Who is Jesus, and why does he matter? Christians claim that Jesus stands in a special relationship with the creator God, but many others claim that he was merely a wise teacher or a powerful prophet. Chuck and Aaron talk about how Jesus fits into the Jewish story of the Bible as God’s special and unique agent to bring about his own kingdom of righteousness, justice, and peace.
Jesus has long been a contentious figure in cultural history – he is so important to so many people, both Christians and non-Christians, that the question of who he was and what he did has become a cultural battleground. To truly understand who Jesus (or anybody, for that matter) is requires examining him in his context: that means reading the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament), the story of which Jesus was claiming to somehow be the climax. In this context, Jesus cannot be seen simply as a wise teacher, but as a prophet who stood in a special relationship with the Creator God (as his eternal son!) tasked with ridding the world of sin and establishing God’s reign of righteousness. Jesus never claimed explicitly to be God, but he forgave sins and accepted worship and divine titles – things that a Jewish man would never do; things which imply Jesus’ belief that he was God’s own son.
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