Who Are You?

Hello:

Our text today contains a very familiar passage and story in the life of the church.  It is the story where Jesus ask his disciples “whom do men say that he is” and only one (Peter) gives him the right answer.

Let’s look at the text:

Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 ”But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

After Jesus posed the question to his disciples concerning who people thought he was; here are the answers:

John the Baptist-    He was to come before the Christ and prepare the way for him according to the prophets.

Elijah- Malachi closes with the prediction that Elijah would come before the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah or one of the prophets.   This shows you their belief in possibly reincarnation.   They believed that he was one of the prophets returning.

There was no word out yet that he was really the Christ, the long awaited Messiah for the Jews and God’s son.  Jesus then turns to his disciples and asked them, “Who do you say I am?”  

Peter was the only one with the correct answer:  Peter says that you are the Christ, the son of the living God.  I have always loved that statement.  How powerful when we can say He is the Christ, the son of the living God.   Jesus turns to Peter and says that there is no one on this earth that could have told you that or given you that revelation.  He revealed to Peter that it came from God himself.   The scriptures teach that Jesus says that upon this rock, he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and he gave Peter the power of binding and loosing. 

This actually designated a name change for Peter.  He will also be called Cephas in the scriptures which mean “the rock.”     Depending on your church tradition, some people teach that Peter was the rock that Jesus was building his church on and some traditions can established their history all the way back to the Apostle Peter.  As a matter of fact in the line of people that I was ordained from, I can actually trace my laying on of hands back to the Apostle Peter through the Episcopal Church. 

However, most scholars will concur that the rock that Jesus was referring to was the revelation that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the Living God and upon that fact was the church founded and established.

There is much debate as to what binding and loosing really means in the church world.  We actually will encounter this term in more detail later and we will discuss it in detail then.

Jesus closes with telling his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Stay encouraged and I’ll see you tomorrow.

God Bless.

Don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily. 

This entry was posted on 27. January 2009 at 13:48 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.