WAS JESUS A GURU?













When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

One day Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and 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 Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-16). Of all the questions Jesus asks, this is probably one of the most important, because our answer to that question will determine how we respond to Jesus. These days there are a lot of people, including Christians, who don’t look upon Jesus as the Son of God, preferring to call him a great teacher instead, a guru that we could all learn some life lessons from. 

The famous author C. S. Lewis had a response to that: “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.” I don’t think anybody could have put it better!

Jesus made it clear to everybody that he was from God and that his purpose was to save the world from the effects of sin that had enslaved it. When he preached, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes (Matthew 7:28-29). Now if you were a scribe, or a chief priest, and you discovered somebody preaching with more power and authority that you, what would do you? Especially if he wasn’t sanctioned by you?

To make things worse, he was not a product of the religious schools like they were. So they went to Jesus and asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” In typical style, Jesus countered their question with one of his own: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” When they couldn’t answer him, he went on his way. His authority came from God. If they couldn’t understand this, they wouldn’t understand anything.


So, who do you say Jesus is? Our actions will determine this more than our words!

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here:https://youtu.be/42uhWmpTXiw


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