Survey of the Synoptic Gospels

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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September 17, 2020

00:00: Tonight we are going to be doing our survey of the Synoptic Gospels.
00:05: Now before we begin, I have a statement to make.
00:09: I was told that last week's pop quiz was a little unfair, that one of the questions was improperly worded, or at least unfairly worded.
00:22: So I want to provide a response.
00:25: I didn't write the test.
00:29: But I also want to say this.
00:31: For those of you who mentioned it to me, the question about the Trinity is not a trick question, but it was a question that could go either way.
00:43: Because yes, the doctrine of the Trinity is derived from the Bible.
00:48: The question though about is the doctrine of the Trinity of the Bible, as stated, God is one in essence, three in person, and these three are co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct.
00:57: That statement is not in the Bible.
00:59: Those three statements are derived from the Bible.
01:02: And so that's what I meant when I said the doctrine itself is not stated in the Bible.
01:07: I wasn't saying the doctrine of the Trinity is not biblical.
01:09: It certainly is biblical.
01:11: I have committed my life to Trinitarian Christianity.
01:17: That is what I believe is true.
01:18: And so I certainly would not deny that the Trinity is biblical.
01:23: I spent this morning at Set Free.
01:26: I'm doing a series on theology.
01:29: And I spent my whole hour there this morning teaching the doctrine of the Trinity, defining it and defending it.
01:34: So just in case there was any confusion as to that question on last week's pop quiz, I wanted to clarify.
01:43: All right, continuing.
01:44: Tonight we are going to be looking at a survey of the synoptic gospels.
01:50: And what that means is that we're going to be looking at Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
01:57: That is what is called the synoptic gospels.
02:02: Now the word synoptic is, it means to be viewed together.
02:14: The prefix syn typically means together and optic to see.
02:19: So the idea of synoptic means that they are viewed together.
02:24: And it does not take much examination to realize that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very, very similar.
02:32: If you have not read them all, I do hope that you have.
02:38: But if you've never read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I would encourage that you do so.
02:43: And the next time that you are reading through the three gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I want you to recognize some of their similarities.
02:53: For instance, their structure.
02:55: They follow Jesus' ministry according to a general geographic sequence.
02:59: They all begin in Galilee.
03:01: They withdraw to the north, to Judea, Perea, and Jerusalem.
03:06: And John's ministry or John's gospel is different.
03:10: And that is why we refer to John as the autopic gospel.
03:16: And that's what we're going to focus on next week.
03:19: The autopic gospel is John's gospel.
03:23: And the structure of John is much different.
03:26: Likewise, the content.
03:28: The first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tend to focus on the same events.
03:34: The parables, the healings, and the interaction with demons.
03:37: John does not recount many of those events at all.
03:42: And the tone of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all similar.
03:46: They all convey a tone of intense action with Jesus constantly traveling, constantly performing miracles, constantly teaching.
03:53: John is much more meditative, recounts fewer events, and longer discourses.
03:58: The longest discourses that we have of Christ outside of the Sermon on the Mount, which is three chapters of Matthew, but typically the longest discourses that we have of Jesus teaching are in the gospel of John.
04:11: John gives us much longer and broader examples of Jesus' teaching and prayers.
04:16: So it's apparent that John is the outlier.
04:20: He provides a distinct picture from the rest.
04:23: And that's why he's called the autopic, which means viewed by itself.
04:27: So the synoptic means to be viewed together.
04:31: Autopic means to be viewed by itself.
04:34: And that's why we're going to spend all next week in John's Gospel.
04:38: We're going to take a whole lesson.
04:41: So next week is a survey of John's Gospel.
04:44: But tonight we're going to be surveying Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
04:49: And we're going to look at four major headings.
04:53: And these are in your syllabus, so if you have your syllabus, you'll see these headings.
04:57: One is the Synoptic Problem.
05:01: Two is Authorship and Purpose.
05:05: Three is Theological Insights.
05:09: And four is Harmonization.
05:11: That's the four-part outline for tonight's lesson.
05:16: Now, if you did bring your book, which I said you don't have to bring this to class, but if you did bring your book, turn it to page 1106.
05:38: How many of you did the reading? Okay.
05:42: I won't ask how many didn't, because your hands didn't go up if you didn't.
05:47: Well, the reading for this week was important because it addressed the basis of what is known as the Synoptic Problem.
05:56: And that is where we're going to begin our lesson tonight, is with the Synoptic Problem.
06:00: So on page 1107, actually I said 1106, actually 1107, we read this in our commentary.
06:09: Why there are so many similarities, even to almost identical wording of relatively long passages, and yet also so many differences among the first three Gospels, is usually called the Synoptic Problem.
06:28: It is much more of a problem for those who deny inspiration than for conservative Christians.
06:35: Many complex theories have been formulated, often involving theoretical lost documents that have left no trace in manuscript form.
06:43: Some of these ideas fit in with Luke 1.1 and are at least possible from an Orthodox standpoint.
