This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 544: Read the Bible for Yourself 11: How to Read the Gospels by Sean Finnegan This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. 00:08 Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:24 The Gospels are evangelistic. Biographies of Jesus in today's episode. You'll learn the basic storyline of the four biblical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then we'll go through them from shortest to longest to see how each brings a unique and helpful perspective in telling the life of Christ. We'll also hit some important. 00:45 Concepts like the Kingdom of God, parables, and the Word of God. Lastly, we'll ask about. 00:52 How can you figure out which sayings of Christ apply to you today and which ones do not? 00:58 Here now is Episode 544 part 11 of our read the Bible for yourself class how to read the Gospels. 01:14 Last time we looked at background for the New Testament, today we dip our toes into the first part of the New Testament. The New Testament has 27 books in it. 01:26 And the Gospels make up the first four. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospels are biographies of Jesus. They tell the life of Christ. 01:38 But they're more than just biographies. 01:41 And that comes through in their name. We call them gospels, because that means good news. 01:47 So there's an evangelistic component to the Gospels. They're not seeking to dispassionately and in an unbiased manner describe an important person they're trying to get you to believe in him. 02:01 And they are not hiding that fact. Usually it's like the first sentence, but the gospels contain the story of Christ, and they're the good news that the Messiah has come and his name is Jesus. 02:15 And. 02:16 There's a push that you would follow him as well in the Gospels. It's subtle, but it's there. 02:21 So let's talk about reading the Gospels. Just like I said with the Psalms. 02:28 It's probably best not to just read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. 02:32 Boom, boom, boom, boom. Like I said, don't read Psalm one, then two, then three, then four, then five. All the wait like don't read 10 psalms in one setting. You'll have no idea what the first seven were. By the time you finish, unless you're doing a concentrated study on the life of Christ or some sort of complicated study in the Gospels. 02:50 It's probably better to to read one gospel and then read some other part of the Bible and then read another gospel. Read some other part of the Bible like that. 02:59 And I think that will come a little bit more into focus as we end up. So you know, read Matthew, then Deuteronomy read Mark and then read Isaiah, read Luke and acts one after the other cause are written by the same person. 03:14 Read John and then read Romans. 03:16 So that's kind of the. 03:17 Idea. What are the gospels? Well. 03:20 Each has its own focus. All our evangelistic. 03:23 And each tries to convince you to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They follow a basic storyline. 03:32 So I have 13 ingredients of the story here. 03:37 Not every gospel covers every one of these points. For example, #1 the birth narratives, the birth of Christ is only described in Matthew and Luke, not in Mark and John. 03:46 Right. So I'm kind of mixing things together here, but this is the general outline that you'll find of the Gospels. So Jesus is born in the beginning, and then we switched to John the Baptist and his ministry. 03:58 After that, Jesus comes to John and associates with John and gets baptized by John. And then after that Jesus calls the 12 and initiates his ministry, which includes teachings and miracles. 04:13 There's a lot of conflict with his critics that Jesus has in all four gospels. 04:20 Then the last week of his life is really the focal point of the Gospels. 04:26 So that always begins in all the gospels with the same event, what they call the triumphal entry. When Jesus rides the donkey into Jerusalem. That's sort of the beginning of the end. 04:39 After that, there's intensified conflict for several days where Jesus is. 04:44 Fielding Stumper questions and. 04:47 Provoking the authorities by cleansing the temple, things like that. Then we have the Last Supper. 04:54 The arrest, trial and execution, resurrection appearances and the Great Commission, so this is the the general flow of the Gospels. Anyone of the gospels, more or less, some will not have all these ingredients. But this is a general outline, and as far as our four canonical gospels go, they're in the order of Matthew. Mark. 05:15 And John, but. 05:16 I'd like to cover them for you in this class in order of length, so I want to cover Mark, John Matthews and Luke. 05:24 Because. 05:26 Mark is the shortest of the Gospels. 05:28 And I want to begin with Mark now, Mark. 05:32 Has about 11,000 Greek words in it. 05:36 I love Mark. I love all the gospels. She's full, Full disclosure. I'm not. 05:40 Gonna like pick a. 05:41 Favorite, but Mark is great because he's so raw and unfiltered. It's action-packed. He uses this word immediately. What is it 42 times? 05:52 Immediately, immediately, immediately. OK. Alright, I got it. 05:58 Doesn't have much of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. The focus is on the deeds of Jesus, not on his teachings. There's a few teachings here and there. It's not like Jesus never talks in the gospel of Mark, but Mark is really short compared to the other gospels. And what doesn't mark have? 06:16 Well, a lot of the. 06:17 Sayings of Christ. 06:18 Also Mark has Aramaic SMS. Aramaic SMS are Aramaic phrases that are transliterated into Greek. 06:28 And scholars puzzle over well, why in the world would he do that? My take on it, and it's a fairly common take, is that these are moments where Mark wanted to, to be sure that the reader could say, and the hearer could hear the exact word Jesus said. 06:49 So one of them is Talitha Kum, which Jesus says to a little dead girl. 06:55 And it means little girl arise. 