Who do you think I am?

In Matthew Chapter 16 verse 13 onwards we read that Jesus asked His disciples "Who do you say I am?"

Peter answered quite rightly, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God".

I now ask you "Who do you think you are?"

I am not asking you for your name, the name of your parents, or your family lineage. I am not asking you whether you are male or female, single, married, divorced, separated or in partnership with anyone. Whether you are a parent or uncle, aunt or whatever. I am not even asking you whether you are a doctor, nurse, lawyer, carpenter or whatever your job may be; if you have one.

I am asking you "Who do you think you are?"

Do you really know yourself? To know oneself deeply and fully we should consider "what makes us tick". What is it that makes us who we are, or what we have become as we grew up, or are still growing up.

We are all the product of our background, environment, parentage, up-bringing and a variety of other factors that make us what we are now. But have we ever taken the time to consider how these factors have affected us and made us what we are today?

Take for instance our opinions on any subject. Our views. Our prejudices (for we all have them no matter what we lead others to believe). Our fears real or imagined. Are these all of our own making or are they pre-set opinions or views we have heard or learnt from others and adapted them to suit our own beliefs and requirements?

How many of our views and opinions are indeed logically assessed and formulated by us as opposed to following someone else's views?

Let's go back to the Scripture quoted above. If Jesus challenged us and asked "Who do you say I am?" What would our honest, no hesitation, response be?

And if He asked "Who do you think you are?" What would our answer be?

Whatever our opinion of ourselves may be, or whatever or whoever we think we are. One think is for sure. We are all the Creations of God. Indeed we are the sons and daughters of God.

Why else would we call Him Father when we recite the Lord's prayer?

History - A load of old bones

 

I had reason to visit our local suburban museum the other day. As I have been accused by some to being somewhat uncultured I decided to spend an hour or so looking around and educating myself in matters which will stand me in good stead in future cultured surroundings.

Here’s what I learnt:

In a large room at the museum there was a collection of various dinosaurs’ skeletons big and small with unpronounceable names such as leptospirosis and tri-cycle-steps; and they all had small labels with the dates of their various ages. One skeleton had no label so I asked the attendant in that room how old it was.

He replied with confidence “It is 230 million years and 9 months and 3 weeks old, Sir.”

“That’s very precise,” I said in amazement.

“Yes Sir,” he said, “I have been working here for 9 months and 3 weeks and it was 230 million years old when I started.”

Now that’s something I didn’t know.

I then moved on to another room which had a lot of human skeletons and different bone parts collected from various places in the world. On a table there were two skulls – a small one and a larger one. The labels both read “Skull of Ivan Eyefull - Marco Polo’s bodyguard”.

I asked the attendant to explain and he told me that one skull belonged to the bodyguard when he was a child and the other when he was a grown man.

It was fortunate that both were found by the same archaeologist in the same excavations in the desert where Marco Polo had a picnic and his bodyguard choked on a fishbone stuck in his throat.

I was amazed at what archaeologists can learn from just a pile of bones. They must be really clever with all their knowledge and research.

The museum attendant, who had knowledge written all over him, (some jokers had done it with permanent ink), told me a story I'll never forget ... You'll probably never forget it too.

He said that an archaeologist was digging in the Negev Desert in Israel and came upon a casket containing a mummy. After opening it carefully he recognised it straight away and he phoned the curator of a prestigious natural history museum. "We've just discovered a 3,000 year old mummy of a man who died of heart failure!" 
 
The curator of the museum quickly sent a team to collect the mummy for thorough examination.

A week later, the amazed curator called the archaeologist. "You were right about the mummy's age and cause of death. How in the world did you know it was heart failure?"

"Simple ... there was a piece of paper in his hand that said - 'put me down for 10,000 Shekels on Goliath'."

I also discovered something else when visiting our local museum:

Statistics of marriages and divorces over the years show that archaeologists make the best spouses. The older you get the more interested they are in you.