06:49: However, some of these theories have reached the point where they assert that the first century church pieced together myths about Jesus Christ.
07:00: Alright, that's all we're going to read from the book.
07:01: I just wanted to remind you, if you did read it or point out if you haven't, that the book does address our first topic of the evening, and that is the topic of the Synoptic Problem.
07:11: The topic of the Synoptic Problem is basically this.
07:15: The Gospels have certain places where they are absolutely the same.
07:21: Where it's almost as if you can imagine, if you were a teacher, and you had three young students in your class, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and those three students turned in a paper called the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke, and you were reading their paper, you would assume at certain points that one of them was looking over the shoulders of the other.
07:44: Because there are certain points where the wording is so similar, and sometimes exact, that you would say that they would have to be some either interdependence or collusion.
07:59: You know, again, if you were a teacher, if you all handed papers in to me, and I got a paper from Jackie and a paper from Cindy, and both of them had the exact same wording at the exact same points, I would assume one of two things.
08:12: Either Jackie and Cindy colluded with one another, and not very well, because they didn't think to change the wording, or they copied both from the same source.
08:25: If they both had the exact same wording, I would assume they either looked at one another's papers, or that they were both looking at the same third paper that I would not have, the third source.
08:38: So does that bring it sort of to a modern context of what we mean when we say the synoptic problem? And the reason why this is a problem, and why it's usually identified as the synoptic problem, is because unbelieving scholars, and I don't know a better way to say that, maybe I should try to be more genteel, more skeptical scholars, use the synoptic problem as a way to say that these documents do not bear the evidence of inspiration, but rather the evidence of collusion, or the evidence of interdependence.
09:22: So they didn't come from God, they came from each other.
09:27: Yes? So basically what you're saying is the issue is that they're too much alike, and that's why unbelieving, would you call them, what was the nice word? I would say, yeah, I said, well, what did I say? Skeptics.
09:41: I said skeptical scholars.
09:43: Skeptical scholars is because they're too much alike.
09:47: Yes, there's certain points that read word for word verbatim, and you would think that that would not be the case unless they were looking at one another, or they were looking at a similar original, a similar source.
10:03: So wouldn't somebody who is not a skeptic, you know, somebody who is in Christ, would see that completely opposite, right? As just confirmation that it did happen? The confirmation of what? What are we confirming? Three collaborating stories.
10:20: Yeah, exactly.
10:20: Yeah, but even if you have three collaborating stories, why is it that they're using the exact same language at the exact same place? They're writing together.
10:31: The Holy Spirit, I don't know.
10:32: Okay, we can make the argument that it's the Holy Spirit.
10:35: You're saying they're writing together, though, so that they are writing together.
10:38: So you would accept collusion.
10:41: Well, I mean.
10:42: And I'm not arguing, I'm just challenging.
10:44: Yeah, no, and I mean, and that's not necessarily like what I'm saying.
10:47: I'm just, I mean, that's just the first thing that came to my mind.
10:50: Yeah, yeah.
10:51: So here's where it becomes a real issue.
10:54: The Gospels were not written right after Jesus died and was resurrected.
10:58: The Gospels were written many years later.
11:02: And so we have Jesus dying somewhere around the year 30, and the first Gospel being written somewhere in the mid to late 50s, or even into the 60s, right? So how many years is that? At least 20 to 30 years between Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and the Gospel writers writing their Gospels.
11:27: And so what a skeptical, and remember, I am a believer, but I'm challenging you from the perspective of the skeptic.
11:35: Because if all we ever do is listen to one another, we'll never learn.
11:39: And we'll never be challenged.
11:41: So we listen and we evaluate the argument of the skeptic.
11:44: And one of the things that the skeptics say is that what happened in the early church was there was a lot of Jesus stories that were being passed around.
11:52: There was a lot of verbal tradition that was going from church to church and from town to town.
11:58: And there was no written manuscripts of anything Jesus had said.
12:03: And so therefore there were these traditional stories that got passed down.
12:07: And that those were the things that got added into the Gospels.
12:10: And that's where we see the similarities between Matthew, Mark, and Luke because they've all heard the same stories the same way.
12:18: And so the source doesn't necessarily need to be a written source, but the source could be a singular traditional tale where they have all told it the same way.
12:29: Yes, sir, you have your hand up.
12:30: Do you say the skeptics are disbelieving? Not so much because the argument of collusion is not necessarily that they did it at the same time, but that they are drawing from one another.
12:54: So, for instance, the traditional skeptical or higher critical argument is that Mark wrote his Gospel first, Matthew later wrote using Mark's Gospel as his primary source, and that there was another source typically referred to as Q, which comes from Quell, which is a German word which means source.
13:16: So Q just means the source document.
13:18: And so the argument is that there was another document that we no longer have.
13:22: Q becomes the source of Luke along with Matthew and Mark.
