Gospels Series: Introduction

Gospels Series: Introduction

This evening, I want to begin a study, you might say, you're biting off a lot, but we're going to be getting into the gospels, the gospel accounts. I want to take the synoptic gospels. The reason I was thinking back over in my 15 years I've been here now, we have taken 16 of the 27 New Testament books and gone through them. We haven't done that one behind another in a canonical order, obviously, because we're going to the gospel here. Of course, I've preached from all of these in the New Testament, and we've gone through all the Testament books. So far, we've been through Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John—of course, we didn't really call that a series, but I have covered 2nd and 3rd John, those epistles, Jude, and of course, we've been through Revelation. There's plenty of room for us to go through those again because every time I read God's Word, I see more than I saw, even when I was looking over things today and looking over some notes I had regarding the gospels, I was correcting and updating and realizing there's more to it than even you saw in the past.

So this evening, I want to take, we're in the gospels, we're going to be looking at the synoptic gospels primarily, but we're also going to include John. I'm not going to leave John out. John, and it'll be just in a few minutes I'll tell you a little bit more about that, but we're going to be looking at John particularly when it's helpful for us to see the chronological unfolding of Jesus Christ's earthly ministry. John doesn't include nearly as many historical details as he does long lectures the Lord gave or stories that the Lord told and then commentary on what the Lord was giving about a miracle of any kind or speaking about, you know, we think about the great "I am" that we have in the book of John. There's a lot of differences in John that are unique to John from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

But to begin tonight, I'd like to look in Acts chapter one, and then we'll turn back to John 14 and read a couple of verses there, and I hope that you'll be able to see with me why I'm doing this. In Acts chapter one, verse number one, we read there, the former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. Let me read that again, the former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen. And then in John 14, please turn there with me just really a few pages back in verse 25, John 14 verse 25. Jesus says, these things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Tonight, we want to emphasize the synoptic gospels. The word "synoptic," I believe I've pointed this out in a survey of the Bible before, and I believe it was in that survey, I'm sure that I mentioned it during that Bible survey as we were taking a bird's-eye view of the Bible, not verse by verse going through the books. But it simply means to view together, "syn" together, "optic" the idea of to view. So to look at it together, when we're going through the gospels, there will be some things in Matthew that may not be recorded in Mark or may not be recorded in every detail the same way that it is in Mark, and vice versa with Luke. There's kind of like going through what we're doing on Sunday school during the Sunday school hour right now with First and Second Samuel, you know, Kings and Chronicles. There's some things that are recorded in Kings that aren't recorded in Chronicles and vice versa. And so we have a blended view.

I believe I've mentioned before that if you have eyewitnesses, I know I just mentioned this Sunday in a different context, but if you have eyewitnesses of an event, each of those eyewitnesses is going to give you a slightly different account, not necessarily a contradictory account, but just a different account because they have a different perspective. If you showed all of these children tonight, you know, a brief commercial, they would all have something different to say about the commercial. God has not made us cookie-cutter. He's not made us carbon copies, one of another. We each have, even if we're looking at it from the same vantage point, a different perspective just because of our unique personality that God has given to each one of us that's different. We have different backgrounds. We have, you know, different gifts that God has given to each one of us. So when we look at these gospel accounts, we want to notice that there are unique things in them, things that are unique to Mark that are different from Matthew and Luke and even John, but they emphasize certain aspects of Jesus as, well, like we read in Acts just a moment ago of what he began to do and teach, right, of all the things that he did and that he taught. And that's what the gospel accounts record, the things that Jesus was doing and the things that he was teaching.

And so, as we look at these, we notice that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are more, I guess what we would call purely historical eyewitness accounts, more so versus John being more of a historical account with a lot more commentary, a lot more of the content of Jesus's sermons or speeches and dissertations that he gave as he was speaking, giving more of that record, just more of his teaching than his doings, we might say, as we're looking at John. And so that's why we won't refer to everything in John because we're looking more so at the chronology, the unfolding, historical unfolding, and of course, drawing many beneficial truths that the Lord is teaching and the Lord is giving examples of, and the Lord is teaching his disciples by what he does and what he doesn't do as he's living before them, as he's leading them, not only by his words but by his example. And so we will not take every detail from the book of John, but we will be scouring Matthew, Mark, and Luke while including some things from the book of John.

