Among the interesting things in Mark 8, one finds Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ and a few verses later Jesus telling Peter to "get behind me Satan". Peter recognized Jesus as Christ, but did not understand what it meant to be Christ. He probably had in mind that which was common among his people in that day that Christ would come and destroy all of Israel's oppressors. When Peter heard Jesus say that he was going to die, Peter rebuked him. (What an odd thought...You go from saying someone is the Christ to rebuking him.) Peter clearly didn't get what the job of the Christ was (or at least in a proper timeline).
So Peter, who was the first to really declare faith in Jesus as Messiah, was soon after rebuked for not accepting what that entailed. I wonder how often we try to place our own picture of who Christ is supposed to be in our little box and then try to rebuke him when we find out our picture was wrong. How many of us deserve to be rebuked just like Peter was.
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