Confession (Mark 8:27-30)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/25/2012 8:07:53 AM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Confession

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Mark 8:27-30

            Message of the verses:  In Today’s SD we will take a little break from the book of Psalms and look to the eight chapter of Mark’s Gospel.  It has been my desire to look more intently into Mark’s Gospel, taking one chapter a month and study it and then use that study as part of my Spiritual Diaries. 

            Confession:  (vv.27-30):  “27 ¶  Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?" 28  They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." 29  And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter *answered and *said to Him, "You are the Christ." 30  And He warned them to tell no one about Him.”

            As we look at this section of Scripture we must understand that this is a turning point in the ministry of Jesus Christ, for from now on we will hear about the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and that as the Messiah He would suffer at the hands of the Gentiles and die on a cross for the sins of the world.  This is something that His disciples did not want to hear, and I suppose the question is why they not wanted to hear about it.  The answer goes deep into what the Jewish people thought about when they thought about their Messiah, and Jesus did not fulfill those expectations.  In the OT there are many prophecies about who the Messiah would be and what He would do.  When we look at passages like Isaiah 52-53 and also Psalm 22 we see a suffering Messiah, but most of the Jews did not want to look at a suffering Messiah because they were living in their own land, but were not in control of their own land and so they were looking for a Messiah to come and to defeat the Roman government, to make Israel the capital of the world, and so when Jesus tells His disciples that He is going to die then they do not want to hear of any such talk.  I must say that I am getting ahead of myself so we will save this type of talk until the next SD.

            We see in verse twenty-seven that Jesus and His disciples were moving along heading to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and while they were walking along they began to talk and Jesus questioned them by giving them a two part exam:  Who do people say that I am?  Who do you say that I am?  We will get to the answers to these two questions in a minute but first I want to talk a bit about the town that they were heading for, Caesarea Philippi.  This town was located at the base of MT. Hermon, a mountain of about 9,000 feet where when the snows begin to melt they run off they make up a part of the head waters of the Jordan River.  The town was name after Augustus Caesar, who was the leader of the Roman world and some thought to be a god.  It was also named after Herod Philip who was the ruler of this part of Israel.  There was a marble temple that was built there that was dedicated to Augustus, you see there were towns like this around the Roman Empire that were built in honor of the Emperor, but we don’t see any of them today but what we do see today is that Jesus Christ is still Lord and is still being praised for who He is.

            Now back to the questions.  If we think about a person asking another person what others say about himself we might think that there is an evidence of pride involved, but of course this is not the case with Jesus, for He was teaching His disciples something here and that is the reason for the question.  In fact what people think about who Jesus is, is the most important question that can be asked for the correct answer will put you in heaven and the wrong answer will land you in hell.  The answer the His disciples gave was that many people thought He was John the Baptist or Elijah or even some said that He was Jeremiah.  Why Jeremiah?  I am told that in the book of Second Maccabeus (Spelling?) that there is a story about Jeremiah that says that he took some articles out of the temple before it was destroyed, including the Ark of the Covenant, and when Messiah comes Jeremiah would come before Him.  The same is true with John the Baptist and also Elijah.  These people were thinking that Jesus was the forerunner of the Messiah.  The next question is who do His disciples think that He is and I think that when Peter speaks he is speaking for the whole group with the possible exception of Judas when He say that Jesus is the Son of God.  We know that this is something that Peter did not understand on his own for in another Gospel Jesus tells him that flesh and blood didn’t cause him to answer correctly, but His Father in heaven revealed this to him.  This of course is true not only of Peter, but of anyone who truly confesses this of who Jesus Christ truly is.

            Jesus tells them not to tell any people about this and this may seem a bit strange.  Why do you suppose that Jesus would make this statement?  Let me make a comparison to another time in the life of Jesus, after He arose from the dead when He states that His disciples were to go into all the world and tell others about what He had done, which is the “great commission.”  When Peter made his confession the message of the Gospel was not complete and this is probably the reason that Jesus warns them not to tell others about this. 

            Jesus had spent over two years with these men and in a short time He would be leaving them to go back to His Father, and in those two plus years we wonder how much they truly learned about Him.  The good part is that after Jesus did go back to heaven to be with His Father the Holy Spirit brought into remembrance the things that Jesus had taught His disciples and these twelve men turned the world upside down with their message about Jesus. 

7/25/2012 9:05:13 AM