By Judy Yates Siker
Presbyterian Women’s (PW) Bible Study meets every second Wednesday, 11 am in the Church Parlor.
Halfway through the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Caesarea Phillipi, Jesus asks his disciples, “So, what’s the word on the street? Who do people say that I am?”
“Well,” they say, “some say you are John the Baptist (back from the dead); others think you are one of the prophets, maybe Elijah, maybe another one.”
Then Jesus looks them squarely in the eyes and asks, “Who do you say that I am?”
It is such a good question that we, at PW this year, are going to spend this study raising that question again and again. We will listen to how the four Gospel writers portray Jesus. We will see how the apostle Paul describes Jesus for the early house churches struggling to understand what it means to follow Jesus in the ancient polytheistic world. We will even look at the book of Hebrews, an eccentric and eloquent expression of Jesus. Next we will go outside the New Testament canon to some other early Christian writings that offer stories about Jesus both similar to and very different from our biblical stories. Then we will see how our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers view Jesus from their perspectives in the Abrahamic faith traditions. Finally, we will consider how Christians from a variety of cultural perspectives answer the question “Who is Jesus?”
As we study and learn, as we meet God’s people through the ages, through the scriptures, through our neighbors, through people we agree with and people we don’t, we hope to discover new lenses for viewing Jesus and be able to answer the question through our own, personal faith.
Much of this description of our Bible study for this year has been taken from the writings of the author. Everyone is welcome to join us for this study.
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