16:13,14
We now come to one of the most famous sections in the gospel, Peter’s confession of who Jesus is. Jesus starts by asking the disciples who the people say He is (using the term Son of Man). The disciples’ reply lists John the Baptist (following on from Herod’s fears, Matt 14:2), Elijah (probably based on Malachi 4:5), and Jeremiah or one of the prophets (I guess this is a rather loose identification).
16:15
Jesus then turns the attention back on to the disciples. “Who do you say I am?” You have probably heard a number of evangelistic messages based around this question. We should remember that by this point the disciples had been with Jesus for some time. Maybe it is more appropriate to address this question to ourselves and other church members. There will be an amazing number of people in our churches that really don’t appreciate who Jesus is. That is why good teaching is essential. There is a model of church that sees the primary function of Sunday services as being evangelistic. This is a questionable model. A more Biblically based model would see the Sunday services as essentially twofold. One is to praise God, the other is to be taught and to receive from the Holy Spirit, and that we then go out into the world to live and speak as Christ’s disciples. This is not to say that we never have evangelistic services, but if that is the only sort we have we are going down a wrong road.
No comments:
Post a Comment