July 1: The Gospels

25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. John 21:25 TNIV

It may seem very straightforward to understand and interpret the Gospels, but we need to recognize the richness we have in the Gospels’ telling of the story of Jesus, and that in each gospel the interest in Jesus is on two levels:

• Historical concern: This is who he was, this is what he said and did, and that this Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, is our Lord and Savior

• Existential concern: Telling this story for later communities that did not speak Aramaic, but Greek, and did not live in rural, Jewish settings but lived in Gentile, urban environments.

Today we want to talk a bit about the nature of the Gospels, particularly thinking about the context of the Gospel writers, the evangelists who are telling the story – Who were their audiences? What were their purposes? How do they tell the story of Jesus?

The material in the Gospels may be divided roughly into sayings and narratives – the sayings of Jesus and stories about Jesus. Beyond that we can make two other obvious observations: Jesus did not write the Gospels, and there are four of them.

Jesus did not write the Gospels

• Had he written something, it might be like the Old Testament prophetic books (Amos, for example) – a collection of sayings, oracles, and a few personal narratives

• Our Gospels do contain collections of sayings, but these are always woven as an integral part into historical narratives of Jesus’ life and ministry

Why? What are the implications?

• God gave us what we know about Jesus’ earthly ministry this way, and not in some other way that might better suit a mechanistic, tape-recorder mentality
• Not a license to play fast and loose with the teachings of Jesus – but requires some thoughtful thinking about

o Context/audience

o Combination of words and deeds

o Purpose of narrative – role of the characters and the movements within the story

There are four Gospels

• Material in three of them is so often alike we call them the Synoptic (“seeing together” or “common-view”) Gospels

• Might wonder why retain Mark at all, as the amount of material found exclusively in his gospel would scarcely fill two pages of print

• Mathematical analysis indicates 91% of Mark’s gospel is found in Matthew, while 53% of Mark is found in Luke.

So – Why do we have four of them?

• At least one of the reasons is a very simple and pragmatic one: different Christian communities each had a need for a book about Jesus

• For a variety of reasons the gospel written for one community or group of believers did not necessarily meet all the needs in another community

So one was written first – Mark (in the generally accepted view), and that gospel was rewritten twice (Matthew and Luke) for considerably different reasons to meet considerably different needs. John wrote a gospel independent of these three (in the generally accepted view) of a different kind and for still another set of reasons.

All of this is orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. For the later church none of the gospels supersedes the others, and each stands beside the others as equally valuable and equally authoritative.

Note the similarities across Matthew, Mark, and Luke – the Synoptic Gospels. These agree extensively in language, material, general sequence of events and sayings. We won’t go into all the detail about different thoughts on sources of this agreement, beyond the generally accepted views that:

• Mark, and another source (“Q” from the German Quelle, or “source”) were used by Matthew and Luke as sources for most of the materials included in their gospels

• Other sources include oral tradition, written fragments, the testimony of eyewitnesses

Mark - Composed around A.D. 6

• Recipients: church at Rome, Gentile readers
• Mark explains Jewish customs, translates Aramaic words, but most importantly has a special interest in persecution and martyrdom – subjects of special concern to Roman believer
• Occasion/purpose: the persecutions of the Roman church in 64-67
• Characteristics/tone: simple, succinct, unadorned but vivid account, more of what Jesus did than what he said

• Emphases/priorities include presentation of Jesus as the Messiah, from the beginning to the end - Jesus is the kingly Messiah – the Son of God

• 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

• 15:39 “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’”

• But this Messiahship is different from expectations - Jesus is God’s suffering servant (profound connection to the story of Israel, especially Isaiah) Echoes Isaiah in many ways – Jesus’ ministry is expressed in the language of Isaiah 53 (Mark 10:45)

• Jesus keeps his identity secret (The Messianic secret) - On several occasions Jesus warns the person for whom he’s worked a miracle to keep silent about who he is and what he’s done, and he even cautions his disciples at times not to reveal his true identity, lest messianic fervor thwart the divine plan that leads to the cross –Read 8:27-30

• Jesus begins to teach them about his messiahship and their/our discipleship.

• First instructions on discipleship, which calls for cross-bearing, appear only after the first disclosure of Jesus’ own death - Read 8:31 – 37

• Jesus continues teaching his disciples in this context- Read 10:42-45

Matthew – Composed in 70’s or 80’s

Recipients: Greek-speaking Jews

• Concerns with fulfillment of Old Testament, with more Old Testament quotes than any other New Testament writer, traces Jesus’ descent from Abraham, uses of Jewish terminology (but doesn’t explain it as in Mark), emphasizes Jesus’ role as “son of David”
• Doesn’t restrict the Gospel to the Jews – gives a full statement of the Great Commission

• Occasion/purpose: Main purpose is to prove to Jewish readers that Jesus is the Messiah

• Characteristics/tone: an artistic touch, woven around five great discourses, each with the concluding refrain “When Jesus had finished saying these things . . .” or similar words.