06:58 This is the actual words that he said. And so in the Greek text you come across these non Greek words and you're like, what's this? Well, if you also know Aramaic. 07:09 You'd be like ohh that's. 07:11 That's just an Aramaic phrase written out with Greek letters, of course, and our English translation is all done into English. 07:17 But you get you get the. 07:18 India, Talisa come is not an English word where you. 07:21 Come from right. OK. 07:23 Then the other one in Mark. 07:24 734 is alfafa. 07:27 FFAFA there's like 2. 07:29 F sounds in there. 07:31 And that means be open so that to the the deaf and mute man. 07:37 And then the most famous Eloy Eloy Lema, Sabbath Chani on the cross. The actual words of Jesus. 07:46 Whereas in Matthew, they're in Hebrew, in Mark, they're in Aramaic. Mark was probably John Mark. 07:53 Who is mentioned in the book of Acts and other places of the Bible? 07:57 He was not one of Jesus's followers until later. 08:01 Until after Jesus had done his ministry. 08:04 He went on to go on the first missionary trip with Paul and Barnabas, but then ditched them halfway through. 08:13 And then when the second trip was coming around. 08:16 Barnabas said, I want you to. I want to bring John Mark with us again and Paul said I don't think so. And they had a big disagreement over it. So John Mark ended up going with Barnabas one way. And Paul grabbed Silas and went another way. So he's kind of a controversial person in that regard, I guess. 08:33 But the picture we get of him later on is that he was restored. You know, as far as his relationship with Paul goes. 08:40 And even later than that, he's associated with Peter in Rome. 08:45 And we read this from Papias. 08:49 Who wrote a book called Exposition of The Sayings of the Lord in about the year 130. Probably before 1:30. He died in 130, so you probably didn't write it like the. 08:58 Day he died, probably wrote it. 09:00 Mary died so. 09:01 Early one hundreds. 09:04 Not very long after the time of Christ, and Papias says this and the elder used to say this mark, having become Peters interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order. 09:17 Of the things either said or done by Christ, for he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, followed Peter, who adapted his teachings as needed, but had no intention of giving an ordered account of the Lord's sayings. 09:33 Consequently, Mark did nothing wrong in writing down some of the things he remembered. 09:38 As he remembered them, for he made it his one concern not to omit anything. 09:42 That he heard. 09:44 Or to make any false statement in them. So did you catch that? 09:48 Mark, according to this source, followed Peter and adapted Peters teachings. 09:55 So of course, Peter was one of the original 12 apostles. 10:00 And if you read the Gospel of Mark, or really Matthew or Luke. 10:04 You'll see that Peter is always in the center of the. 10:07 Action. 10:07 Well, maybe not always, but usually he's in the center of the action. Peter, by himself or Peter, James and John. Those 3, and that's probably no coincidence. 10:18 Now, just because I believe going along with Papias here, that Mark got his information from Peter the Apostle Peter, I also believe that God assisted Mark in writing down what he was writing, so that God's inspiration through the spirit enabled him to write what needed to be written. 10:40 Going on to our next one, we have, John, about 15,000 words, 15,633 Greek words in the Gospel of John typically thought to be written last. But as it is with any of the gospels, it's all speculation. Nobody, they don't have like dates on them. There's no way to really know for sure when. 11:01 This gospel where that gospel was written. 11:04 But typically John is thought of as being written last. 11:07 Is probably written. 11:08 By the apostle John because his vocabulary and style is very similar to first, second and third John. 11:18 The Gospel of John is very different than Mark. Mark is rough around the edges. His grammar is not perfect. OK, he's he's getting that message that it's more like shoot from the hip, where it's like John. 11:31 John his Greek is very simple, like elementary school level Greek, best Greek in the whole New Testament to start with. 11:39 OK. 11:40 But although his language is simple. 11:43 His thoughts and what he's saying is abstract, metaphorical and theological. 11:51 It's complicated. He's a complicated person. He's he. He would be the kind. 11:54 Of. 11:54 Person that you would have a long conversation with and then you would think about it later on and say, what does that really mean? I think that's the the Gospel of John. Whereas Mark, you, you're not going to misunderstand because he's saying he's saying like over and over immediately, immediately, immediately, then he healed this one then. 12:10 He healed that one. 12:11 Yeah. 12:13 John's more like, well, the words that I speak to you are spirit and truth. 12:20 What? Unless you're born again. What do you mean, born again? What does that mean? Right. And to this day, like as Christians, we are still, like, trying to figure out the Gospel of John in some areas, right. 12:33 In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about himself a lot, as opposed to the other. 12:36 Principles. 12:38 And there are also extensive teachings for his disciples, especially in the upper room discourse. 12:43 Which I think all in you could say is like 13 to 17 of John's pretty sizable section starts with the Last Supper then is chapters 1415 and 16 and then you have the high priestly prayer chapter 17. 12:55 John presents 7 miracles that he calls signs, whereas the other Gospels, Jesus has miracles all over the place and John, they're very carefully laid out. These are signs. 