Gospels Series: Introduction

Gospels Series: Introduction

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. And I want to take the Synoptic Gospels. And the reason I, as I was thinking back over in my, this is 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 Gospels here. And of course, I've preached from all of these in the New Testament. Of course, we've had gone through Old Testament books. So far, we've been through Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John. Of course, we didn't really call that a series, but I have preached on those chapters, 2 and 3 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, you know, 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, you know, just realizing there's more to it than even… than 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…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 John, 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… 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 that he wrought or speaking about, you know, we think about the…what is it? The great I Am's 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 1, 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 1, verse number 1, we read there, the former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do, 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. But 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 I want to emphasize the synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic, I believe I've pointed this out, and we did 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, sin together, optic to the idea of to view. So to look at it together.

These, 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 like we're doing on Sunday school and during the Sunday school hour right now. First, second, Samuel, you know, Kings and Chronicles. There are 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 you have eyewitnesses of an event, each of those eyewitnesses is going to give you a slightly different account, not not not , not necessarily a contradictory account, but just a different account because they have a different perspective.

If, if, if you showed all of these children tonight, you know, a brief commercial, they would all have something different to say about the commercial. It, 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, we have a different perspective just because of our unique personality that God has given to each one of us. That's, 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 will notice that there are unique things in them, things that are unique to Mark that are different from, from Matthew and Luke and even John. But they emphasize certain aspects of Jesus's, 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 we, as we look at these, we notice that Matthew, Mark and Luke are more, I guess what we would call purely they're more pure in the sense of historical eyewitness accounts more so versus John being more of a historical 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 that just more of his teaching than his doings, we might say, as, as we're looking at John. And so that's why we won't refer to everything in John, because we're looking at more so 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 doing, 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, mighty works. He lived his life before them in the way that he handled himself in conversations with people and in 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, why did they question him on certain things? And how did he respond to them when they didn't like what he was doing? It 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's teachings, but ultimately we'll see his death and resurrection in the final aspects, 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 will 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 with me quickly in Mark two, verse 14. Mark two, verse number 14. Matthew will be the one that would give more of the Jewish perspective. He's a converted publican or tax collector. He was chosen by God. He was called by Jesus out of the, out of the, the tax collecting business. In Mark two, verse 14, we read, and as he, Jesus passed by, he saw, Levi, the son of Alpheus, 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, in Matthew nine, let's turn there briefly. Matthew nine, verse nine, we read in Matthew chapter nine and verse number nine, it is said here, and as Jesus passed, therefore, from thence he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom. And he saith 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 eat if you're a master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick. Well, we see here that Jesus, uh, was not afraid. If he was afraid to speak to sinners, then he wouldn't have had any, any disciples, would he? If he was afraid to speak to sinners. Now we noticed that he called Matthew. He called Levi and Levi became his disciple. But we also noticed that now he's at Matthew's home and other publicans, others of that life style that the Pharisees looked down on came and joined and, uh, 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, and, and, and of course the, he, 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 do, uh, will be able to realize that they are sinners and that they are in need of the physician. They're in need of physical or spiritual healing. Well, Matthew and Levi, they're in need of a physician. They're in need of a spiritual healing. Matthew and Luke are the only two gospels that will give us the, the narrative of the birth and the early life of Jesus. And we're going to be seeing that in coming weeks. Um, uh, this is an appropriate time of year to, to begin in, in, in, in these gospels. John, uh, will, will recap sort of some things without going into all the details that Matthew and Mark or Matthew and Luke go into.

He would say, Jesus in John one, right? Verse 12, wasn't it? He, well, in the, in the first chapter, anyway, 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 into his own, the Jews, Matthew, the first writer, he's, 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, 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 mess, fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. In fact, Matthew records 15 mess, Messianic prophecies fulfilled. Mark only records one, Luke two, John four. Um, Matthew quotes from the old Testament 48 times, whereas Mark will only do it 23 times. Luke, 23 times, John 14.

Um, we see that Matthew is, uh, not necessarily the first gospel writer because he was particularly the earliest, but because he emphasized it's the, the, the placement in the canon is very important because we're coming out of what the old Testament, right? We're coming right into John. We're, we're, we're coming in or not into John, but coming into Matthew and he's beginning to show us this is the, this is Christ. This is the Messiah that was foretold, uh, that has come. Well, in 12 passages, 15 separate verses, Matthew cites the old Testament prophecy in conjunction with a term, a phrase like, um, that it might be fulfilled. It was fulfilled or something like that. It was fulfilled that, that, that phraseology, um, to make it very obvious and clear that he's showing that this is the Messiah that was foretold. And he's showing that this is the Messiah that this is old Testament, uh, promise or prophecy is being fulfilled in this specific thing that happened.

