Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “ Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 16:13-17 (NASB)
The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters. The Cambodian alphabet has 74 letters. The English alphabet has 26 letters. A sentence which contains all 26 letters of the English alphabet is called a pangram. A famous pangram is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” If you were to write out every number name in full (one, two, three, four …), you wouldn’t use a single letter B until you reached one billion. The longest English word that can be spelled without repeating any letters is ‘uncopyrightable’. The longest English word with its letters in reverse alphabetical order is ‘spoonfeed’. The shortest word in the English language that contains the letters: abcdef is ‘feedback’.
Feedback. As Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked the question, “Who do people say that I am?” This is one of the most probing questions in the whole of the New Testament. Jesus asked for feedback from the people. Some of the disciples replied, “John the Baptist.” Others said, “Elijah,” or “One of the prophets.” Jesus persisted with a more personal question: “ But who do you say that I am?” The structure of this question in Greek emphasizes the word ‘you’. It could be translated more literally, “And you, who do you say that I am?” Only Simon Peter ventured a reply: “Thou art the Christ.”
If Jesus were to look you in the eye today and say, “Who do you say that I am?” what would your answer be? Are you still listening to the rumours of culture? I hope your answer is like the disciple Peter who said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Our answer to that question has the potential to influences our lives, our eternities. It changes why we get up, why we go to work, why we serve, why we manage our money the way we do, why we love our families the way we do, and why we live our lives. Feedback time: who is Jesus to you?