13:07 And then we get this purpose statement from John, which is fantastic, right? He says in John 20, verse 30. Now Jesus did many other signs, so it recognizes there's other miracles Jesus did. Many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written. John, why did you pick those? 13:27 These are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, that through believing you may have life in his name. 13:38 Love it? Purpose statement. He wants you to believe or continue to believe there's a debate in the translation or in the manuscripts about this. Some of the manuscripts read that you would believe as if you hadn't believed before, and now you're reading this and now you're starting to believe. And other manuscripts read that you already believe and you're going to continue to believe whichever way it goes. 14:00 The goal is clear in the Gospel of John. It's to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. 14:07 And that through believing you may have life in his name. All right, I'm to Matthew. Matthew has about 18,000 words, and he was a tax collector known in Mark and Luke as Levi. So that's a little confusing. 14:22 So you have this Gospel of Matthew where he's called Matthew and then in Mark and Luke. 14:25 Is. 14:25 Called Levi. But this is just par for the course. Seems like everybody in the Bible has multiple names. What is the deal with that? I don't know. 14:34 So Peter is also called Simon. 14:37 And. 14:39 Cephus. 14:40 Yes. 14:42 So you have multiple names for these for these people, mark is called John Mark, right? So that's just the way it is sometimes I guess. So Matthew is also called Levi. He's one of the original 12 mark is not one of the original 12. 14:57 John is one of the original 12 and Matthew is one of the original 12 and then Luke is also not. So we have two that were original disciples and two that depended on eyewitnesses of one type or another. 15:10 The Gospel of Matthew has a great deal of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus is the rabbi. 15:17 In Matthew, he's a teacher. 15:19 And Matthew arranges his teachings into five blocks. 15:24 Matthew 5 through 7 is the sermon on the Mount. 15:27 Chapter 10 is missionary instruction. 15:29 Chapter 13 is parables of the Kingdom. 15:32 Chapter 18 is discourse on the church and chapters 24 to 25 is the Olivet discourse. 15:39 Why do you think Matthew broke Jesus's teachings into five blocks? 15:46 Think Jesus only taught five times. 15:50 Probably taught 27 times, right? I don't know, however many times he taught. 15:54 Wide range of just into five. Well, the Torah has five books, and Matthew is especially interested in showing to a Jewish audience that Jesus is the Messiah. And so to a Jewish audience who is used to the five books of the Torah, the Book of Psalms is broken into 5 sections. 16:11 Right. 16:14 He breaks Matthew into these five blocks of teachings to show that Jesus is a new Moses or Jesus is a fulfillment of the Torah, something something along those lines. 16:24 That's probably what is going on here. 16:28 He he likes this word fulfilled. 16:30 You don't see it so much in the other gospels, but Matthew, he'll quote from the Old Testament and he'll say thus Jesus fulfilled what was said by so and so. 16:40 And when it says fulfilled, it doesn't mean that there there is a definite predictive prophecy in the Old Testament that only could possibly refer to Jesus. That's not what Matthew means by fulfilled. It means more like than Jesus did something similar to somebody else. 16:58 You know, it's more of like going in the same direction as something rather than an arrow pointing just at this one bullseye. So for example, Isaiah 714 talks about the child that would be born of a young woman or a virgin, depending on the translation. 17:14 That child was born in Isaiah's time. That was the prophecy Isaiah gave to the. 17:18 King. 17:18 He said to the king a child will be born and some will be given, you know, and this is all gonna happen so. But then Matthew's like, oh, no, no, no. Jesus fulfilled that. 17:29 So so both ends. It's not Matthew saying this is the only way to think about it is this is just like that. 17:37 Why do you think Matthew groups all of well, not all? Most of Jesus miracles into just chapters 8:00 and 9:00. 17:46 Would you do that? 17:47 I think I would sprinkle them throughout, right if I had all this material to work with, I think I'd put some here, put some there. You read, you read it through the Gospel of Matthew and you have the the birth narratives and then you have the John the Baptist section. Jesus is baptized, tempted, boom right into a teaching for three chapters. 18:07 And then it's just miracle time. And he I, I won't say every miracle, but almost every miracle of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew happens in Chapter 8 and Chapter 9. 18:16 Because he's not focused on chronology, Matthew is organizing his gospel based on topic and for other concerns. Other than this happened then that happened then that happened. We in our culture love chronological ordering. We love timelines, our history books. 18:36 Don't go out of order. 18:38 But if you look at the Bible, look at the prophets. Look at the prophet Jeremiah or Isaiah. There are the prophecies are not necessarily in order. This one is next to this one because it's it's about a similar topic rather than it happened this than that. 18:54 So I think that's what's going on in the Gospel of Matthew. 18:58 And you know, we're coming onto their turf. This is how God inspired these people to write these things. So, you know, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be like, well, Matthew really needs to take a a course in history or something like that. I think we're. We're the ones that need to take the course in reading their kind of literature and. 19:18 You know, understanding their reasons for it, which brings us then to Luke. 19:23 Luke's focus is on explaining Christianity to Noble born Romans, wealthy, significant people. 19:31 Whereas Matthews focused on the Jews, Luke is focused on the Romans and the Greeks and the noble class. 