Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S25 || Who Do You Say Jesus Is? || Mark 8:22-30 || Session 25 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
The episode reaches its climax with Jesus asking the question that serves as the turning point of Mark's Gospel: "Who do you say that I am?" After hearing what His followers are saying about His identity, Jesus turns directly to His disciples, forcing them to declare their personal belief. Peter's confession—"You are the Messiah"—marks the hinge point where Jesus's ministry shifts from proclaiming "the kingdom is at hand" to teaching about His coming death and resurrection.
This question cannot be escaped. By attempting to ignore it, we've already given our answer. Jesus doesn't position Himself as just one teacher among many—He claims to be the only way to God, worthy of complete allegiance. Our response to this question determines everything about our relationship with God and our eternal destiny. Have you answered the question Jesus still asks today: "Who do YOU say that I am?"
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we see a man who's healed in stages and we have Jesus asking a very profound question. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We're in Mark, chapter 8, so if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. We're going to first see a man who is blind, but Jesus heals him, but he does it in a very unique way. Steve, can you start at Mark, chapter 8, and read from verse 22 to 26?
Speaker 2:And they came to Bethsaida and they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village and, after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked him Do you see anything? And he looked up and said I see men, for I see them like trees walking around. Then again he laid his hands on his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying do not even enter the village.
Speaker 1:At the beginning of this it says they, that's the group of Jesus and his disciples, came to the town of Bethsaida and they brought a blind man. So this man's friends, this blind man's friends, brought him to Jesus and implored him or begged him to touch him. That's a picture of what we should do. The first question we should ask is has Jesus touched me? Because when Jesus touches you, you will indeed be changed. The next thing we always want is for Jesus to touch those around us, those around us that are in our family, those around us that are in need. We should take our friends to Jesus and beg him to touch him. If Jesus touches you, you're never going to be the same. And, steve, isn't that true still today, that we should bring our loved ones to Jesus and implore him, beg him to touch us and our friends?
Speaker 2:It is. It's a natural thing whenever we become new believers to do that. But as we go through our years and we have encountered friends or family and they've rejected Jesus, maybe we have a tendency sometimes to back off and maybe forget to do that. But it is something I think that we should do periodically and make sure that we do want to bring them to Jesus so that they can be touched just like we have been touched by him.
Speaker 1:So their healing is of this blind man and we'll talk in a minute about he heals them in stages. But there's an analogy here. There's a picture between a healing of a blind man and the salvation of a Christian. Going from darkness to light, going from a state of lostness to a state of salvation, is having our eyes opened. It's having our vision lifted so that we can see the things of God. He must come along and open our eyes or we will not see the things of God. How far can we take that, steve, if we were to have the symbolism there between healing of the blind man and salvation? What parallels can we draw there?
Speaker 2:I think the comparison is one of understanding that the blindness that's expressed from a person that they say once I was blind. Now I can see that type is related to the understanding. And now you have a better relationship with God and with Jesus. You now understand things that maybe you didn't before. Because you have the Holy Spirit that is with you and indwelling with you, you see things in a different view. You have a different worldview, a biblical worldview, versus one that is a secular worldview. Now, like my story is, I came at the age of eight. You came to belief at the age of 25. We were at different stages of our life. Mine might not have been as drastic as yours was in regards to this understanding, but nonetheless I know that I had a different outlook on life and how the world was, even at the age of eight, and that I carried that with me as I got older. What was your experience, Glenn, at the age of 25?
Speaker 1:Well, it was my experience that things just changed. I remember very distinctly, over a period of two Sundays, my entire understanding changed about the nature of Christianity and the Lord Jesus Christ. It was as if God lifted a veil from my eyes and instilled in me a desire. One person I met described it as having a desire transplant. He changed our want to and he changed how we see the world and how we understand the Word of God.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the picture here is that the lost person is blind. They don't see the things of God and in order for us to see the things of God, jesus must reach out and touch us and open our eyes and help us to understand these things. That is the symbolism here of salvation with the healing of the blind. Now notice also what happens here. In verse 23, it says taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village. They were in the village. They bring this blind man to him and Jesus takes him outside the village to heal him, heals him outside the village. Then in verse 26, after he's healed, he tells the man to go home and do not go back into the village.
