Matthew 16:13 Meaning Now When Jesus Came Into the Parts

The whole of your life answers one question, and it is this one. Who do you say that you are? Not the words you recite to others, but the identity you quietly assume when no one is asking. That silent answer is the seed of everything that follows, because a person cannot outrun what he takes himself to be.

Men say many things about the self. They call it small, born wrong, at the mercy of the world. The question is put precisely to move a person past what men say toward what he is willing to declare. The Son of man is the awareness of being itself, waiting to be named. What a person settles on as his own identity hardens into the life he then lives. Everything rests on the answer given inwardly.

The Son of man is the awakened awareness born within the human frame, the divine spark clothed in flesh and asking to be recognized. Caesarea Philippi, ground named for earthly rulers and worldly power, is the borderland of the outer mind where reputation and opinion hold sway. The question put to the inner faculties is whether the higher self is known for what it truly is or only by the crowd's hearsay.

What men say belongs to the surface mind that judges by appearance. The Son of man is the light inside a person waiting to be seen from within, not defined from without.

Son of man: the awakened awareness born in the body, the divine spark wearing human flesh Caesarea Philippi: the borderland of the outer mind ruled by worldly power and public opinion Disciples: the inner faculties gathered around the awakening self, learning to recognize it