The three things the gospel writers wrote about, yes, the things they began to do, what did he do? Well, he performed miracles, mighty works. He lived his life before them in the way that he handled himself and in conversations with people and the way that he avoided certain things, the way that he interacted with other people, and the Pharisees didn't like the way he handled himself. And why didn't they like it? Why did they question him on certain things, and how did he respond to them when they didn't like what he was doing? He was not approved by their religion, and what was he teaching by standing up for certain things? What was he teaching by being silent on certain things? We'll see all of that. Certainly, Jesus' teachings, but ultimately we'll see his death and resurrection in the final aspect, final chapters of these gospels. And when we say gospels, there is only one gospel, but these are gospel accounts. Sometimes we say the gospel according to Matthew or some people sometimes it'll be referred to as Matthew's gospel. But we know Matthew didn't originate this gospel. Matthew was an eyewitness. Matthew wrote down the things inspired by the Holy Spirit that he had heard and was brought to his remembrance that Jesus said, Jesus taught, Jesus did.

Matthew was called Levi as well. And look at me quickly in Mark 2, verse 14, Mark 2, verse number 14. Matthew will be the one that would give more of the Jewish perspective. He's a converted publican, a tax collector. He was chosen by God. He was called by Jesus out of the tax collecting business. In Mark 2, verse 14, we read, and as he, Jesus, passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt of custom and said unto him, follow me. And he arose and followed him. Matthew's name means gift of Jehovah. In Mark and Matthew 9, let's turn there briefly. Matthew 9, verse 9, we read in Matthew 9 and verse number 9. And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, and he said unto him, follow me. And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

Well, we see here that Jesus was not afraid. If he was afraid to speak to sinners, then he wouldn't have had any disciples with him. If he was afraid to speak to sinners, now we notice that he called Matthew, he called Levi, and Levi came, his disciple. But we also noticed that now he's at Matthew's home, and other publicans, others of that lifestyle that the Pharisees looked down on, came and joined, and, you know, publicans and sinners coming to his house to sit down and eat and to hear what Jesus had to say unto them. And of course, he used this as a teaching example even before the Pharisees and said, those that are whole, I'm not spending time with you because you don't think you need a physician, but I'm coming to speak to those who do realize or will be able to realize that they are sinners and that they are in need of the physician, their need of physical or spiritual healing.

Well, Matthew and Luke are the only two gospels that will give us the narrative of the birth and the early life of Jesus. And we're going to be seeing that in coming weeks. This is an appropriate time of year to begin in these gospels. John will recap sort of some things without going into all the details that Matthew and Luke go into. He would say Jesus in John 1, right? Verse 12, isn't it? Well, in the first chapter, in the way I might get the wrong verse, but he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he came unto his own, the Jews. Matthew, the first writer, he's going to emphasize Jewish things. He's going to speak in such a way whereas Luke is going to be, or Mark is going to be explaining, you know, Aramaic, he's going to be explaining some Jewish customs. Matthew doesn't spend any time doing that because he's writing with the Jewish reader in mind. He's writing about the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. In fact, Matthew records 15 Messianic prophecies fulfilled. Mark only records one, Luke 2, John 4. Matthew quotes from the Old Testament 48 times, whereas Mark will only do it 23 times, Luke 23 times, John 14.

We see that Matthew is not necessarily the first gospel writer because he is particularly the earliest, but because he emphasized the placement in the canon is very important because we're coming out of what? The Old Testament, right? We're coming right into Matthew, and he's beginning to show us, this is the Christ. This is the Messiah that was foretold, that has come. Well, in 12 passages, 15 separate verses, Matthew cites the Old Testament prophecy in conjunction with a term, a phrase like "that it might be fulfilled." It was fulfilled, or something like that, to make it very obvious and clear that he's showing that this is Old Testament promise or prophecy as being fulfilled in this specific thing that happened. Now, Matthew would include, "You have heard that it was said," Jesus would say that for each member of that. He includes that, and that is not used in any of the other gospels. I think it's five times he records Jesus saying, "You have heard that it was said." Well, this would only mean something to the Jewish reader, right? It would only mean something to the Jewish mind. It wouldn't mean anything necessarily to the Romans because they had not heard that it was said. They had not heard these things.

Well, this is Matthew. Matthew was, we might say, a bookkeeper in the sense of a tax collector before, but now he is the one who is writing a spiritual record, a record of the doings and the teachings of his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark is the second gospel writer. He's commonly thought that this Mark is, there are multiple Marks, but this is John Mark. This is the common interpretation, in fact, going back to early church history as Papias in the early 100s. He said this was John Mark. We have others such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. We have Eusebius or Origen. We have Tertullian, others that attributed this gospel to John Mark. The evidence in tradition or church tradition is very heavily leaning to this being John Mark.