19:38 How do I know that? Why would I say that? Well, Luke, chapter one, verse one, since many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us. 19:48 You catch that? 19:50 Many. 19:52 Many have undertaken to compile their narratives. There were lots of other gospels too. Did you know that there are other gospels outside of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? 20:01 Luke starts by saying yeah, there's lots of gospels. What's going to be different about. 20:05 Yours, Luke. 20:07 Verse 2, just as they were handed on to. 20:09 Thus, by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and service of the word, I too decided as one having a grasp of everything from the start, to write a well ordered account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may have a firm grasp of the words in which you have been instructed. 20:30 So from this, we gather that Theophilus was an important person. Why do I say that? Because he has this prefix on his name most excellent. 20:39 It's it's not just a complementary way of talking about somebody, it's also how other important Roman officials are addressed in the book of acts like. I think it's Felix or Festus, one of those two is addressed as most excellent when Paul is speaking to him. And it's not just a nice way of saying things. It's it's it's an official way of addressing. 20:59 The superior in that world. So what is Luke doing? He is writing this for Theophilus. Theophilus is a Christian. He has been instructed, but he's trying to give him better instruction. More instruction. Give him the full account. 21:17 And boy, does Luke ever. My goodness, Luke is longer than all the other ones. 21:23 And then he. 21:23 Writes a volume to the whole book of acts. 21:27 So Luke is a is an overachiever and his focus is to be well ordered, to be more chronologically minded than Mark or Matthew and certainly not John. John John's in theology. 21:40 Hand. 21:41 His thoughts are are high above ours. 21:44 You know like. 21:46 You don't try to bring him down to to such simple matters as you know what happened before. What I'm not saying there's no chronology. 21:53 They all start. 21:54 With with John the Baptist, they all end with Jesus, resurrected in the commissioning right. So there is some chronology in all them. 22:01 But Luke especially focuses on this, and it says that he got information from eyewitnesses like I mentioned to you, Luke. Luke is associated with Paul travel with Paul. But we don't have any reason to think Luke was a Christian at the time of Jesus. 22:17 Lucas somebody that comes on the scene later. 22:20 And Luke is a first class historian. Look at this. Look at Chapter 3 of Luke, verse one in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip, ruler of the region of Etheria and Trachonitis and Lysanias. 22:41 The ruler of Abilene, they're in the high priesthood of Anis and Caiaphas. The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 22:51 That. 22:52 That. 22:53 Is how you date something in the ancient world. 22:56 What you do is you start with the biggest, most important person in the world. 23:01 Tiberius Caesar. And you say all right, 15th year of his reign. And then you move down to the next most important person. Well, who's the governor? Pontius Pilate. Governor of Judea. 23:12 And then you move down to. 23:13 The tetrarchs. Alright. Who's? 23:14 In charge of Galilee in in. 23:16 These other places, so we list off all those people. 23:18 So we get Herod. That's Herod antipas. Herod fill up and then you have Licinius. And then he goes to the the priests, anisakiasis. So the priest, what is he really saying here? There was a man whose name was John, who preached in the wilderness. Right. That's really what he's saying. But he's a historian, so he's like. 23:38 All right. We don't have like a agreed upon numbering dating system like we do today. So he's going to date it by everything that he can possibly hang it on. 23:49 He talks more about women than the other Gospels as well, and I tend to think he had Mary as a source. 23:56 Because you have a lot of stuff in Luke from Mary's point of view, especially early on, you just don't have anywhere. 24:03 Else. 24:04 So I think that's that's a strong possibility. You know, of course, God could always just download stuff to any of these people while they're writing, right? But, you know, we weren't really there. So we don't know exactly how the process went. We know that the end result is. 24:17 What God wanted it to. 24:19 See. But you know, Luke seems to to indicate here in chapter one, verse one and two. And he did some work. He traveled around, he interviewed people. He tried to put it in an ordered account for this Theophilus guy. 24:34 And Luke also cares about social justice. The Holy Spirit is a major theme in Luke. We'll see that next time too. And the inclusion of the Gentiles. Alright? So when we talk about the Gospels, the four Gospels we have, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Matthew, Mark and Luke, we call the Synoptic Gospels. We have a special word for them. 24:54 And that's because they all see from a similar perspective. OK, they're all following the same kind of pattern. 25:03 That's why we call them the Synoptic Gospels. 25:05 Matthew and Luke quote Mark extensively like word for word exact Greek quotations. 