Speaker 1:Jesus intentionally did not do the miracle where the people in the village could see it, and he intentionally told the man don't go back in there where you can tell people about the miracle.
Speaker 1:It's as if he's intentionally keeping the people of Bethsaida from knowing about or seeing this miracle. So that sort of begs the question as to why. I think there's one or two answers here, one reason being, if we remember over in Matthew, jesus at one point says woe to you Bethsaida, woe to you Chorazin, for if the miracles that had been done in you would have been done and he mentions a couple other places, tyre and Sidon, I think it was they would have repented. The implication there is that Jesus had already done some miracles in Bethsaida and they didn't repent. This goes to some of the teaching that we've already seen here those that will believe are given more truth and those that refuse to believe are intentionally given less. It all has to do with these people had already rejected Jesus Christ. So it seems that he intentionally heals those that will believe but leaves the witness outside of the town, simply because they had already rejected Christ.
Speaker 2:It's also a lesson, I think, glenn, that God, the more you reject him, at some point he will just turn you over to yourself. We see that also depicted in Scripture. Isn't that like a loving person, that if you have somebody a woman for instance that is rejecting a man and the man continues to pursue the woman even after she's rejected him multiple times, maybe it gets to a point in the encounter with her why won't you let me love you? Maybe her answer would be if you truly love me, you would just leave me alone.
Speaker 2:That's, I think, is what God does At some point in time. People reject him enough that he loves them enough just to leave them alone. Now that's a cautionary tale for the people out there that have had plenty of opportunities to believe in Jesus Christ and have been asked several times do you want to believe in Jesus Christ? And you rejected. It's a cautionary tale that at some point, god loves you so much that he will stop sending people into your life and circumstances into your life to ask you to become a believer. Just think on that and pause on that the next time that somebody out there might be listening and is going to reject Jesus Christ for yet another time.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a very scary place to be. I mean, there's people in the world that'll say I don't see any witness of God. Well, maybe there's a reason. Maybe the reason is the witness that you did get previously you rejected, and God is in full rights of his own authority to do that, simply because he has witnessed to us in the past. And, just as you said, steve, it would be unjust of him to keep wooing people that really do not want to hear about God. So that's why a lot of times, he doesn't do things in a place where non-believers would only criticize those that would believe he knows it and he will reach out and touch them and open their eyes.
Speaker 1:Now, with this, of course, we have this healing here that happens in stages. Jesus takes him outside of the city and he does one stage of healing and he asks the man and the man says well, I can see partially people walking around, sort of like trees, and Jesus touches his eyes again the second phase, or the second stage. Now he can see clearly. Well, this brings us a question of why, when he's done many healings now instantaneously and he did many of them even from a distance he didn't really need to physically touch him. If he didn't want to, he could have healed this man from a distance. We have to ask a question as to why this might have happened in stages. Well, one reason I think would be fairly straightforward is that Jesus doesn't do these the same way every time. He does them differently, usually to teach us something, and also not. So we'll think there's some sort of a formula that's doing the healing. That's not it at all. It's him, it's the person of Jesus Christ that's doing the healing and not some formula or ritual that we would go through. But I think Vernon McGee brings out a great point here on this healing in stages, especially when we consider that, again, the healing of the blind is a picture of our salvation.
Speaker 1:Going from the state of blindness to the state of sight is a picture of going from a lost person to a person that is now saved under salvation. Because of that, I think we can draw a picture, and McGee puts it like this we start out in blindness, we start out blind, unable to see. This man was blind and we, as lost people, we are born in sin. Many verses in the New Testament describe the lost person as blind. Ephesians 4.18 says the lost person has blindness in their heart. Romans 11.7 and 8 say the non-elect are blind.
