Mark 6:14-16 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago. But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”
The things that go on in our heads! In the above verse the King, Herod- the son of the Herod from the Christmas story, hears about all the things Jesus has been doing and concludes that Jesus must be John the Baptist raised from the dead. In this case his conclusion must have arisen from fear or guilt as we find in the rest of the story that Herod got maneuvered into having John beheaded sort of against his will. The point is that the conclusions we reach in life, particularly about God and Jesus, may come from any number of internal and external influences. We may have been told at some point that to believe in God is a sign of weakness, sort of the religion is the opiate of the masses view, and of course we wouldn’t want to be weak so…. We may have been told that Christianity lacks intellectual integrity, that the bible is full of contradictions, and we don’t want to appear naive or worse stupid so…. We may have been told or actually experienced that Christians are hypocritical…. You get the point. Herod came to a rather bizarre conclusion about Jesus because of forces from his past that influenced his thinking and reasoning. This week consider, what has influenced your understanding of Jesus?
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