Do me a favor. Give yourself a hand because it's hot. We jam packed up in here.

But I want to go to scripture. So that's why I wanted you to continue to stand. I want to jump right into our time together.

I am doing nothing more than continuing this wisdom and wonder series as we are walking through

the book of Matthew.

And for those of you who may not know or understand who Matthew is, Matthew was a Jew

around the first century A.D.

He worked as a Roman government official as a tax collector who was later converted

by an encounter with Christ and now he is responsible and known for his authorship of the book

that bears his name. And not only is it the book of Matthew, but it's one of the synoptic

gospels, which is extremely important for us to understand as we book of Matthew, but it's one of the synoptic gospels, which is extremely important

for us to understand as we lean into Matthew. Synoptic just means a same view gospel. So if you

read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all really much read the same. Because in theological circles,

we call it the two source hypothesis, which means these two sources come from the writings of Mark.

And so you want to make sure that when you read Matthew's gospel, you jump into Mark because Matthew is responsible for taking like 92% of Mark's teachings.

So this is a really potent synoptic gospel's Matthew, Mark and Luke.

When you read them, read them in concert. And I think that you'll get the holistic viewpoint

of what was trying to be communicated. Amen? The book of Matthew chapter 16 going to verse 13.

Once again, he gave me a good one. He gave me a good one. I'm going to be reading from the

NIV and the word declares it like this. When Jesus came to the region of Cessaria Philippa, he asked

his disciples, watch this this who do people say the son of man is

they replied some say John the Baptist others say a lot I don't have time others say Elijah

and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets

...