• Chapters 5-7 Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes
• Chapter 10 Instructions to the disciples
• Chapter 13 Parables on the kingdom
• Chapter 18 More kingdom parables
• Chapter 24-25 Signs, parables of the coming kingdom

• Emphases/priorities - Connecting Jesus to the story of Israel, but clearly making a contrast and a break with the mindset of the Pharisees and teachers of the law while showing a clear concern for the mission to the Gentiles

• Written at a time when the church and synagogue were now separated and were in conflict over who is in the true succession of the OT promises

• Matthew addresses this issue by telling the story of Jesus who fulfills every kind of Jewish messianic hope and expectation

• Born as “king of the Jews,” at his birth, baptism, and transfiguration he is signaled as God’s Son, he dies as “king of the Jews,” recognized as Isaiah’s “suffering servant”

• Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and Prophets, but to fulfill them, to bring the new righteousness of God’s kingdom that goes infinitely beyond the teachings of the Pharisees – Read 5:17-20 (Note the following examples where Jesus goes beyond Pharisaical externalism)

• Presented as the true interpreter of the law, especially against the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They have turned the law into a yoke and a burden. Jesus as Son knows and reveals the Father, and offers an easy yoke and a light burden – Read 11:25-30.

• Jesus’ “law” is mercy and grace, and those who experience such mercy are expected to be merciful in return

Luke – the story of Jesus as part 1 of Luke-Acts. Date is uncertain, most likely sometime in the 70’s

• How the good news of God’s salvation for all began, through the power of the Spirit, with Jesus in Galilee
• How the good news of God’s salvation through Jesus was, by the power of the Spirit, carried by the apostles from Jerusalem to Rome

• Recipients: Theophilus is otherwise unknown, likely the patron of Luke-Acts, underwriting its publication. Implied readers are Gentile Christians, whose place in God’s story is insured through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit

• Occasion/purpose: Strengthen the faith of all believers and answer the attacks of unbelievers, to displace disconnected and ill-founded reports about Jesus. Luke wanted to show that the place of the Gentile Christian in God’s kingdom is based on the teaching of Jesus.

• Characteristics/tone: Wonderful use of language, extensive and rich vocabulary

• Emphases/priorities

• God’s Messiah has come to his people, with the promised inclusion of the Gentiles – universality

• Luke – vertical, every strata of society within Israel

• Acts – horizontal, extending from Israel to other societies

• Jesus came to save the lost, including every kind of marginalized person whom traditional religion would put outside the boundaries – sinners, women, poor

• Jesus’ ministry is carried out under the power of the Holy Spirit

• Read 4: 14 - 19

John – date is probably around A.D. 90-95

• Recipients: Christian community or communities well-known to the author

• Occasion/purpose: Some see John as an effort to set forth a version of the Christian message that would appeal to Greek thinkers, others as a supplement to the Synoptic Gospels to address some specific forms of heresy

But the writer himself states his main purpose very clearly in 20:31:

³¹But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Primary intent is thus evangelistic, also possible to understand “may believe” in the sense of “may continue to believe,” in which case the purpose would be to build up believers as well as new converts.

Tells Jesus’ story from the perspective of what he’d come to know about him after the light had dawned (brought about by Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Spirit)

John’s interest is also shaped by false prophets who are denying the Incarnation and the saving significance of Jesus’ death, and who are marked by a failure to love others.

• Many differences from Synoptic Gospels. Not only is the basic scene of Jesus’ ministry different (Jerusalem vs. Galilee), but the whole ministry looks quite different:

• No messianic secret – Jesus is confessed as Messiah from the start
• No parables – but rich use of symbolic language
• No driving out of demons
• No narratives of the testing in the desert, the Transfiguration, or the Lord’s Supper

• Focus is much more on Jesus himself, rather than the kingdom of God

• Characteristics/tone: Complex - John’s narratives often evolve into discourses, and at times you can’t tell where Jesus stops talking and where John himself is interpreting (a real challenge for red-letter Bible editions). Also uses many words with double meanings, many Old Testament allusions.

• Broadest biblical framework for the story of Jesus, going back to creation. Opens with a poetic prologue and then weaves theology and history together - Read 1:1-18

• John’s emphases/priorities

• Jesus is the Son of God

• Demonstrates that Jesus is deeply rooted in history as the Jewish Messiah, which is explicitly expressed by the disciples and confirmed by Jesus (for example to the Samaritan woman in 4:25-26)

• John sets the entire story in the context of Jesus’ being the fulfillment of Jewish messianic hopes associated with various aspects of the festival celebrations – often hidden to us but known to his readers.

• Example: at the Feast of the Tabernacles there was a special water pouring rite in the temple. This rite was related first to the giving of water from the rock in the desert (Exodus 17:1-7), and it came to be interpreted in a messianic way as pointing to the giving of the Spirit by the Messiah.

• It is on the “greatest day” of this feast that Jesus cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” which John then interprets in light of the gift of the Spirit. Read 7:37-39

If the Synoptic Gospels care about Jesus’ place in the history of Israel and beyond, John cares about Jesus’ place in the whole scheme of things – from creation to redemption and beyond.

Hopefully this overview of the nature of the Gospels and their different emphases helps us:

• Appreciate the Holy Spirit’s role both within Jesus’ ministry and in the telling of his story

• Identify with the writers and the recipients – thinking through how the story is told “then/there” helps us find meaning for “here/now.”

Our closing reading:

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled ^[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke 1:1-4 TNIV

Next week: The Prophets