It's interesting that you remember John Mark because he was a younger cousin of Barnabas. And there was that dissension, that disagreement between him and Paul. And at that time, John Mark went with Barnabas because Paul didn't think he was ready to go with them on the other missionary journey after he had already gone AWOL on that originally on that first journey. Well, we noticed that this seems to be that same John Mark who later on Paul would say he wasn't profitable, but now he is profitable for the ministry. And so what a wonderful thing that is, his thought that, of course, was in it, John Mark's mother, I believe it was in her home, the disciples were praying when Rhoda came to the door, and they were praying for Peter to get out of prison, and then Peter shows up and knocks at the door. So he was obviously right there in Jerusalem with Peter, with James, with all of these leaders in the church. And Peter would have been the one that, obviously, Barnabas took him under his wing, but Peter had a great influence on John Mark as well.

Peter being a disciple of the Lord, look at John. John is not an apostle. John Mark is not an apostle. John, the beloved, is an apostle. And we noticed that Matthew is an apostle. But these other two are, we might say, assistants or pupils of or influenced directly by the apostles. They heard the things that the Lord had shared with these apostles, and they are writing from their own perspective inspired by the Holy Spirit, but writing down the things that they have heard. And we noticed that John Mark here would write, it seems, more towards the Roman mind, the Roman world. And the reason we say that is he's the only one that will use this term, "euthus" in the Greek. He uses it 48 times; the other gospel writers don't use it. And it's the word that sometimes is translated "straightway" or "immediately." And this was a very Roman term that was used; this was not a term used by the Jews, but it was a Roman term. He would write that many times. He's a very short gospel. In fact, it's the shortest of the four gospels. It is, what was it, 14,949 words or 678 verses compared to the longest gospel being Luke's gospel.

If you ever look at the length of the chapters of Luke, you say, well, I can see why it's the longest. It's 1,151 verses versus Mark's 678 verses. Mark is, I forgot, I didn't write down who had said this, but someone referred to it as a swift narrative of the Lord's doings, a very brief and to-the-point kind of book, not like me. We notice that, unlike Matthew, Mark doesn't record a genealogy. We're going to see that really soon here; Matthew and Luke record the genealogy of our Lord, but Mark doesn't. That's going to cut off some right there, not having that genealogy of the Lord. And there's a lot more that could be said about him, but he presents Christ from this perspective often as a servant, as the servant.

We notice now Luke was the beloved physician; Paul referred to him as the beloved physician. Luke is his name. We have Luke here tonight. In fact, Luke is referred to in one place as Lucas. It means light-giving, luminous. He was a Greek doctor. He was a friend of the apostle Paul; of course, Paul refers to him. But he was certainly a faithful follower of the Lord and a faithful, detailed gospel writer. He writes, uses a lot of his medical terminology as we'll see in the writing of his gospel. You know, who the person was, it just inevitably comes through. If you listen to different preachers, inevitably there's going to be certain words that you hear repeated. Are you going to hear certain styling or phrasing of things that you say that's Pauline or that particular person?

As we've already mentioned, Luke is the longest gospel. Next to Paul, he's the most prolific New Testament writer. He's written the most aside from Paul because, as we just read at the beginning, Luke not only wrote the gospel according to him that God gave him to write, but he's also written the book of Acts. If you think about Acts, Acts is a very historical, literal account of just what happened. That's very much what we see when we look at the synoptic gospels. It's very much, with some unique flair of each of the individual perspectives, a strict account of what the Lord taught and did, what the Lord didn't teach. And so we see that he writes the book of Acts as well. We've taken the time when we went through that series on Acts to go into all that detail of how we understand that it was Luke that wrote that as well. But just if you look at the very beginning of these letters, there's already a pretty good clue right there talking to Theophilus.

So we notice that he writes about Jesus, whereas Matthew wrote about Jesus the Messiah, Mark emphasizing Jesus the servant. Luke emphasizes Jesus the man, but the perfect man, a man of humanity, of compassion. The Greeks were looking for a perfect man. They were looking for that man. Many of them tried to be that man, but it's impossible because we are missing the mark, aren't we? We're missing the mark. And yet Jesus is the one who never missed the mark.

When we come to John, his name means Jehovah is gracious. He was the brother of James, one of the sons of thunder, sons of Zebedee. And we notice that if you look over in John 19 with me, look over there in John chapter 19 briefly. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple, verse 26, I'm sorry, John 19 verse 26, when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, woman, behold thy son, then saith he to the disciple, behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. We notice that John was one of the, well, he was called that beloved disciple. He was the only one that was still hanging around the cross after Christ was put up there. All the other ones fled and were scattered.

