S166P11 – The good disciple: a sure answer
Lk. 9:18-20
And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
It always confuses me when I hear about a religious group which is not exclusively Christian yet teaches the teachings of Christ. I fully understand that there are those who will take some of his teachings and subscribe to them as truth and teach them as good values. That can be said for other parts of scripture as well, such as the Golden Rule. However, the thing about Jesus is that He said some pretty controversial stuff. For example, He proclaimed to be the only way to the Father and the only way to salvation. If one does not believe these statements to be true, then one should doubt everything He ever said. He could not have been a good teacher or a good man if He lied about these things.
People will pay Jesus all sorts of compliments which fall just short of confessing his deity and the truth of everything He is. They will call him a prophet, a good teacher and a wise man. They will claim to have found some good qualities in him despite not believing that He actually is the Son of God, which He proclaimed. The big problem with this is that it does not matter whether we believe that He was good or wise. It does not matter whether we believe that He spoke some true words of prophecy. What matters is that we believe that He is the only begotten Son of God who died and rose again, and that is why Peter’s answer is so important. Calling Jesus many of the good things that He is yet refusing to call him the Christ gets us nowhere.
There are those who will challenge our belief in Christ because that is what we can expect from this world. Some of us might feel pressure to go easy with our answers and just describe some good qualities of Jesus, to equivocate in our response even if the things we say are true. In my opinion, the good disciple will declare the full truth of Christ when asked without reservation. There will be no line to straddle, no ears to try not to offend. He is the Christ, the Son of God, Messiah and the only way to salvation. Our faith cannot afford to have us waver on this. Father, give us the courage of our convictions to proclaim boldly the trurh and deity of Christ to all who ask without fear of how our answer will be received.