11 Sep The Greatest Beside Jesus
It is an interesting exercise to consider all the people in history who have lived and try to rank them in terms of greatness. Christians, and indeed many others instantly put Jesus at number one. That makes sense given how much the world has changed because of Him. The human calendar is oriented around his birth, and the biggest events each year, Christmas and Easter are based on Christ’s life. The best selling book year out is the Bible, God’s book and so on.
But apart from Christ, what human was the greatest of all time.
Some humanists have endeavoured to do this. Michael Hart rated Muhammed the Islamic founder and political leader as the greatest of all time. He ranked Isaac Newton the scientists as number two.
Time Magazine ranked Jesus first, but next they placed Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general who was not only a military man, but also a man who was into the arts and a key proponent of archeology and science.
Chat GPT ranked Jesus first, then Muhammed, then Newton with Albert Einstein in fourth.
Various other answers as most influential/greatest were:
- Charles Darwin (iSchool)
- Pablo Picasso (BBC News)
- Martin Luther King Jnr (The Top Tens Website)
- Isaac Newton & Leonardo da Vinci (Ranker.com)
But… who does Jesus himself say is the Greatest person of all time?
Drumroll…..
‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.’ Matthew 11:11a
What was it about John that was so great?
John was the man that God chose to announce the Messiah. He was ‘the Elijah who was to come.’ Matthew 11:14/Malachi 4:5. There had a been a ‘famine of hearing the words of the Lord.’ Amos 8:11 John was the prophet that broke the famine and spoke for God after 400 years of silence. But most significantly, he turned the hearts of people to God. Malachi 4:6 His impact on the culture of the time, and all of the world since cannot be understated. He prepared people to receive Jesus, a highly essential and undervalued task.
If we strive to be great, we too should prepare hearts for Christ, and aim to turn hearts to Him. But we shoudl also bear in mind the additional comment the Lord made about John…. ‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’ Matthew 11:11
We don’t seek greatness… we seek to serve.
Here included is a video about why Christ is the greatest of all time.
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