Jesus is the Christ

Mark 8:27-30

The people had many ideas about Jesus. Mark has already told us about these ideas (Mark 6:14-15). People were talking about these things because of something that God had promised.

God‘s promise was that he would soon begin to rule his people (Mark 1:15). He would do this by a king. That king would be like King David (Mark 10:47; Mark 11:10). But he would be more important than David was (Mark 12:35-37). People called that king: "the Christ" or "the Messiah." The word Messiah means the same as Christ.

So when Jesus did all these powerful things, people talked about God‘s promise. And they wanted to know whether Jesus was the Christ.

The disciples had seen the things that Jesus did. They had heard the things that he taught. They had done this for almost three years. They knew the things that the Bible said about the Christ.

Jesus asked them: "Who do you say that I am?" It was Peter who answered. He believed that Jesus was the Christ.

Jesus did not want his disciples to tell anyone about this. People had many wrong ideas about the things that the Christ would do. Many people thought that the Christ would be the leader of a powerful army. Those people wanted to fight against the government.

Even Jesus‘ disciples did not know about the things that the Christ would do. Jesus had to teach them about these things.