Read the story of Jesus in the pages that follow. After each section you will be asked to answer a few questions.
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This concludes the story of Jesus’ birth, ministry and death – and the beginning of Christianity. What do you think about this story? Click below to continue.
1. The story of Jesus begins back in endless eternity, because the Son c_______d (Colossians 1:16) all that exists. He was himself uncreated. He was God, and a member of the eternal Godhead.
2. When God created humanity, he knew that humanity would s__n (Romans 5:12) and would be lost forever. The Son offered himself to come to earth to rescue humanity, when that terrible day would come.
3. That’s why, as soon as sin and death came into the world, God gave his promise to humanity that his Son would come, as a descendant of the first w_____n (Genesis 3:15), named Eve, to destroy the devil.
4. For thousands of years, God kept reminding humanity of the coming Saviour, through the p______ s (Luke 24:27), who all wrote about him in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the oldest part of the Bible.
5. Finally, the time came for the Son of God to come to earth! The Jewish people had been expecting the coming of a savior for a long time. They called him the M______h (Matthew 1:18), which means “the Anointed One,” because God had given him the mission to save his people.
6. But the Son of God surprised everyone by the way in which he came into the world. Instead of coming as a powerful earthly king, or a mighty conqueror, he was born in a little town of Bethlehem in Judaea, to a virgin called M___y (Matthew 1:18). Her husband was called Joseph, and he was a carpenter.
7. Before his birth, an angel had told Mary that the one to be born would be called J_____s (Matthew 1:21), because he would save the people from their sins.
8. When Jesus was born a bright star appeared in the night sky, and the heavens filled with a_____s (Luke 2:15) singing joyfully at the birth of the Saviour. On learning the news that the Saviour had been born, shepherds went to greet the newly-born baby.
9. At his birth King Herod tried to kill baby Jesus, but God sent an angel to warn Joseph, who fled with his wife and baby to a country called E___t (Matthew 2:13), where he stayed until King Herod died and the danger had passed.
10. We know very little about the first thirty years of Jesus’ life, apart from a brief episode when he was twelve years old and visited the temple. He must have lived a quiet and ordinary life. But we are told that Jesus grew in w______m (Luke 2:52), stature, and in favour with God and man.
11. When Jesus was thirty years of age, he knew that the time for his ministry to begin had come. He went to be baptized by his cousin John the B______t (Matthew 3:1), who was baptizing in the Jordan River.
12. When John saw him coming to him, he said, “Behold the L_____b (John 1:29) of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened up and the Father announced, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
13. Immediately after his baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to pray for 40 days and 40 nights, and while he was there, Jesus was tempted by the d______l (Matthew 4:1). But Jesus overcame the devil using the Word of God.
14. After the temptation, Jesus began his ministry, which was mostly focused in the region of Galilee. Jesus selected twelve men to be his closest disciples. His preaching centred on announcing the arrival of the K___________m of God (Luke 4:43), whose reign was based on love, mercy, and compassion. In his preaching, Jesus described the qualities of people who formed part of his kingdom, and he illustrated these with stories, called parables.
15. Jesus taught that people could enter the kingdom of God and receive eternal l______e (John 5:24) simply by believing and trusting in him. Jesus gladly accepted and associated with the outcasts and the oppressed of society, who were more willing to admit their need and didn’t pretend to be holier than they really were.
16. This made enemies of the religious leaders of the day: the P________s (Matthew 22:15), the scribes, the teachers of the law, and the Sadducees. They were constantly trying to find a way to trap him, to accuse him, so that they could have him arrested and killed.
17. But they had a big problem, and that was that Jesus’ teachings were accompanied by great and miraculous s_____s (John 20:30–31), which showed that his teaching was from God. Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons, and even raised the dead. His popularity among the common people grew and grew and threatened the power base of the religious leaders of the day.
What especially made the religious leaders angry was that Jesus claimed to be G__d (John 10:33). For a Jew, this was unbelievable, because they believed that there was only one God. How could Jesus dare to claim to be God? This made them want to kill him even more.
19. Then Jesus started teaching that whoever wanted to follow him had to be prepared to leave everything behind. He taught about humility and selflessness for the sake of others. Then he started teaching that he was going to go to Jerusalem where he would be k_____d (Mark 9:31), but that then he would rise on the third day.
20. As a result, much of the popular support he had enjoyed vanished away. People were interested in following Jesus for the sake of their own personal gain, and Jesus didn’t look like the kind of messiah they expected. He was too poor, he didn’t have powerful people on his side, and he spoke too much about forgiveness and m______y (Matthew 5:7) instead of vengeance and payback.
21. Jesus spent his last week in Jerusalem, teaching every day in the t_______e (Luke 19:47). During this week, he told his disciples that he would return to his Father in Heaven, and that then he would return to take them to be with him.
22. Jesus was betrayed to the Jewish authorities by one of his own disciples called J______s (Luke 22:4). Jesus was arrested at night while he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and was subjected to several trials during the night: by the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin led by the High Priest Caiaphas, King Herod, and finally Pontius Pilate. During the entire night Jesus was subjected to numerous savage beatings.
23. Finally, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion, which was carried out the following morning. Jesus was c __________d (Matthew 27:38) between two criminals, one on his right and on his left. They were both mocking him also.
24. As Jesus hung on the c______s (Matthew 27:42), he was subjected to extreme ridicule by the crowd and the religious leaders.
25. Jesus was crucified between two criminals. These criminals also mocked him. However, one of the criminals experienced a change of heart, and recognized that Jesus was blameless. More than that, he recognized Jesus as a king and asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. Jesus promised him that he would be with him in p________e (Luke 23:43).
26. From the cross, Jesus forgave those who had killed him. After committing his spirit to his Father in Heaven, he died late on Friday afternoon. Jesus hadn’t been killed by the physical torture of crucifixion. He died because he had willingly taken the sins of the world upon himself. Jesus was buried in a tomb, sealed with a heavy s_____e (Mark 15:46). A squad of Roman soldiers were sent to guard the tomb.
27. Early on Sunday morning, God raised Jesus from the dead. An angel was sent from heaven to remove the stone from the tomb. At the sight of the glory of the angel, the soldiers fell down as though they were dead and then they ran away. Having defeated death, Jesus came out from the tomb victorious. During the next 40 days, he appeared to more than 5___ people (1 Corinthians 15:6), who were eye-witnesses of the fact that he had risen from the dead.
28. Jesus told his disciples to tell the good news of salvation, called the “G________l” (Mark 16:15) to all the world, and telling them to spread his teachings everywhere. He promised them that he would leave them the Holy Spirit to guide, teach, and empower them in their lives. He would be with them through the Spirit. That’s why he also told them that he would always be with them, until the end of the world, and he would never leave them.
29. Jesus returned to heaven in a cloud. As the disciples were looking up at heaven in amazement, two angels dressed in the colour w______e (Acts 1:10) appeared to encourage them. They promised the disciples that Jesus would return from heaven the same way that they had seen him go up into heaven.
30. The disciples waited, and fifty days after the crucifixion of Jesus, they received the empowering of the Holy S______t (Acts 2:4), as Jesus had promised them. Before they had been timid and afraid, but now they went out full of the Holy Spirit, and told people everywhere that Jesus had risen.
31. The preaching of the disciples was accompanied by many miraculous signs. As a result of their preaching, many thousands of people believed and were b________d (Acts 2:41), because they had also been witnesses of these events.
That is how the Christian faith began!