‘The Conversation': What might the walk to Emmaus have been like?

In The Conversation: An Intimate Journal of the Emmaus Encounter, Samaritan Ministries member Judy Salisbury takes us back to that decisive day in human history when a dead man rose and walked again. But He didn’t just walk about willy-nilly. He walked with purpose, in particular with two disciples, one named Cleopas and the other unnamed, from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

During that seven-mile journey, according to Luke 24, Jesus, whose identity was somehow obscured, explained to the two men why it was necessary for the Christ to “suffer these things and enter into his glory.”

^“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

Using this as a framework, Judy has created an account of the road-to-Emmaus conversation from the point of view of the unnamed disciple. He and Cleopas are urged by the stranger walking with them to recall the recent sufferings of Jesus and to compare them with prophecy. Of course, when they arrive at Cleopas’s home in Emmaus and break bread with the stranger, they realize they have been with the Lord.

Judy has done a good job in teasing out what the men might have been thinking and how they might have reacted to the impromptu Bible study led by the Word Himself. Her goal was to help readers “grow in your confidence in the Scriptures, the fact of the Resurrection, and in faith in the Messiah.”

She stays strictly with Scripture, even in the accounts given of what Jesus did and what happened to Him. There’s no insertion of speculation over doctrine or Jesus’ personality traits. It’s a simple, Biblical expansion of what might have been said and done during that trip.

As originally a product of Messianic Jewish Publishers, The Conversation: An Intimate Journal of the Emmaus Encounter also uses terminology common to Messianic Judaism. Yeshua is used as the name of the Messiah, and references are made to some Temple-based practices. But Scriptural references are given for the practices and, other than the use of Yeshua, few Hebrew terms are used that might trip up readers unfamiliar with them.

At 95 pages and with short chapters, The Conversation is a good devotional read for these days between the celebration of the Resurrection and Pentecost, one that will encourage you anew at the strength of the claims regarding the King of Kings.