25:15 So it's likely that Mark was written 1st and then Matthew and Luke were written a little later than that and they had mark and they worked from Mark, but then they expanded upon it using whatever other sources they had, and the theory is that. 25:33 One of the sources they had had sayings in it and they both had the same source because there's all kinds of material, like actual sayings of Christ that are in Matthew and Luke. 25:44 That are not in Mark or John. 25:47 But it's it's also clear that there's, like Matthew, is not like correcting Luke. I don't think Luke is correcting Matthew. I think they're independent from each other, but they do have some common sources and then they have unique material as well. 26:01 That's just one theory that's like the most common theory, whether liberal or conservative, that's a pretty much accepted view that Marcus first, then Matthew and Luke, you had a common source, and then John is on his own, whether he had them or not. He's doing his own thing. You know, we can't really say so I thought see and. 26:21 Stewart, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, authors of how to read the Bible for all its worth, I thought they did well explaining this. 26:27 This is how they put it, they said. The best explanation of all the data is that Mark wrote his gospel first, probably in part at least, from his recollection of Peter's preaching and teaching. Luke and Matthew had access to Mark's Gospel and independently used it as the basic source for their own, but they also had access to all kinds of other material. 26:49 About Jesus, some of which they had in common. 26:53 This common material, however, is scarcely ever presented in the same order in the two gospels, a fact suggesting that neither one had access to the other's writing. Finally, John wrote independently of the other three, and thus his gospel has little material in common with them. This, we would note, is how the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Gospels. 27:16 With the spirits help, they creatively structured and rewrote the materials to meet the needs of their readers. 27:23 Now having said that, it is the case that there are plenty of events that happen in all four gospels. For example, John the Baptist Ministry, Jesus teachings, Jesus, baptism, Jesus feeding of the 5000 Jesus doing miracle like these things happen in all four gospels. They're not all that different. It's just when you start to get to the really nitty gritty. 27:44 And that you start to see some of these other features? 27:48 One theme that comes up a lot in the Gospels, especially the 1st 3. The Synoptic Gospels is the Kingdom of God be and Stewart say the major hermeneutical difficulty lies with understanding the Kingdom of God, the term that is absolutely crucial to the whole of Jesus's ministry. Why is it crucial to Jesus's ministry? 28:08 Because everything he does is about the Kingdom of. 28:11 God. 28:12 Everything he says May overstating it slightly, I don't know. But his sermon on the Mount 8 times he mentions the Kingdom of God. 28:21 Why are you talking about the Kingdom of God so much in a teaching on how to live? 28:25 Well, because it affects how you live his miracles. He interprets as anticipating the Kingdom or evidence of the Kingdom. He casts out a demon and he says if I cast out this demon by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of. 28:37 God has come upon you. 28:39 That's how he's interpreting his miracles. His gospel message is called the Gospel of the Kingdom. He goes around talking about the Kingdom all the time. So the big. 28:47 Question is, what is that? 28:49 What is the Kingdom of God and? 28:52 He expects his. 28:52 Hearers to know what he's talking about, he never has an aside and says all right now, by the Kingdom of God. This is what I mean. 28:59 So there are different theories about what the Kingdom of God is. Some people think it means heaven. 29:05 Especially if you're reading from the Gospel of Matthew, he uses the phrase Kingdom of heaven 32 times. 29:12 The other 65 books of the Bible never used the phrase Kingdom of heaven. It's literally just Matthew. And Matthew does also say Kingdom of God five times, but he prefers to say Kingdom of heaven and so some people like ohh well, the Kingdom of God is just heaven. That's one theory. Another theory is that the Kingdom of God is the community. 29:33 Of disciples, it's the church. 29:35 And there's lots of Christians today that that will say that the Kingdom is the church, and they'll use the language advancing the Kingdom by which they mean making more Christians or expanding the the church. Some other people will say the Kingdom of God is a spiritual state of mind. It's God reigning in your heart. 29:52 It's living in in a certain way. That's the Kingdom of God. 29:56 But what I believe, and I think I can substantiate pretty easily from the Bible, is that the Kingdom of God is. 30:02 The coming age. 30:04 When God rules our world through his king, that's what I think the Kingdom of God is. 30:09 It's it's an. 30:10 Age to come. Now I want to be careful. Like I do believe that in a sense, the Kingdom is here. 30:17 And that we are the citizens of the Kingdom, that the spirit of the Kingdom is already available for us as Christians today, that the lifestyle of the Kingdom is here. So I think there's a lot of Kingdom that is here in that sense, but strictly speaking. 30:34 God's not running our world. 30:37 Sure. Does it look like that to me? And if he is? 30:40 He's not doing a great job. 30:43 And I'm uncomfortable saying that, right? So it really seems like God's not ruling our world. But what I think is really behind Jesus here is in his his statement of the Kingdom of God. And he calls himself the son of man a lot too. I think this is really pulling from Daniel the Prophet Daniel. 31:01 And when we look at Daniel, we see a a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of a statue of goal ahead of gold and a chest of was a chest silver and then the midsection of bronze leg of iron, legs of iron. And then in the dream the king sees a stone cut out without hands and it smashes the statue on his feet. 31:22 And it blows it up into tiny pieces. And then that stone becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth. 31:29 And the king calls and Daniel to give him the interpretation, and the interpretation is in Daniel 244 it says in the days of those kings, each one of these different kinds of metal and the statue was a different Kingdom. And then in the the days of the last kings. 