Footprints of the Messiah
Mystery of the Messiah
What Bible study is mentioned twelve times in one book of the Bible, was given on seven different occasions by seven different people, and is hardly ever offered today? Jesus as the Old Testament’s Messiah of Israel!
In the early years of Christianity there was no New Testament. Jesus taught from the Hebrew Scriptures, and after His resurrection the first lesson He gave came straight from the Old Testament:
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
— Luke 24:25
Peter, Stephen, Philip, Paul, Apollos, Aquila, and Aquila’s wife Priscilla each had the important challenge of presenting Jesus as the Messiah from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Old Testament. Collectively, these lessons were recorded on 12 different occasions:
- Acts 2:22–38: Peter’s first sermon
- Acts 3:18–26: Peter’s second sermon
- Acts 7: Stephen before the Sanhedrin
- Acts 8:26–39: Philip and the Ethiopian Treasurer
- Acts 9:20–22: Saul at Damascus
- Acts 10:42–43: Peter’s sermon to the Gentiles
- Acts 13:16–41: Paul’s sermon at Antioch
- Acts 17:2–3: Paul at Thessalonica
- Acts 18:5: Paul at Corinth
- Acts 18:24–28: Apollos, Aquila, and Priscilla at Ephesus and Corinth
- Acts 26:23: Paul at Agrippa
- Acts 28:23: Paul at Rome
Not once in these passages did Paul or Peter preach without mentioning the Resurrection of Christ. They never let that chance go by, even when they were defending themselves against the authorities. In every case, they reminded their adversaries that, though they had killed Jesus, He had beaten death. We can imagine how frustrated these disbelieving persecutors must have been as Paul and Peter rubbed their noses in the mess the Jewish authorities had created.
