A voice from heaven or the Almighty God, the Father declared, "You are my My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased. This clearly indicated that Jesus was Israel's/Jacob's anointed King, destined to fulfill His kingship as the Servant of the Lord described centuries earlier by the prophet Isaiah.
God's mighty acts and the prophetic word interacting with each other continues throughout the course of scriptural/biblical history. The prophets were God's primary messenger in the Old Testament times. The teachings of many of these messengers are preserved in the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.
In the New Testament writings, revelation and response came together in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the one hand, Jesus was God's perfect revelation of Himself - He was divine Word in human form. The Lord Jesus Christ works of mercy and power portrayed God in action and His teaching expressed the mind of God.
Just as God originally inspired the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, He has used this means to preserve His Word for future generations. But behind the writing lay periods of time when these revelations and messages were circulated in spoken form, that is, Oral Tradition. The events and stories of the patriarchs were passed from generation by word of mouth before they were fixed in writing. Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus were repeated orally for two or three decades before they were given literally form.
The New Testament presents the record of Jesus' life, teachings, words and deeds, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and the Ascension; a narrative of the beginning of the Christian Church with the coming of the Holy Spirit; and the story of the extension of the Gospel and the planting of the Church during the following generation. It also contains the written teachings of Jesus' apostles and other early Christians who applied the principles of the Lord Jesus Christ doctrine and redemptive work to their lives.
Early Christians continued to accept the Old Testament, and they could interpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus' deeds and words if they had a reliable record of them. So, alongside Moses and the prophets, they had these early writings about the Lord Jesus Christ, and letters or epistles from the Apostles, who had living together and known the Lord Jesus Christ in flesh.
Now when all the people had been baptized and while Jesus after his own baptism was at prayer, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily shape, like dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are My Son, the Beloved; My favour rests on you." - Luke 3:21-22 -
Then leading Jesus to a height, the devil showed Him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world and said to Him, "I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, for it has been committed to me and I give it to anyone I choose. Worship me, then, and it shall all be yours." But Jesus answered the devil, "Sacred Scripture says:
You must worship the Lord your God,
and serve Him alone."
Then the devil led Jesus to Jerusalem and made Him stand on the parapet of the Temple. "If you are the Son of God", the devil said to Jesus "throw yourself down from here, for Sacred Scripture says:
God/He will put His angels in charge of you
to guard you,
and again:
They will hold you up on their hands
in case you hurt your foot against a stone."
But Jesus answered the devil, "It has been said:
You must not put the Lord your God to the test."
Having exhausted all these ways of tempting Jesus, the devil left Him, to return at the appointed time. - Luke 4:1-13 -
Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in Him, returned to Galilee; and His reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised Him. - Luke 4:14-15 -
Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God was accompanied by works of mercy and power, including the healing of the sick, and those who were demon possessed. When demons and evils spirit were cast out, this proved the superior strength of the kingdom of God. Indeed, these works proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God.
For a time, Jesus' healing aroused great popular enthusiasm throughout Galilee. But the religious leaders; Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and teachers found much of the Lord Jesus Christ activity disturbing because He refused to be bound by their religious ideas. Jesus Christ insisted on understanding and applying the law of God in the light of its original intention, and not according to the popular interpretation of the religious establishment.
The Lord Jesus Christ believed that healing people and helping people in great needs, that is, in the midst of dying, did not profane the 'Sabbath Day' or 'The Sabbath' but honor it, because it was established by God for the rest and relief of human beings.
Now one Sabbath Jesus Christ happened to be taking a walk through the cornfields, and His disciples were picking ears of corns, rubbing them in their hands and eating them. Some of the Pharisees said, 'Why are you doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath day?' Jesus answered them, 'So you have not read what king David did when he and his followers were hungry - how he went into the house of God, took the loaves of offering and ate them and gave them to his followers, loaves which is only the priests are allowed to eat?'
And the Lord Jesus Christ said to them: "The Son of Man is master of the Sabbath." - Luke 6:1-5 -
Now on another Sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. The Scribes and the Pharisees were watching Jesus to see if He would cure a man on the Sabbath, hoping to find something to use against Him. But Jesus knew their thoughts; and He said to the man with the withered hand, "Stand up! Come out into the middle." And he came out and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them, "I put it to you: is it against the law on a Sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy life?" Then Jesus looked round at them all and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He did so, and his hand was better. But they were furious, and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus. - Luke 6:6-11 -
In His interpretation of specific commandments, Jesus Christ did not use the methods of the Jewish rabbis. Jesus dared to criticize their rulings which had been handed down by word of mouth through successive generations of Scribes. Jesus even declared that these interpretations sometimes obscured the original purpose of the commandments.
The Lord Jesus Christ declared that a commandment was most faithfully obeyed when God's purpose in giving it was fulfilled. His treatment of "The Sabbath" law is an example of this approach.
In a similar way, Jesus............
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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