Luke 24 & John 20-21
The closing sections of Luke and John’s gospel are rife with personal encounters and dialogues with the risen Jesus. These interactions with Jesus and Peter, the two men on the Emmaus road, the women at the tomb, and the various other interactions show the personality and humanity of Jesus. Jesus shows his sense of humor on the Emmaus road, he eats a meal with his disciples, and restores and forgives Peter.
In the midst of these interactions Jesus, as he always does, teaches. I’d like to draw our focus to what Jesus tells the two men on the Emmaus road in Luke 24.27. Luke writes, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures”. This verse is pregnant with meaning and significance! This verse states very clearly that Jesus is the centerpiece of scripture. All roads in the Bible lead to Jesus Christ. Notice that the verse says, “Starting with Moses and the prophets.”. Moses represents the writings of the Pentateuch and the prophets represent all the major and minor prophets. Starting from those two places Jesus taught the men that the entirety of the Old Testament points toward to himself.
This teaches us that the whole of the Bible is beneficial and needed for believers. A whole Bible makes a whole Christian. For Jesus, the disciples, Paul, and the early church the Old Testament was their Bible. The New Testament is built off of the foundation of the Old Testament. Not only do we learn about Jesus in the gospels and the New Testament but in light of the New Testament we see Jesus in the Old Testament. That’s why I love and encourage Bible reading plans that take you through the whole of scripture. Jesus is the crowning Jewel of scripture. From Genesis to Lamentations to Obadiah a road to Christ can be found. Now I would warn against over reading Jesus into texts but this is where interpreting correctly is important.
The take away is Jesus can be found in all the scriptures, therefore, let us read the whole of scripture and learn of Jesus.
-Jacob Rohrer
Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Luke 24 and John 20-21
Tomorrow we begin the exciting book of Acts to see what happens after Jesus’ resurrection – Acts 1-3
SeekGrowLove.com 