Earthly Ministry Research Paper

The earthly ministry of Jesus can be characterized by many traits, not the least of which are parables, prophecy, and miracles (most notably, His resurrection from the dead). Everything which Jesus did during His time spent on earth was intended to draw people to a saving relationship with Himself through God’s Spirit, so that they could experience true freedom. However, in an era and culture such as that in which Jesus ministered, when much of the Jewish population was hardened by cruel Roman rule and desperately waiting for an earthly Messiah, He had to break down barriers of mistrust and misleading assumptions in order to allow people to see the truth. It was necessary for Jesus to logically prove to the people that He was who He said He

He did this through many methods, and in this process, He established the tradition that is modernly known as Christian apologetics. Out of all of Jesus’s apologetic methods, there were several in particular which He used frequently and which were extremely effective in accomplishing His purposes. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus used apologetics most effectively through the forms of miracles, discourse, and testimony, and affirmed the validity of His message and drew people to Himself. Jesus’s use of miracles was one of the most distinctive characteristics of His earthly ministry. Very few people had walked in miracles in the centuries prior to Jesus’s coming, and after 400 years of “silence”, with very few hearing the voice of God, the miracles of Jesus reminded Jews and Gentiles alike of the power of God and the truth of

As described in John 8:17, Jewish law required the testimony of two witnesses for any testimony to be considered valid. Jesus exceeded these expectations, having as many as five hundred witness his resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3-8) and thousands more witness his miracles throughout the New Testament. In addition, the Father and the Holy Spirit confirm the testimony of Jesus (John 8:17-18), and many others in the Old Testament prophesied about Jesus before He even came; He confirmed all of their testimonies (Genesis 3:15; Psalms 45:7; Isaiah 61:1; Hosea 11:1; Malachi 3:1; John 5:45-47). By proving His testimony through the Jewish people’s own law, Jesus showed His people that He was the fulfillment of all that they had believed all along, and that He did not come as their enemy. He set an example for His future followers to follow in their fulfillment of the Great