Speaker 1:In 2 Corinthians 4.4 says God of this age has blinded people in the world. 1 John 2.11, he who hates his brother is blind. John 9.39, jesus says that he came so that those who do not see may see. There's a blindness that's described as the state of a lost person. When we are then touched by Jesus we get sight. He opens our eyes.
Speaker 1:But in this church age we are given partial sight. The church age. We do not see everything of God's declaration clearly. We don't see all of God's revelation yet. Born-again Christians have been given some of the truths of God, but we're not given all of the truths of God. We await the full consummation of history to reveal the rest. We are given partial sight today in the church age.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, says we now see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now we know in part. It says so. We are given partial truth here in the church age. But there's going to come a day when we are given full sight. There's going to come a day where 1 Corinthians 13 says we know fully, just as we are fully known. There will come a day when our bodies are regenerated, just like our spirits are regenerated. Jesus will return. He will reveal all truths to us. At that point we will see fully. Now we see partially, we see through a glass, darkly. So, steve, I think that's the closest analogy I could give here. But in the end, jesus does it the way he wants and he doesn't always do it the way that I want or what you want. Now, moving on to the next phase, we now see Jesus asking a very profound question and we'll see their answers.
Speaker 2:Steve, if you could read Mark 8, starting at verse 27 and going down to verse 30, we see this very profound question Jesus went out along with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea, philippi, and on the way he questioned his disciples, saying to them who do people say that I am? They to him, you are the Christ. And he warned them to tell no one about him.
Speaker 1:Steve, the question is still today who do people say that Jesus is?
Speaker 2:People today say the same thing. Some say that he was a great prophet, some say that he was a great teacher, others say that he is God, the Messiah. And the same answers today are given by different people.
Speaker 1:Still today, people around the world disagree on who this guy, jesus, is. Some people say he's a great prophet, he's a great teacher. People claim he's the Lord God, because that's what the Scripture teaches. But there's all sorts of disagreements about who Jesus is in my circles, that you can be very religious, you can even go to church, you can do a lot of things. But as soon as you name the name of Jesus and say that he is the center of my life, then people treat you very differently. People will treat you very differently simply because they have the same idea. Well, jesus is a really nice guy, maybe, but we don't really want to center our life around him. That's what the lost people says. But to a saved person, jesus is very different. So, steve, who do you say that Jesus is?
Speaker 2:Steve McLaughlin, I say that Jesus is Lord, god and the Messiah, the anointed one of the tribe of Judah for the Israel people, and that he's my Savior. He's the one who came and died and is buried and is resurrected and lives today and is seated at the right hand of God. That's who I say that I am.
Speaker 1:It's not so much what the church says, or what the people down the street say, or the people around the world? It's who do you say that I am? And this question cannot be escaped. The question must be answered. You can say I'm not going to give one. Well, you just did. By ignoring the question, you've given an answer. There must be an answer to this question. You're either going to say I'm not going to worry about Jesus, he's not important enough to answer the question. Well, you just answered it. You just said well, he's not important enough.
Speaker 1:On the other hand, if you hold him as one of many religious teachers, then he is going to greatly disappoint you, simply because he does not give us the option of placing him among other teachers. He claimed to be the only way to God John 14, 6. He claimed to be the Christ, right here. In Mark 8, verses 29 and 30. He claimed to be the Son of man. We're going to find that before we get out of this chapter. Mark 8, 38,. He claimed to be the Lord, God Almighty.
Speaker 1:In John 1, 1, John 1, 3, and in John 5, 18, he claimed to be the God. When the scripture says he was the son of God or the son of man. That is a claim to deity. It says that specifically in John 5, 18. So Jesus does not give us an option to ignore him. The question must be answered who do you say that I am? He says he is unique. He claims to be the only way to God. He claims to be the one true God that we must go through in order to be saved and be reconciled with. Again to God, Verse 28,. Their answer was some people say he was Elijah. Well, what's the connection with Elijah, Steve?