31:46 In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this Kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. So you can see here where you would get Kingdom of God and Kingdom of heaven, right. 32:06 Like this you have the God of heaven setting up a Kingdom. So it's the Kingdom of God, or it's the Kingdom of heaven. 32:13 That's probably where this language came from. Specifically the the phrase Kingdom of God. I don't think it shows up at all in the Old Testament. If you typed it into a computer search, another place that Jesus probably pulled from is Daniel 7. 32:29 Daniel has this vision in Daniel 7 where he sees the ocean and a lion comes out of the ocean and then a bear and then a leopard, then a terrifying beast, and each of these animals represents a Kingdom and then as he's looking, there's a judgment scene and he sees God in heaven, sitting on his throne at court. 32:48 And up to him comes the human being and the human being is given. 32:53 The rulership of the. 32:54 Earth and that's Daniel 713 and 14. 32:57 And it's interesting. It says that Dale 713, as I watched in the night visions I saw one like a human being. That's a translation. I'm using the NRSP. The actual phrase is son of man. 33:08 And this this is actually the phrase Jesus uses to refer to himself all the time. 33:16 So that's why I think this. This particular prophecy was really cause some of me is not a very common phrase in the Old Testament. 33:23 Ezekiel uses it a. 33:24 Lot. 33:26 In the book of Ezekiel, it just means a human being, just like a mortal. Like not God a person. 33:34 But in Dale 713, it's like the not just any person, but the person who receives authority to rule all peoples, nations and languages forever. 33:48 It says in Dawn 714 to him was given Dominion and glory and kingship that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away in his kingship as one that will never be destroyed. 34:03 And then at the end of the vision, we get this statement, the kingship, this is Daniel 727, the kingship and Dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the most high. Their Kingdom shall be an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them. 34:21 The idea is that the son of man is going to receive a. 34:25 Kingdom and that he is going to then share that Kingdom with the people of God who are going to rule over it forever. This is a massive idea. It's found throughout the Bible, not just in the book of Daniel, but in the book of Daniel. We get this Kingdom specific Kingdom language as opposed to day of the Lord or in the last days. 34:46 Or other places we'll talk about eternal life, especially the Gospel of John. These are just all different terminologies for this same idea. 34:56 OK, so why son of man? Why does he call himself that so much? Because it forces the hearer to decide. 35:06 Son of man could just mean a human being could just be like a humble referring term. I'm just the son of man. 35:12 Or it could mean the son of man from Daniel 713. 35:16 Who's going to rule the Kingdom? 35:18 So it's a, it's an excellent term that Jesus uses for himself and then people have to decide, do I believe that or or is he just being a nice humble guy? 35:27 If you want to learn more about the Kingdom of God, I just wrote a book about it called Kingdom Journey, which you can get now if you want. And it goes through the whole Bible and church history. So if you're, if you're interested in it, obviously I think I think it's pretty good. 35:48 All right on to parables, a lot of what he says about the Kingdom he tells through parables, these little short fictional stories that make a point. 35:56 The most important thing about parables is just to get the main point. Don't get lost in all the details. Sometimes Jesus will tell a parable, and then he'll interpret it to his disciples and give you all the details. Alright, great. He gives it to you. Take them. 36:11 But if not, don't get lost in it. 36:14 Now there are some parables Jesus tells. 36:16 To hide the. 36:17 Truth from people that don't really want. 36:18 To hear it. 36:20 Other parables he tells to teach his disciples, like the story about the vine and the branches in John 15. I don't know if that's technically a parable, but this illustration he uses to teach his there there's no critics there, only people that really want to know. And then other parables are zingers designed to confront. 36:41 His critics. 36:43 Designed to rebuke them. 36:46 Now the Gospels, they talk about the word, and I want to mention this a little bit. 36:52 That the word of God, especially in the Gospels, typically refers to a message. 36:59 Not the Bible. 37:02 Like the Kingdom of God, the word word is commonly misunderstood. The Bible does not typically call itself the word. If you want to call it the word, it's. 37:12 A free country. Call it the word. 37:14 But the Bible typically calls itself the scriptures. 37:18 Or the writings or the prophets or the Holy Spirit spoke through so, and so you know it doesn't. It just doesn't use the word word for that. And this can confuse you if you think that when it refers to the word, it means the Bible in general, as opposed to a spoken message that God has given to Jesus. 37:39 Jesus's message to people was to repent in light of the coming of the Kingdom. 37:43 It wasn't to believe in the Bible. The Jews already believed in the Bible. 37:47 There are already pro Bible. 37:49 It was to believe in this Kingdom and to repent in. 37:52 Light of it. 37:54 It says I want to show you this Mark 413 so this is the parable of the solar and the sea. 38:00 And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables the sower sows the word? 38:09 These are the ones on the path where the word is sewn. When they hear Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sewn in them. 38:18 Then in Luke. 38:19 8:11 and 12:00 we read this from the same saying of Christ, but it's from a different gospel, so it's slightly different. 