Why Jesus Did You?

From the ESV, in Matthew 16, I get this question: Why Jesus Did you? 

So I’d ask why Jesus these three questions: 

1. Why did you need to ask the disciples who people thought he was?
2. Why did you need to ask the disciples who they thought you are?
3. And why did you charge them not to tell people who he was? 

Questions 1 and 2.

It Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me you know?   Wouldn’t Jesus already have known what people were thinking?  So then what point was he trying to make with the disciples?  Was he trying to reassure them that their thinking was correct?   I think I need to look into this with some additional resources.   

Well that wasn’t helpful!   I got all kinds of discussion on the district of Caesarea Philippi and why the crowds would say what they did.  Nothing on what the mindset of Jesus might have been.  And I guess that we can’t really know can we? 

But when John gets it right, Jesus gives him an “atta boy”  AND tells him how he got that knowledge.  I almost missed that eh? For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

God is the one who does it you know.  God is the one who intervenes into a person’s life and helps them see truth.   And perhaps that tidbit was the whole point of the question asking.   So that Jesus could point his disciples to truth.  God’s action in their lives matters to their salvation.   

It’s not your or my decision to follow Christ.  It’s God’s action in our lives that makes our salvation possible.  HIS action. 

And because of his action in Peter’s life Jesus could tell him. you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Do we Realize the Power?

So this makes me of course ask another question… Do we as believers realize the power that we have at our fingertips?   Jesus gave all this power to Peter. It doesn’t mean he gives all that power to everyone (doesn’t say that here does it?)  But it goes back to yesterday right? We have to remember who fights our battles for us.  It’s GOD.  It always comes back to God.  God who fights our battles, God who says to us tell this mountain to move by faith and it will move!  So think about that a bit. 

As believers we can do so much more.  We can BE so much more.  We have God on our side, God who moves mountains, leads by cloud and fire, feeds manna, stops rivers, and does all this amazing stuff.  AND changes the hearts of his people.  This is the God we follow and cleave our service and loyalty too. 

Question 3

And then he closes this section with telling his disciples to NOT tell anyone who he was.  This makes no sense to me.  Was it a timing issue I wonder?  Something that needed to wait until after his death?  We aren’t told in the passage why he issued that charge to them.  But he did this often.  Healing people of leprosy or blindness… don’t tell who did this.  

Hmm… I wonder.  You know how some people like to take credit for what they do and want everyone to know it?  Glory hogs I think you’d call them?  Jesus wasn’t a glory hog.  He just came to be about his father’s business.  Telling people about God and the things of God.  Teaching, preaching, healing etc.   Always and forever pointing people to God.   I wonder if that was the point.

So What is Your Take Away?

When you read this passage do you see God?  Does it make you more aware of his power and action in your life?   Do you wonder along with me about why Jesus did you ask those questions and make those demands?  And perhaps have found some answers in my thought processes here?