Jesus and the disciples left Galilee and went into the territory of Herod Philip, a mainly Gentile area. The city of Caesarea Philippi was about forty kilometres north of the lake of Galilee. Away from the Jewish crowds who had followed Jesus in Galilee, he asked the disciples, 'Tell me, who do people say I am?' (8:27). They gave him the answer already found in 6: 14-16, passing on to him the popular rumors about himself. He then asked them the question which is as important today as it was then, 'What about you? Who do you say I am?' (8:29). Peter, in a great moment of spiritual insight, replied that Jesus was the Messiah. In Matthew's account of this, it is emphasized that Peter spoke like this because God had revealed it to him (Matthew 16: 17). Peter's eyes were beginning to see what Jesus wanted them to see but in the next moment Peter and the other disciples were to receive a great shock about what had been revealed.

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