Jesus , Lessons for Life
Welcome back. We will now begin a series that looks at the three to three and one-half years of Jesus’ ministry on earth. Whenever I have one of life’s questions to wrestle with, I try to look for an answer first in this period of Christ’s life. My search is for “What did Jesus do?” or “What did our Lord say?” in relation to the question.
Christ is our role model. Very often our search for answers can be found within this time period when Jesus was teaching and preaching, preparing his disciples to carry the Good News and lead His church. As we study, it is important to follow a couple of principle of systematic theology:
Who was Jesus addressing and what was the situation then?
What other examples of this can be found elsewhere in the scriptures?
What “timeless principles” seem obvious from the scriptures?
How can we apply those principles to our lives?
For this series, we will use the timeline as represented in The Daily Bible, published by Harvest House Publishers. This Bible uses the New International Version translation, which we use in our international work. The Daily Bible arranges the writings of the Bible in chronological order. So as we read the Gospels, we are seeing them harmonized, or blended, so that the events come to life for us in the sequence in which they occurred rather that arranged by the four authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
In the coming weeks, we will simply looks at the sequence of events during these years while Christ was teaching and preaching, and we will search for key lessons that are valuable to us in growing in faith in Christ.
A little history of the Gospel accounts might be useful here.
The Gospel of Matthew provides a bridge from the Old Testament. It shows that Jesus fulfilled the history of Israel. In his writing, Matthew constantly refers to the Old Testament, illustrating how Jesus was the Messiah the Jews were awaiting. The date of the writing is thought by many to be about 80-90 A.D.
The oldest book of the Gospels was Mark. It is also the shortest of the four books. It was not written by an apostle, but instead by a disciple of one of the apostles. Mark was Peter’s companion in Rome. The composition of Mark's Gospel could be placed after Peter's death, i.e. at between 65 and 70 A.D. Later Gospel authors would probably have used Mark’s account as a reference.
The Gospel of Luke probably dates around 80-90 A.D. Luke is thought to have been a cultivated man, a physician, and a companion to the Apostle Paul. His narrative portrays facts using the accounts and information of eyewitnesses.
The Gospel of John is quite different from the other Gospel account in how it was written. It is thought to be written last of the four, near the end of the Apostle John’s life. It was probably written around the end of the first century A.D. approximately sixty years after Jesus death and resurrection.
Next time we will begin to explore the blending of these four accounts as we search for key lessons from Jesus’ adult life and ministry.
Blessings,
Larry
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