Regardless that many events in Jesus life fulfilled scriptural prophecy concerning the Messiah, the gospels indicate that even Jesus apostles didnt correlate things that they saw Jesus doing to such prophecies. In fact, Luke 24:45 indicates that the risen Jesus had to open their minds to the Scriptures.
So I think that early Christians struggled to make sense out of the Scriptures and things that had happened in Jesus life - and they are evidently still struggling, myself included.