Mark 6.45-47 • Matthew 14.22-23 • John 6.14-17.
Christians are far from decided about how the End Times are gonna play out. Well, most of us are undecided: We recognize God was deliberately vague about the details, and aren’t gonna presume to declare what
What did
Not that their timelines lined up with one another. If you ever read the Mishna, you’ll notice Pharisees disagreed about everything. So of course there were dozens of theories about the order of events, and the various End Times figures whom the Pharisees expected would appear. There’s Messiah of course; that’d be Jesus the Nazarene. Some Pharisees couldn’t figure out how Messiah would both rule Israel and suffer and die, so they guessed there had to be two Messiahs—of course a first
Deuteronomy 18.17-19 KWL - 17 The L
ORD told me, “What they said is good. - 18 So I raise them a prophet, like you, from among their family.
- I put my words in his mouth, and he tells them everything I teach him.
- 19 If a person won’t listen to my words which the prophet speaks in my name, I examine them.”
Yeah, the L
Acts 3.17-24 KWL - 17 “Now family, I know you’re acting in ignorance, just like your leaders.
- 18 This was how God fulfilled what he foretold through all his prophets’ mouths:
- His Messiah was to suffer.
- 19 So turn around, turn back, so your sins can be patched up!
- 20 So a refreshing time can come from the Master’s face.
- So he can send you his appointed Messiah, Jesus.
- 21 Heaven has to have Jesus till the time he restores all—
- which God spoke of in the prophets’ age, through his saints’ mouths.
- 22 Moses said this: ‘Your Lord God will raise up a prophet for you,
- from your own family, like me. Listen to him, to everything which he tells you.
- 23 It’ll be that every soul who doesn’t listen to this prophet
- will be utterly destroyed from the people.’
Dt 18.18-19 - 24 All the prophets since Samuel, and those who followed him,
- spoke of and proclaimed these days.”
I know; Peter didn’t quote Deuteronomy accurately. The L
Hence the Prophet wasn’t a minor End Times figure. He was a big deal. The Pharisees wanted to know whether John was this Prophet, and John was pretty sure he wasn’t; he didn’t even think he was Elijah.
Well. Once
John 6.14 KWL - So, seeing this miracle Jesus did, the people said this:
- “This is truly the Prophet who’s meant to come to the world!”
But here’s the problem: Rather than listen to anything the Prophet might have to say about what his role really consists of—you know, like the L
Uh-oh.