We believe God has provided us a series of footprints that lead us through the Torah to Jesus Christ…
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.
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 to 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.
Jesus Himself adds two more to this list, two occasions in which He presented Himself from the Scriptures:
- Luke 24:13–27: Jesus with two disciples on the way to Emmaus
- Luke 24:44–48: Jesus with the Apostles in the Upper Room
What words did Jesus give to those two disciples on the road to Emmaus that Sunday morning? That must have been quite some walk! What passages did Jesus quote in reference to Himself in order to open the understandings of Cleopas and his companion?
How Can We Know?
We believe God has provided us a series of footprints that lead us through the Torah to Jesus Christ, Yeshua Ha’Mashiach—that He is the one personality who embodies the entire Text of the Old and New Testaments. We are convinced of this miraculous truth. We are confident that our faith is not merely centered around tradition, that it’s not just a contrivance or based on chance circumstance.
Still, how can we be certain? We may commit our lives to something, but we would be among the greatest of fools if we made such a commitment without any validation whatsoever. How can we be certain that the Bible is God’s actual Word and that Jesus is the Messiah our Redeemer? The primary purpose of our study of the Footprints of the Messiah is to provide means by which we can be sure.
