Mark 8:21-38

²¹Jesus asked them, “So how come you still don’t understand about me?”

²²Jesus and his followers came to a place called Bethsaida on the west side of Lake Galilee, and they got out of the boat. Some people brought a blind man up to him and asked Jesus to touch him and make him better.

²³Jesus held the man’s hand and led him outside the community. Then Jesus spat on the man’s eyes and then put his hands on him and said, “Can you see anything now?”

²⁴The man looked around and said, “Yes, I can see a little bit. I can see people, but they look like trees walking around.”

²⁵So Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes again. Then the man carefully looked around again, and his eyes were properly better, and he saw everything clearly.

²⁶Jesus told the man to go straight home. He said, “As you walk home, don’t go into that community. Don’t let anyone see that I made you better.”

²⁷Then Jesus and his followers left Galilee country and went north to some communities in the country called Caesarea Philippi. As they walked along the track, Jesus asked his followers, “When people talk about me, who do they reckon I really am?”

²⁸They answered, “Some people reckon you are John the Baptiser come alive again. And other people reckon you are Elijah, that man that lived a long time ago. And other people reckon you are one of those other men that told God’s messages a long time ago.”

²⁹So Jesus said, “Who do you reckon I really am?” Peter said straight out, “You are the man that God sent to save people. We have to call you Christ.”

³⁰Jesus told them strongly, “Don’t tell that to anyone yet.”

³¹Then Jesus told his followers about the bad things that will happen to him. He said, “The elders, the ceremony leaders and the law teachers will reckon I’m no good, even though I’m God’s special man from heaven. That mob will hurt me badly in lots of ways, and they will kill me. I will be dead for 3 days, then I will get up alive again.”

³²Jesus talked straight to them, but Peter couldn’t believe it. He took Jesus away from the others and growled at him for talking that way.

³³Jesus looked at the other followers there, then he said strongly to Peter, “Go away from me. You are like Satan. You are not thinking God’s way. You are just thinking like a man.”

³⁴Then Jesus called out to all the people that were there. He called them to come up close, with his followers, and he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow me properly, he has to stop thinking only about himself. He has to live like me. He has to be ready to die, yes, die like a crook on a cross, just like me.

³⁵If a person only wants to look after his own life here on earth he will lose it. He will not be in heaven with me. But if anyone is happy to give up his life here and live my way, and tell other people the good news about me, he will find real life. He will live with me for ever.

³⁶You see, a man might get everything in the whole world for himself, but if he misses out on real life and doesn’t get to heaven, all that stuff is useless to him.

³⁷All that stuff can’t get him to heaven, to get real life.

³⁸You know that there are people that are really bad, and they don’t take any notice of God. If anyone is so frightened of them that he is ashamed about me and my story, I will be ashamed of him later. I’m God’s special man from heaven, and one day my Father, God, will make me really great, and I will come back here with all God’s angel messengers. But if anyone is ashamed of me now, I will be ashamed of him at that time when I come back.”