Now, Matthew would say, would include, uh, you have heard that it was said, Jesus would say that phrase. Remember that you have heard that it was said, he includes that. And that is not used in any of the other gospels. It's used exclusively. I think it's five times. He records Jesus saying you have heard that it was said, you have heard that it was said, you have heard that it was said, Matthew says that, 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, uh, 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's multiple marks, but this caught us thought that this was John Mark. This is John Mark. This is the common interpretation. In fact, going back to early as, uh, in his 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, uh, Origen. We have Tertullian, others that attributed this gospel to John Mark. The, the, the evidence tradition, uh, in, in tradition or church tradition is very heavily leaning to this being John Mark. Um, it's interesting that, um, you remember, remember John Mark because he was a younger cousin of Barnabas and there was that dis, dissension. There was that, um, disagreement between he and Paul. And, uh, at that time, John Mark went with Barnabas because Paul didn't think he was ready to go with them on another missionary journey after he had already gone AWOL on that, originally on that first journey.

Uh, well, we noticed that, that, um, 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, uh, and so what a wonderful thing that is. It's thought that, uh, of course, um, wasn't it John Mark's mother, I believe it was, it was in her home that the disciples were praying when Rhoda came to the door and they were praying for Peter and to get out of prison. And then Peter shows up and knocks on the door. That was, so he was obviously right there in Jerusalem, uh, with Peter, with James, with all of these leaders in the church, these apostles 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. We look at John, John's not an apostle. John Mark is not an apostle. John, the beloved is an apostle. We noticed that Matthew's an apostle, but these other two are, we might say assistants or pupils of, or influenced by directly by the apostles. They heard the things, uh, 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.

Um, and we noticed that John Mark, uh, 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 euthos in the Greek. He uses it 48 times. None of the other gospel writers use it. And it's the word that's sometimes 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. It'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 in 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 Matthew, unlike Matthew rather, he, Mark doesn't record a genealogy. We're going to see that really soon here. Matthew and Luke record 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. Luke was the beloved physician. Paul referred to him as the beloved physician, Luke. His name, we have a Luke here tonight. In fact, he's referred, Luke is referred to in one place as Lucas. It means light giving or luminous. He was a Greek doctor. He was the, he was a friend of the apostle Paul, of course. Paul refers to him, but he was certainly, a faithful, 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, or you're going to hear, certain styling or phrasing of things that you say, that's, you know, that's Pauline or you know, that's Bergmanian or, you know, whatever. This is, this is very typical of the style of this particular person. As we've already mentioned, Luke is the longest gospel. Next to Paul, he's the most proliferate New Testament writer. He's written the most aside from Paul, because as we just read in the beginning, Luke not only wrote the gospel according to him that God gave him to write, but he's also written to the book of Acts. 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, it's very much a strict account of what the Lord taught and did, what the Lord didn't taught, right? 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? They're talking to Theophilus, right? 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. Behold. Behold. Behold. 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 will write the latest gospel. The last. 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 it 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… The second century, mid to late second century. It was very early on, in fact, because that fragment, the John Rylands manuscript actually was found in one, what was dated back to about 125 A.D. 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 minds or evidence in 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. They were written many centuries later. They were written many years later. As doctored and all these types of things.

You know, 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, well, as we look at John's gospel, he is going to be writing, as we said, many things. He's going to be giving more of the teachings of our Lord. He's going to, he does not include, like John or like Matthew and Luke will record, he does not include 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 that… 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. 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, 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 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. He 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. He was accepted by those who realized they needed a physician. Who did not believe they were whole. And they did not, or they liked the woman at the well. The Samaritan woman said, Come see a man that told me all that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? He came to seek and save that which was lost. And we see that, 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 denied him, even when they failed, even when they were scattered, when the shepherd was spitting. 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 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 the unique things that each one of them bring out of it. Something that is all 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 we would appreciate with new a newfound greater appreciation Lord for the fact that you have chosen to use holy men, but yes men to move upon the earth, 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, and we, though we were not there, though we did not personally handle Jesus Christ, we did not hear him speak as he walked among, 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, whom 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, your own peculiar people, zealous of good works. Bless this study, we pray. Keep us safe as we go our respective ways this evening. In Jesus' name, amen.