{"id":3549,"date":"2016-01-10T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2016-01-09T12:33:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T17:33:50","slug":"further-thoughts-about-the-way-of-jesus-20160110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3549","title":{"rendered":"Further Thoughts About the WAY of Jesus — 20160110"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"deisis\"<\/a>I think that in order to understand the WAY of Jesus, we have to reflect upon WHO Jesus is! We cannot avoid this question because the answer to it determines our interpretation of the Gospels. One way to describe who Jesus is by analyzing the names given to Him by others or by Himself. Another way is by noting His words and works.<\/p>\n

When the men of His own time tried to express who Jesus was they, as we might guess, identified Him with one of the figures associated with the current Messianic expectations of the Jewish people. Some thought that He was John the Baptizer, others that He was Elijah, and still others that He was \u201cone of the prophets.\u201d John had been beheaded by Herod Antipas, but \u201call hold that John was a prophet\u201d, \u201ca righteous and holy man\u201d before the Messiah appeared. According to Old Testament tradition, two me, Enoch and Elijah, did not die. Enoch walked with God, and without experience death God \u201ctook him\u201d. Elijah \u201cwent up by a whirlwind into heaven.\u201d This tradition encouraged the belief that Elijah would return, and would be sent \u201cbefore the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.\u201d Jesus was also identified with the prophet who was promised for the last days, when God would raise up a prophet like Moses, \u201cthe prototype of the true prophet.\u201d Thus, either men thought that Jesus was that prophet, or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 identified Him with John raise from the dead, or with Elijah. He was not recognized as the Messiah, but as one sign that the Messianic age was about to come. Thus is it is the Islam has the belief that Jesus is truly a prophet who came to prepare the way for the true Messiah.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut who do you say that I am?\u201d Jesus asked the Twelve. The emphasis here is upon \u201cyou\u201d, the disciples who were the inside circle of His followers. And Peter, as the leader of the group, answered and confessed, \u201cYou are the Christ\u201d, that is, you are the expected deliverer. This confession at Caesarea Philippi represents the watershed in the Gospel record of the public ministry of Jesus. At this point those who were close to Him saw in Jesus much more than those who were outside, for they called Him the Christ. But this title alone was not sufficient to describe the person and work of Jesus. Without rejecting His identification with the Messianic king of the popular Jewish hopes, Jesus started by teaching the true nature of His Messiahship. He transformed who the Messiah is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think that in order to understand the WAY of Jesus, we have to reflect upon WHO Jesus is! We cannot avoid this question because the answer to it determines our interpretation of the Gospels. One way to describe who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-further-thoughts-about-the-way-of-jesus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3550,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions\/3550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}