38:26 Luke 811 says now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. The ones on this on the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. Then we get Matthew, which is even shorter. Ironically marks the longest one here. 38:46 Mark Matthew 1319 says when anyone hears the word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart. This is what was sown on the path. So we see here in Mark, they sows the word. 39:02 And then in Luke, it's the word of God. 39:06 Talking about something totally different, right? No, no, it's the same thing. It's just the it's called it. The word in Mark. But then Luke has called it the word of God. The same thing, right. And then over here, it's the word of the Kingdom. 39:21 So it's all the same thing and this is how you can use the Gospels to help you understand when you have something that is repeated, you can see it from different angles. Think about different dimensions. 39:32 You have length and width and height right? And you can see something in more dimensions. We have 4 gospels. It's a blessing and it can help us to figure things out. So just a word about the word is that the the word word typically refers to the spoken message. In this case the word or message of the Kingdom. 39:53 That's what Jesus is planning in people's hearts. Actually, he's just casting it around like, just drop it everywhere. But if it takes root in your heart, it results in salvation. Alright, on to our last point. 40:07 Which is about application. 40:09 When reading the Gospels, it's important for. 40:11 You to discern. 40:13 What applies to the specific situation that Jesus was in and what applies to you today? 40:22 Because not everything does. 40:25 I'll give you an example. Matthew Chapter 10, verse 9. Jesus says take no gold or silver or copper in your belt. 40:32 No bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or staff for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy and stay there until you leave. Which one among us who lives this scripture out in your life have you cast away your wallet? 40:52 Have you liquidated your bank account? Do you only have one pair of shoes? 40:58 Do you go to towns and inquire who might be worthy to host you so you can mooch on them indefinitely? 41:09 You don't. You don't go to a town and ask. Hey, can I mooch off of you for? I mean, you wouldn't say it that way, you say are. 41:14 You worthy for me to mooch off. 41:17 No, this is something that applied to that specific situation Jesus was sending out these 12 disciples. They were not going for years. They're going for a limited amount of time. Jesus was traveling. Jesus was going to go to the towns and they were going first to prepare the way for him. 41:36 And that was in a particular culture where it was understood that you would take care of somebody with hospitality, especially if they were preparing for an important spiritual rabbi or leader to come. 41:51 Or what about Luke 627? But I say to you who are listening, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat. 42:01 With you. Was this just for the people that were there at that time or is this for all Christians? 42:08 Well, I think it's for all Christians, even though this is a hard saying and extremely difficult teaching to live out, probably the most difficult. That's why I. 42:16 Picked it, you know. 42:18 It illustrates this so well, but how do we know? 42:19 This is for all Christians for all times well. 42:23 It's repeated in Matthew Chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. It's repeated in Romans 1217 to 21. It's repeated in first Peter 39 through 11, and then it's lived out not only by Jesus. Who did this in his ministry, but also Steven in acts Chapter 7 did this. He's being. 42:43 Stoned and, he says, lay not descend to their charge. 42:46 He loves his enemies, even to the very end. It's not just one saying of Jesus, so that can give you a clue as to what is applicable to Christians for all time and what is only for that specific situation. If it's repeated, another, as I was making mention, is if it's exemplified by Jesus. If it's something that Jesus carried out. 43:08 In his life, that would be another indication that this is not. 43:11 Just a specific. 43:12 Situation, but something that is applicable for everyone. 43:18 So I think you should read the Gospels frequently. I think they're really important. 43:24 I used to think what really matters is is just, Matthew and Luke because Matthew and Luke gives you like the most sayings of Jesus. Like the actual teachings like do this do this. Don't do that. Don't do that. 43:35 But I I don't think it's so simple. I think March has kind of grown on me and I've, I've, I've come to love. 43:40 Mark a lot. 43:41 Too, and John John's magnificent. If you need something to think about. 43:47 Read the Gospel of John. See if you can figure it out. There are profound truths there, deep, deep waters in the Gospel of John. Right. And so I think all four gospels are God designed for the church, for all time. For us to be fed by. I think you need to have a steady diet of the Gospels. 44:06 I told you before that Billy Graham read. 44:09 A proverb a day and five songs a day. I don't know how much you read the Gospels, but I'm recommending to you that if you have to choose between reading psalms or proverbs or the Gospels. 44:21 Gospels are even more important because these are the words of Jesus. These are the deeds of Jesus. These this is the meaning of what Jesus accomplished and how he carried himself. So eat them like food. 44:36 Eat your gospels. 44:39 All right, let's review. 44:42 The New Testament begins with four evangelistic biographies of Jesus called Gospels. 44:48 Mark is the shortest gospel. It's action-packed narrative, probably derived from Peter's recollections, as well as God's direction via his spirit. 44:58 John is the most theologically developed and it contains monologues where Jesus talks about himself and his relationship to his father. 