Essential_Jesus_Reading_Plan.docx

The most important question in the world is “Who is Jesus?” Your answer to that question will determine your eternal destiny. The Essential Jesus Challenge is designed to show you and remind you of what the Bible has to say about who Jesus is, so that you can answer the question with conviction and gusto, “He is my Lord and my God, my Savior and my King.”

A good starting point in answering the question “who is Jesus” are the Gospels, the first four books in the New Testament. The first three of the Gospels have remarkably similar chronology and structure. All three begin with a record of Jesus’s ancestry (Matthew and Luke) or the beginning of his public ministry (Mark). While following a chronology of Jesus’s life that is loosely shared with the previous three Gospels, the Gospel of John uses a quite different structure. When it comes to who Jesus is John starts with the realization that the man that he has followed around for three years was more than what his ancestry could showed. Yes, Jesus was a human being, but there was a truth about him that went beyond his humanity.

John starts his Gospel not with the man Jesus, but with the second person of the holy Trinity. He starts with God Himself. He refers to the Son as “the Word,” making clear that “the Word” was with God and was fully God. He affirms that creation itself, everything that has an existence apart from God, was created by “the Word.” And he affirms that as God, “the Word” has life within himself (his existence is not dependent on anything).

In verse fourteen of today’s reading John affirms that this “Word” – the Second Person of the Holy Trinity that we call “the Son” – became flesh. That is, he became a human being without forfeiting his divinity. Theologians call this event the Incarnation, the moment that God took on humanity. The Incarnation is recorded in Luke’s Gospel, when that angel Gabriel appears to Mary to deliver the joyous news that she will give birth to the promised Savior of humanity. When Mary says, “May it be to me as you have said,” Jesus was conceived. From this point on “the Word” would be forever known as “Jesus.”

So, the first thing we learn from the Gospels is that Jesus is more than just a man, more than a great teacher, more than a great moralist. Jesus is both man and God.

The rest of the readings in the Essential Jesus Challenge are chosen to help unpack what that means.

Happy reading!

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