Something important I've learned:
Sometimes too much knowledge can be a hindrance to finding the truth. Just as the Pharisees had a preconceived idea about their Messiah that didn't fit with Jesus, we often have ideas and beliefs that need to be examined from time to time. I have to accept challenges to my faith with an open mind and check them out in order to be sure of the truth. As Bilbo is fond of saying, "Don't let anyone else do your thinking for you."
The verse I liked best:
Verses 12-13: Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, "He is a good man."
Others replied, "No, he deceives the people." But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews.
and verses 40-41: On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."
Others said, "He is the Christ."
It reminds me of what C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:
“I am trying to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claims to be God.’ This is the one thing that we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
A question to consider:
Who is Jesus to you?
John
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