John wrote the latest gospel, the last gospel account late in that first century. We, you know, Bible experts supposedly told us that it was not, you know, the Bible critics would say that would be well into the second century before he would write, but the John Rylands fragment, Papyrus P52, would show us, would give external evidence that indeed it was not late in the second century. It was very early on, in fact, because that fragment, the John Rylands manuscript, actually was found and dated back to about 125 AD. We don't rest our faith on that because we know even dating can be suspect, as we mentioned recently, but nonetheless, more and more of these archaeological finds cast shade and cast doubt on what seemed to be such definite proof in the evidence of the minds of those who would criticize the Bible and say that it couldn't be that these prophecies were written so many years before it actually happened, or it couldn't be that these gospel accounts were written when they said they were written, many centuries later. They were written many years later as doctrine and all these types of things. You know, they've, I mean, people have said that the historians have said that there was no Pontius Pilate, and then they find an archaeological find that says Pontius Pilate on the inscription there, so they had to acknowledge that.

Well, the theme, as we look at John's gospel, he is going to be writing, as we said, many things, but he's going to be giving more of the teachings of our Lord. He does not include, like Matthew and Luke will record, the genealogy of Christ. He doesn't include his birth, his baptism. He doesn't include the temptation. He doesn't include casting out the demons and parables and the transfiguration. He doesn't include a lot of things. So we're not going to be looking at John a whole lot just because he doesn't give a lot of the historical unfolding, and that wasn't the purpose of his writing. He doesn't give his agony in Gethsemane. He doesn't give his ascension. He doesn't give a lot of those details. And yet we point a lot of people, new believers or even unbelievers, to the book of John because the teaching of that book presents the deity of Christ. It presents him as the Savior of the world. It presents him as the only one who can save, the only one by whom we can come to the Father. He presents himself in very understandable, simple terms as the bread of life, the light of the world, the door of the sheep, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, the life. He presents himself as the true vine. These are all things that a child can understand as Jesus presents himself through John's pen there in the gospel according to John.

Well, my hope, my prayer is that as we go through these books, these gospel accounts, first of all, what does the gospel mean? The gospel is good news. The good news is, this time of year we're talking about when Jesus came, he was incarnated. He came to this world. I was thinking recently about how at Christmas we want to be at home with family, don't we? We want to be with loved ones. But when we think about what Jesus did, he left his Father's glory, the familiar comforts we might say of the glory of heaven and the basking in love, in the love he shared with his Father, and came. He came to this earth, a stranger among men and yet a servant. He came and was born to die for us. That's the good news. He lived among us. He dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He grew up and was tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin. He came unto his own. His own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. He was rejected in his own hometown of Nazareth. He was rejected by those who professed to worship his Father. He was rejected in the synagogue. He was rejected in the temple. And yet he was accepted by those who realized they needed a physician, who did not believe they were whole, and they did not.

They, like the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman, said, come see a man that told me all that I ever did; is not this the Christ? He came to seek and save that which was lost. And we see that that band of men and women, though not sinlessly perfect, would say as an example like Peter, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Even when they did not heed him, even when they failed, even when they were scattered when the shepherd was smitten, and yet they listened to his words of rebuke and his words of teaching and his words of wisdom. When he said, Peter, lovest thou me more than these? Feed my sheep, right? Feed my lambs. He came to bring life. But he had to die in order that we might live. That's the good news. He did not have to, but he did. He chose to out of love. And he died, was buried, rose again the third day, and then ascended back to the right hand of the Father. That is the good news. That is the good news. But it all had to begin with his willingness to come. The Father didn't coerce him. He participated willingly in the plan. And these gospel accounts are the accounts of that condescension, that humbling, that self-emptying, and yet, and yet he is indeed God in flesh, come to save us from our sinful ways and our sins.

May God help us as we go through this study to stand in awe at the good news of what Jesus Christ has come to do. And appreciate the distinctiveness of each of the gospel writers as they present that news. And they present the unique things that each one of them brings out about our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for these moments we've had in your Word tonight. We pray, Lord, that we would appreciate with a newfound greater appreciation, Lord, for the fact that you have chosen to use holy men. But yes, men, to move upon them, the Holy Spirit enabling them to write these things down, the things that you began to do and to teach, the things that Jesus Christ did and taught when he was among us. And then the work of the Holy Spirit involved in bringing to their remembrance the things that you taught them, the things that Jesus taught them and did among them, that they might record these things to give a faithful account of all of this, not their own words and their own wisdom. But as it is in truth, the Word of God, and as we listen to these things, though we were not there, though we did not personally handle Jesus Christ. We did not hear him speak as he walked upon this earth and walked among his disciples, even though we did not see him with our eyes. As John will say, he has written these things that we might believe and that we might know the Lord Jesus Christ, who having not seen, we know and love him because we believe the love that you have to us. This demonstration of love, the good news of God condescending, incarnated, coming among us to redeem us from all iniquity and purify us unto yourself. You're our peculiar people, zealous of good works. Bless this study, we pray. Keep us safe as we go our respective ways this evening, and in Jesus' name, Amen.