Dear Explorer,
I am so excited to journey with you as we study God's Word together. Each day there will be a small portion of Scriptures that I will ask you to read. You may use your own Bible or use one of the on-line Bibles provided. Notice that in the upper right of each page, you may select from a variety of most commonly used translations for your on-line Bible.
I may give you additional Scriptures to support what I'm teaching. How much time you want to spend on those supplemental Scriptures is entirely up to you. Then I'll tell you some things about the text that make them special to me. Sometimes I'll share a story about my life or give you a “real life” example to explain a passage.
Sometimes I'll ask you a question about what you are thinking or feeling. Those answers are just between you and God. (See privacy statement: I can't see your answers). I do want to encourage you to fill out the answers to each question. Why? Because it's how you learn what you understand and what you don't. If you just do the answers in your head – you may not really form a good response before reading on. Some questions will be easy and directly from the text, others will be thought provoking. I hope that you will take whatever time necessary to explore your beliefs.
If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to explain it more fully. You can contact me through the website.
So, our goal is to determine who Jesus was and is, what He taught, what He said, did and believed. We will be studying all 4 of the books written about Jesus' earthly life in chronological order without skipping any of the verses. Here are my thoughts:
1) This will give you a more complete picture of the life of Jesus. We will follow 4 different narratives by 4 different authors all telling the same story from 4 different perspectives. That should keep it interesting to say the least!
2) Ever since I learned about the Harmony of the Gospels, (the merging of these 4 books in chronological order), I have been fascinated by the concept and have often wished I had the material in a teachable form. I feel that God is calling me to produce that!
3) So, my prayer is that this will be helpful to you if you have never read God's Word before. And I pray that it will encourage you to choose to follow Jesus' NEW WAY.
4) And my prayer is that this will be helpful to you if you have already chosen to follow Jesus but would like to study what He taught about the NEW WAY. I pray that it will encourage you to choose to be more obedient in your journey.
5) And my prayer is that this compilation of information will be helpful to you as you teach others the NEW WAY.
So, let's begin, shall we?
We will be looking at the 4 Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These books are now included in the Bible – but were each written by a man inspired by God. Each one is unique in purpose, readership, and style. The first thing I want to do is make sure you know these 4 writers because they will be behind the scenes in all that we study.
First there's Matthew. Matthew is also called Levi. He was a Jewish tax collector called by Jesus to be one of His followers. He became one of the 12 apostles (Men who trained under Jesus for about 3 years). His goal in writing his personal eye-witness account was to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah promised in Old Testament Scripture. His book contains lots of details about Jewish life and belief. He wrote it sometime in the 60's A.D.
Then there was Mark. He probably was the first one to write a Gospel book because all the others quote him in places! It is believed that he wrote his book in the 50's A.D. (about 20 years after Jesus' death). He is also called John Mark. He was one of the early followers of Jesus and went with Paul on his first missionary journey. He wrote primarily to record Jesus' work and teachings. He was the youngest of the writers and loved the word that is translated “immediately”. You'll see that word over and over in his book. I think he was young and full of enthusiasm! Mark was a good friend of Peter, and it is believed that most of his material came from Peter's eye-witness accounts. John Mark was only a teenager at the time of Jesus' death, but it is thought that he and his mom were part of a group of followers that traveled with Jesus. Peter was one of Jesus' 12 apostles and was part of the inner 3 (Peter, James and John) who were closest friends with Jesus.
Luke is the only Gentile writer of the Gospels.
What's a Gentile?
Let's start by defining a Jew. A Jew was anyone who was a descendant of one of the 12 sons of Israel (Jacob). These 12 sons formed the 12 tribes of Israel. So Israelite is another name for Jew. You could also “become” a Jew by adopting and following their religion.
Now, a Gentile is what the Jews called any non-Jew. So, which are you?
Luke was a very organized and structured person. He was also a medical doctor and therefore was well-educated. Luke gave his own introduction at the beginning of his Gospel. We will look at that tomorrow.
John is our final writer. He was not only an eyewitness because he was one of the 12 apostles, but many believe that he was Jesus' closest friend while on earth. John was a Jewish fisherman when Jesus called him. He wrote primarily to strengthen other followers of Jesus and assure them that all that happened was for real and that Jesus really was a supernatural being in earthly form. He talks a lot about eternal life. John wrote the last of the four gospels sometime between 85 to 90 A.D.
Read John 20:30-31
What did John say was his purpose in writing this eye-witness account?
I think that's enough for today. You have officially started an exciting journey!
In His service, dale
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