{"id":4732,"date":"2013-11-15T00:05:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T08:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4732"},"modified":"2013-11-14T23:20:31","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T07:20:31","slug":"the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/11\/15\/the-question\/","title":{"rendered":"The Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, \u201cBy what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tBut Jesus answered and said to them, \u201cI also will ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things: The baptism of John\u2014where was it from? From heaven or from men?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tAnd they reasoned among themselves, saying, \u201cIf we say, \u2018From heaven,\u2019 He will say to us, \u2018Why then did you not believe him?\u2019 But if we say, \u2018From men,\u2019 we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet.\u201d So they answered Jesus and said, \u201cWe do not know.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tAnd He said to them, \u201cNeither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. (Matthew 21:23-27)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\t\u201cDon\u2019t you know who I am?\u201d How many celebrities have uttered those words when they don\u2019t believe they\u2019re being treated as well as they think their fame entitles them? The religious establishment didn\u2019t believe who Jesus was. So they asked Jesus who gave him the right to do what he was doing: coming into Jerusalem, cleansing the temple, teaching things contrary to established custom. Jesus\u2019 responded with a question, the same question he asks of all who come to him, even now. The question of John the Baptist. Was John\u2019s baptism from heaven, or was it from men? That is, was it from God, or did he just make it up? <\/p>\n

\tThe religious establishment refused to answer Jesus\u2019 question. Instead, they pleaded ignorance. But in reality, they had already decided on an answer. An answer that they were too afraid to speak. They had decided that John was not from God. Likewise, they had already decided that Jesus was not from God. Their question was not designed to relieve their ignorance. They only hoped to get Jesus to say something that would confirm what they believed. They wound up disappointed. Jesus made it even harder for them to deny the reality of who Jesus was.<\/p>\n

\tJesus is either God, or he is nothing but a human being. Which is it? Everything depends on your answer to that question. If he\u2019s just a human being, then he can safely be ignored. But if he is God, then nothing about him is safe at all.<\/p>\n

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When he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, \u201cBy what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?\u201d But Jesus answered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4733,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions\/4733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}