which is regarded as one of the more literal translations into English.

I was surprised to find out within the book of Matthew, the word Christ only appeared in 13 verses and Messiah in only 4 verses. In some cases, it is Matthew using the terms in his narration. In some cases it comes up in dialog with Jesus. And indeed, in the book of Matthew, Peter's usage is the first time one of the disciples called Jesus the Christ. Thus, Peter's statement is indeed a big deal.

And Jesus tells him so.

Today, when we talk to people about Jesus, who do people say He is?

Most often people will say, He was a great teacher on par with other noted religious figures of history. People who read DaVinci Code will say there is the Jesus invented by religion and there was the real Jesus who was just a mere mortal.

Coming to the conclusion that Jesus was something special... the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One isn't easy. There are intellectual barriers and most importantly, there are volitional barriers.

Rarely does pure reason alone reach faith. People don't make a commitment to a person or an idea on reason alone. Is marriage a purely rational act? Is being a fan of a baseball team a purely rational act?

Don't worry, I'm not equating marriage with being a baseball fan. 8-)

Our deepest beliefs are held with some rational basis but require more than reason. To examine some of the reason aspects of Christian belief, check out Stand to Reason which is a web page with lots of good information for those who have questions about Christian faith.

Some will look at Jesus and say it is all irrational. These folks think all religion is a waste of time. Is it reason alone that leads to this conclusion?

Others may see the movies about Jesus and read the Bible and conclude it is a nice fairy tale, a good bed time story but it is not true in the historic sense and only true in the "it has good morals" sense.

And I understand this response, because if one were to acknowledge it is all true then one would have to follow Jesus and that isn't an easy choice. Human beings are not very willing to concede autonomy. In essence, that was the temptation in the Garden of Eden, who is in control, God or me?

Confronted with Jesus, we ask, who should rule my life, Christ or me?

For a moment assume the Gospel stories are ALL TRUE, what do the Gospel stories tell us about the response?

Some people believed Jesus but a LOT did NOT. People saw the miracles, some experienced the healings or knew family and friends who were healed, many heard the great debates with the religious leaders of the day, they lived through the chaos around the Cross, they heard people talking about the Resurrection ... you would think everyone would believe! But not everyone does.

Who do you say Jesus is?

I hope you will believe and follow Him.