If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Matthew 16.  As we've already noted, Matthew 15 through 17 proves a turning point in the gospel of Matthew.  In those passages not only the leaders of the people of Israel but the crowds themselves reject the Lord Jesus Christ.  It's not that they have bad thoughts about Him, it's not that they openly oppose Him.  It's just that they refuse to recognize His claim to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And in that context, as we come to Matthew 16 verses 13-20, we are coming to what is in a sense a culminating point in Jesus' training of the disciples, because in this passage the disciples articulate the teaching about the person of Christ, which Christ had been conveying to them for many months in…