45:08 Matthew showcases Jesus as a rabbi who teaches his followers how to live in light of the Kingdom of God. 45:16 Luke was a careful historian who made an effort to present a well ordered account of the life of Christ to a noble Roman audience. 45:25 The Kingdom of God is the core of Jesus's message and ministry. It refers to a coming age, not a place, but an age. When God says everything wrong with the world, right. 45:37 Jesus's favorite self title was son of man, which could either mean a human being or the ruler of the coming Kingdom. 45:46 Parables are short fictional stories told to make a point. 45:50 In the Gospels, the word refers to the message Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God, not the Bible in general. 45:57 Although it's hard to be sure, most think Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source as well as another saying source, and that's kind of speculative, but it's commonly believed by the people that study it in detail, so I figured I'd let you know about it. 46:11 And then last up, in order to discern what sayings of Jesus apply to you, consider the circumstances in which they were given. 46:20 Whether other parts of the New Testament repeat the statement and what Jesus's example can tell you. 46:26 Now, next time we're going to look at the New Testament, other historical book. 46:32 Just like the Old Testament begins with historical narratives, the New Testament begins with historical narratives. And just like the Old Testament, the first section of the historical narratives are special. We call it the Torah. So in the New Testament, the first section of the historical narratives are specially called the gospel. 46:48 But instead of like having all these books of kings, we just have the book of acts. So we're going to turn to that next time as we continue in our class, read the Bible for. 46:56 Yourself. 47:04 Well, that brings this session to an end. What do you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 544. How to read the Gospels and leave your comments and feedback then. 47:18 On last week's episode 543 key background for reading the New Testament. 47:24 Christine Carter wrote in saying great teaching of history around the time of Jesus Christ. Thanks for sharing. 47:33 In reading her comment, I was reminded of the first time I came across background material for the New Testament. Of course, I had heard many teachings about the New Testament and the Bible in general throughout my childhood. Growing up as a pastors kid, but background material was pretty fresh. 47:53 I remember it was a free lecture series, really a whole college level course on New Testament history by David Calhoun from Covenant Theological Seminary. They were kind of pioneers back in the day when, way before YouTube was even started that their website had full length audio lectures. 48:13 I remember he talked about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and other Jewish groups, and I was riveted. I was just like, wow. 48:21 There's more about these individuals and groups in other historical sources, and we know actually a lot about them outside of the New Testament that really helps to color what we see them do in the New Testament over against Jesus. And I remember him talking about Intertestamental history as well. He did a great job of talking about. 48:41 Jewish and Greco-roman context and you know, here's the thing as as I was just reminiscing about listening to his lectures and just the incredible been I mean, he was a fairly dry lecturer, but I I just. 48:53 For that, his content was just solid gold. Here's the crazy thing. I listened to David Calhoun's course, probably about 20 years ago now. 49:03 I was thinking to myself, you know, I've done a lot of New Testament courses over the years. I was trying to remember which ones I've done because right after David Calhoun, I did one by his successor at Covenant Theological Seminary called David Chapman. And that was New Testament history and theology. And he was a crucifiction specialist, had a PhD in crucifixion. 49:24 A grizzly field to be an expert in. 49:27 And I I remember learning from him. And then I went to Bible College, studied. I took New Testament survey with Anthony Buzzard in person and then later on through the great courses or as it used to be called the teaching company. I've done audio courses with Bart Erman. His New Testament course, as well as his historical Jesus class. I did. 49:50 Great figures of the New Testament with Amy. Jill Levine. I did Luke, Timothy Johnsons, Jesus and the Gospels, as well as his apostle Paul class. Then, when I was at Boston University, I took from Jesus to Christ with Paula Frederickson in person. 50:06 So I guess I've been exposed to a lot on the New Testament, some of this material was helpful as I was learning over the years and some of it wasn't. And so my aim with this survey of the New Testament, I mean it's part of the overall read the Bible for yourself. But we're in the New Testament section now. And so part of my aim for this is to give. 50:26 You the best. 50:28 Based on all these different sources that I've been exposed to over the years, but do so in an easy to understand way without getting too technical, which is really easy to do in New Testament. 50:39 Phase. It's actually a really developed field. You can get a PhD in New Testament and these are often some of the most respected PHD's in schools of theology or departments of religion. So. 50:53 Anyhow, I hope you will enjoy the process as we go through. Next time we'll do a whole lecture on just the book of acts and look more in depth than I was able to do with the Gospels, and hopefully you'll find this content helpful. 51:08 So that's going to be it for this week, if you'd like to support restitutio, you can do that at our website, restitutio.org. I'll catch you next week and remember the truth. 51:18 Has nothing to fear.