As is my obsession, I read enormous selections, and some whole treatments of who Jesus could possibly be culturally, theologically and historically. There were loads of interesting but mostly disappointingly partial treatments. Nothing gave me anything like the assurance I needed to take the step toward saying who Jesus is for me.
I ONCE SAID that we can always know whether or not we are on the path of discipleship or when we are about to make a drastic misstep. However, I learned from the author of Matthew that I was too quick to speak. I still stand by my conviction but found it's not exactly that simple; my truism definitely needs fine-tuning. I'll state it again with Matthew's proviso: We can discern whether we are obedient disciples when we view our lives through the sound eye of God's revelation accessible to us in Scripture and in
Bev: So the literary device of Matthew - and this is really really summary stuff - we are let in on the story through direct speaking and being told about the characters. So we get to know the characters based on their traits and ultimately the story is woven through this telling of traits, i.e. Jesus' traits are described as obedient toward God and compassionate towards crowds. Jack Kingsbury talks about that there's round characters which is Jesus and the disciples. And what he means by that is that these characters have a variety of traits and sometimes they're conflictual.