Journey Through The Bible
     Old Testament Reading: Ester 4-7
     New Testament Reading: Matthew 16

“But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15-16).

One of the most dramatic scenes in the New Testament occurred in a city known as Caesarea Philippi. Amid marble columns and golden idols, a penniless, homeless, nameless Nazarene asks his band of followers, “Who do you say I am?” There is not a more important question for a person to answer.

The Pharisees and Sadducees persistently refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Even the disciples struggled with questions of faith, but increasingly, they came to recognize him for who he was. The uneducated fisherman steps forward and, with conviction in his heart, answers for the group, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Many have looked at Jesus, but few have seen Him. Many have seen His life, His teaching, His story. But only a handful have truly seen Jesus. Only a few have looked through the fog of religiosity and found him. Only a few have dared to stand eye to eye and heart to heart with Jesus and say, “I believe you are the Son of God.”

W. A. Criswell, long-time pastor of First Baptist Church Dallas, wrote a modern version of this passage that has become known as Criswell’s Ditty.

The modern theologians, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Brunner, Bultmann, and Tillich met the Lord Jesus, and the Lord asked these famed, illustrious theologians, “Who do men say that I am?” They replied, “some say you are John the Baptist, raised from the dead. Some say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets, and some even say you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Then the Lord said to these illustrious theologians, “But who do you say that I am?” Barth, Bonhoeffer, Brunner, Bultmann, and Tillich chorused back their learned answer, “Thou art the ground of being, thou art the leap of faith into the unpenetrable unknown. Thou art the existential, unphrasable, unverbalized, unpropositional confrontation, with the infinitude of inherent subjective experience.”
The Lord looked at them and said, “HUH…?!”

That sadly illustrates how so many religious people approach the God of the universe. He is lost in their vocabulary. Jesus has no interest in dispassionate, hypothetical views regarding His life and work. Instead, He wanted to know what His followers and disciples thought about Him. His question to you today is this: “Who do you say I am?”

Your eternal destination depends on the answer!