Every Word

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From then on he taught each day in the Temple. The high priests, religion scholars, and the leaders of the people were trying their best to find a way to get rid of him. But with the people hanging on every word he spoke, they couldn't come up with anything.
Luke 19:47-48

A few days ago I was talking with a friend about the way Jesus always had a perfect answer to those wanted to challenge him and catch him out with a difficult question. She then said that she thought Jesus was a genius. This struck me, as it seems to me to be a very human attribute. I thought, 'of course Jesus was a genius, he is God after all!' And then I thought about Jesus' humanity and how he was just like us in so many ways, with his own particular personality and giftings. Of course, people were drawn to him because he was speaking words of life, but maybe he also had that charisma and ability to hold a crowd and communicate, that God had given him especially for the task. The people 'hung on his every word'. How many people do you know like that?

For the people who followed Jesus in the bible the challenge was to believe that he was divine (a mind blowing thought when he was standing in front of them, looking no different from anyone else), but for us who follow him in the 21st century the challenge may be to believe that Jesus was human, just like us.