Speaker 2:Elijah was translated. He didn't die. He was taken up in a whirlwind. It's told in some of the Old Testament prophets that Elijah will return again and be a forerunner to the Messiah, but then he will also restore all things. There's an expectation that Elijah was going to be returning. That's why some of the people are saying that this is Jesus. He is Elijah returning.
Speaker 1:And those passages are in the final two verses of the Old Testament, malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6. It specifically predicts that Elijah would come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. That's why they were seeking Elijah. They were looking for Elijah. Matter of fact, still today, observant Jews every year in the Passover ceremony, there's a spot there. They set out a place for Elijah. There's a spot where the children go look at the door to see if he might be there. It's reinforced in the Passover ceremony still today that Elijah is going to come.
Speaker 1:So Elijah was supposed to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord, according to Malachi 4.5. That's the question is they said well, some say it's Elijah, they were looking for Elijah. And he turns around in verse 29 and says but who do you say? And the grammar there is really he's asking them specifically who do you all say he's talking to his immediate circle of disciples? Who do you all say that I am? The question is directed to them in particular. We can't escape the question by saying well, there's a disagreement around the world and different churches on who he is. No, jesus turns to anybody that's claiming to be a follower and says who do you say that I am?
Speaker 1:Also notice here that in verse 30, peter gives the answer you are the Christ. Jesus doesn't deny it, he accepts it. He doesn't deny it, he accepts it. He accepted the title of Christ the anointed one, the one predicted in many Old Testament prophecies. He was the expected one, the anointed one, the ones that the culmination of the entire Old Testament claimed to predict was coming. You are that one, peter says, and Jesus accepts it and tells them just hold on to that, steve. This is quite profound. This is when he asked this question. And notice Jesus is forcing the answer. He's turning on them and saying give me an answer. He forces this answer out of them and this is really the turning point of the entire book.
Speaker 2:It is In Matthew. There's a little bit more information that's given, but when Peter says you are the Christ the word Christ is from the Greek word Christos, which means anointed one it's really what he's saying is you are the Messiah. Messiah is the English word translated from the Hebrew word, meaning the anointed one. Peter here is definitely saying you are the one who is prophesied to come. You are the Messiah, and the expectation that came with the Messiah was the kingdom, the restored nation of Israel, the restored kingdom. Peter's confession of who he is is one that's very definitive and there's no wishy-washiness about it. He's saying you are the one who has been promised to us to come. You're the Messiah.
Speaker 1:And again, Jesus really is teaching them this. That's why he insists that they answer. He turns to them and, as always the case, he is the one in charge forces this answer out of them, which is really forcing them into a realization. And at this point of the book he forces this realization. It's the hinge point of the entire book of Mark, this confession in Mark 8, 29,. There's a before this and an after this in the book of Mark.
Speaker 1:He changes his message. Starting here, Starting with this confession, Jesus changes his message. Prior to this, the message was the kingdom is here. I'm announcing the kingdom Repent, for the kingdom is at hand. He sent the disciples out in pairs saying repent. The message there was the kingdom is here.
Speaker 1:Because the king's here, he gets officially rejected and the Pharisees come continually trying to trap him and reject him. So the official response from the leaders is to reject Jesus Christ. From here on out, he changes his message. From here on out, he begins to teach about the cross and his death. In fact, that's the very next verse in verse 31. He began to teach them about his death on the cross and his rejection by the leaders. When we truly realize who Jesus is, we will change our message is we will change our message. That happened here. When Jesus insists that they realize who he is, then from here on out the message is changed, and that'll happen to us. When we really come to terms with who Jesus is, our message will change. It'll be different from the way we were prior to that in our lives. To be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is the anointed one, the Christ. From there on afterwards, we will live accordingly. Jesus is the center of the gospel message, Wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 2:I would absolutely agree with that. This is a linchpin of Mark, and as we get into these next verses, we're going to see a little bit of an encounter between Jesus and Peter, which we can take some lessons from.
Speaker 1:We're going to pause here for today because of time, but we'll trust that you'll be back here next time, because this next section is going to be a really rich one that we will continue to reason through the book of Mark.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
