{"id":11482,"date":"2023-12-07T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=11482"},"modified":"2023-12-07T08:01:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T00:01:18","slug":"the-question-of-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2023\/12\/07\/the-question-of-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Question of Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke 9:18-20 18<\/sup>And it happened while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, saying, \u201cWho do the crowds say that I am?\u201d 19<\/sup>And answering they said, \u201cJohn the Baptist, and others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.\u201d 20<\/sup>But he said to them, \u201cBut who do you say that I am?\u201d And answering Peter said, \u201cThe Christ of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In the flow of the context, Luke connects the feeding of the five thousand with confirmation of Jesus’ identity. The reader has been exposed to Jesus’ many miracles and some key points of his teaching. His identity should be self-evident. The question within the setting of Jesus’ ministry is what the disciples were thinking. Did they understand all that was happening? Luke does not recount where this event took place, but Mark 8:27 notes that it was\u00a0Caesarea Philippi. Jesus frequently spent time in prayer. He often prayed before significant events. Verse 18 contains the significant note that the disciples were with him<\/em>. Luke does not state if the disciples were watching Jesus, since Jesus was\u00a0alone\u00a0<\/em>in his prayers, but they were not far off. They would have known he was praying because it was his habit. What the disciples did while Jesus prayed is unknown, but by watching, they were learning the importance of prayer.<\/p>\n

Turning to them, Jesus asked one of the most important questions of his ministry. The question focuses upon ministry effectiveness: were people figuring out his identity? Did they know him? The answer the disciples gave suggests that there was a lot of misunderstanding still. The people were slow to catch on. They saw the miracles and heard the preaching, but there was a disconnect in their thinking. Some of this may have been due to their ignorance of Old Testament Scripture that predicted and explained the coming Messiah. The crowds’ confusion is evident in their answers that some thought Jesus was John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets returned to life. All of these contain superstitions and not historical and logical thinking. People do not reappear after centuries of being dead. The only reference to something like this happening was on the mount of transfiguration, and the appearances of Moses and Elijah were more of a vision than physical, flesh-and-blood reincarnation. The crowds seemed to like the miracles, but their theology and understanding of how God works in the wold were all messed up.<\/p>\n

Jesus repeats the key question directly to the disciples. Had they understood what they had seen? How was their theology? In the Greek, the you<\/em> (hymeis<\/em>) is in emphatic position and plural. This was a direct question to all the disciples. It probed their personal convictions about Jesus. Luke does not develop Peter’s character in this and the following passage as much as Mark’s Gospel, but Luke does highlight Peter’s central role in the confession as the one who speaks out representing the whole group. His answer is succinct and to the point without any explanation, which raises the question about what Peter understood his words to mean.\u00a0Christ<\/em> is the Greek translation for the Hebrew\u00a0Messiah<\/em>. Only the Messiah could do the things Jesus was doing.\u00a0Of God<\/em> identified the Messiah as having come from God.<\/p>\n

Did Peter understand the divinity of Jesus or that Jesus was simply anointed with divine power as a miracle worker? Was Jesus a man gifted with healing powers, or did Jesus innately have those powers because of his identity? By connecting the Messiah to God, Peter showed some understanding of Scripture and that Jesus’ coming was part of God’s ancient plan. Peter and most of the disciples were just ordinary fishermen schooled in the local synagogues of Galilee. Could they connect the dots and make sense of all they were seeing? Luke does not go into the details that might help answer these questions as Mark does in his account. Mark suggests that Peter was slow to understand what the messiahship of Jesus meant. Over time, and especially after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter and the other disciples came to understand the significance of his identity as the Messiah. As readers, we can see the full picture, but the issue remains, how will we answer the crucial question Jesus posed to his disciples?<\/p>\n

For older posts, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 9:18-20 18And it happened while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, saying, \u201cWho do the crowds say that I am?\u201d 19And answering they said, \u201cJohn the Baptist, and others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.\u201d 20But he said to them, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11518,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482\/revisions\/11518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}