The Most Important Question Ever Asked (Matthew 16:13–20)

There are many significant questions one may ask and seek to answer in life. Why am I here? What should I do now that I am here? How shall I spend my time? Am I lovable? What is truth? Will you marry me? Where should I focus my abilities and attention? Questions like these are of great consequence and, thus, worthy of great consideration.

But of all the weighty questions we can and should ask ourselves, there is onethat eclipses all others in import. How one answers this single question—and all do answer it, knowingly or otherwise—is eternity-defining and reality-shaping. The question is this: Who is Jesus Christ? Matthew 16:13–20 presents the answers of people who lived during the years of Jesus’s first advent and, ultimately, forces us, thousands of years later, to consider our own response.