In 1925, Bruce Barton (an advertising and business executive) wrote a book on the life of Jesus entitled: The Man Nobody Knows. It became such a success that Barnes & Noble says the book "turned into one of the great bestsellers in the century" with 22 printings in its first 2 years of publications with more editions being published as late as 1999. In simple terms, for over 80 years, the title has continued to capture the reality concerning who Jesus is for most people - they simply do not know who He is. Actually, not much has changed over the years. Recall the disciples' response to Jesus' original question: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" (Mat. 16:13, N.R.S.V.) - read v. 14.

The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-34) highlights this situation and holds a very important lesson for us as we consider our personal answer to Jesus' question. As these two disciples walked along, they were joined by Jesus following His resurrection but His identity remained unknown to them. When asked by Jesus why they were so sad they replied with information surrounding Jesus' life ("He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher [v. 19, N.L.T.]) as well as His tragic death ("The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him" [v.20, N.I.V.]) and their disillusionment ("we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel" [v. 21, The Message]). The New Testament scholar Donald guthrie makes the interesting observation that the disciples on the road to Emmaus "acknowledged what He had said and done, but they missed the point of who He was." In other words, they had "head" (i.e. information) knowledge, but lacked "heart" (i.e. personal) knowledge.

The Apostle Paul clearly understood the difference. He writes: "I want to know Christ better" (Phil. 3:10, N.I.R.V.) and it is such a pressing matter in Paul's life that he says: "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:8, N.R.S.V.). The operative word for Paul is "know". The commentator Gordon Fee tells us: "It means to know him as children and parent know each other - knowledge that has to do with personal experience and intimate relationship."

So, where does one begin in order to gain a "personal experience and initmate relationship" with Jesus and not just a head knowledge? Bruce Barton tells us what he did: "One day he decided to wipe his mind clean of books and sermons. He said, "I will read what the men who knew Jesus personally said about Him. I will read about Him as though He were...new to me, about whom I had never heard anything at all.'" This is wise advice for all of us as we consider our answer to Jesus' question: "'Who do you say that I am?'" Hopefully, we will come to the same answer as Peter (Mat. 16:16 as well as Thomas (Jn. 20:28).