13:27: So that is why Luke has readings that are from Matthew, and Luke has readings that are from Mark, and Luke has readings that are independent of both Matthew and Mark.
13:36: And so where did those come from? Those came from Q, and that's the argument.
13:41: I'm not saying that's what happened.
13:42: I'm saying this is the...
13:43: So it's still collusion, but it's not like the three of them got together in a dark room and wrote their Gospels.
13:48: Because here's the thing.
13:49: Nobody believes that, and you know why nobody believes that? Because they're so different.
13:54: See, the problem with the synoptic problem is they're so similar in some places, and then they're absolutely different in other places.
14:03: And therefore, the synoptic problem compounds itself because there's no way that all three of them got together in a room and said, Okay, let's all get this together.
14:10: Because had they done that, there were some places that they would have corrected, or at least in our minds, they would have had to have corrected some things because we're going to look at some places tonight, later, where Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to be at odds with one another.
14:25: Now, I don't believe they are, and I do believe, ultimately, Miss Cindy, that it is the Holy Spirit who's guiding this process.
14:29: But the point is, there are some places where Matthew tells the story in a much different way than Mark and Luke, and to the point where someone would say, If they were colluding with one another, why did this happen? If they were drawing from one another, why is this so different than that? Yes, but if they were trying to make it the same, then that wouldn't have happened.
14:58: If the argument of collusion is true, then you wouldn't see all the differences.
15:04: So that's where we begin to challenge the skeptics and say, Okay, yes, there are some places where it seems as if they're all drawing from the same either verbal tradition or some kind of extra-biblical source, or maybe they are all being guided by the Spirit, and that's why they all say the exact same thing in the same way.
15:23: But there are places where there are divergences.
15:26: Several stories, such as the story of the demoniac.
15:31: In one gospel, it says there was one.
15:33: In another gospel, there was two.
15:35: You would think if they were in a dark room somewhere making their story straight, somebody would have said, Hey, we need to make this story straight.
15:42: We need to solve this issue.
15:45: But they didn't do that.
15:46: Yes? Yes, exactly.
15:52: That's another good example.
15:56: One doesn't mention the cult.
15:57: One only mentions the donkey.
15:59: And we're going to talk about why that is in a moment.
16:02: When we get to the idea of harmonization, we're going to talk about why certain gospel writers focus on certain aspects to the exclusion of other things.
16:14: Matthew particularly does something called telescoping, which is where you take a story and you tell only the parts that matter.
16:25: For instance, today I got up and I went to set free, and I preached a lesson on the doctrine of the Trinity, and then my son and I went to lunch at Bono's.
16:42: Is that true? Yes, it is.
16:47: Well, there's also another part I didn't say.
16:53: My brother Bobby went to lunch with us too.
16:55: But I didn't mention that because it wasn't important.
16:59: No offense.
17:01: No, but you understand, nothing I said was untrue.
17:04: I simply telescoped the story to focus on the part that mattered to me.
17:09: My son was there.
17:11: So it's different writers.
17:14: It's still perspective.
17:15: It goes back to what you said.
17:17: But my perspective is going to be different than yours.
17:19: I'm going to write something different than you're going to write.
17:22: So basically what you said, so one mentioned the donkey, or they both mentioned the donkey, and you said a colt.
17:30: So the colt wasn't important to them.
17:33: Well, it wasn't the focus of the writer who's making that point.
17:40: That's the key.
17:42: The ones that I'm going to show you later, I think they'll really surprise you.
17:47: Because there are some places where you go, wow, I can't believe you didn't mention that.
17:52: But the way that I just explained it helps you understand how storytelling works.
17:59: Sometimes storytelling is dependent on the person telling the story and what the focus is.
18:04: Because every personality is not alike.
18:06: Yes, and God does use the personality of the writers.
18:10: This is huge.
18:10: When we get to Paul, you're going to find out that Paul's writings not only are different than John's writings, but they're also different than Paul's writings.
18:22: Paul's early writings are much different than his later writings.
18:28: His use of grammar and syntax changes over time.
18:33: Did it get better or worse? Well, it just changed.
18:38: Use of language, use of certain words that we don't find in early Pauline literature comes into play in later Pauline literature.
18:45: Paul was the best at creating words.
18:48: He made up words.
18:50: Theopneustos is a word that is not found outside the Bible.
18:52: It's only made up.
18:53: It's only used by Paul.
18:55: We know what it means because it's a contraction of two different words, theos and pneumos, but no one else ever used it.
19:00: It's a specific Pauline word.
19:04: Sir, you had your hand.
19:04: I'm sorry.
19:05: Yeah, what about in the parts where to me it would be an important part, but not in all three, especially in Mark.
19:13: Mark, to me, it's kind of, Mark uses language, especially in the Great Commission, where he's saying that Jesus is saying he includes in there that they would be able to pick up serpents and drink poison and not be hurt.
19:28: Those aren't found in the other Gospels at all.
19:30: That's true, and I would argue it's not in Mark either.
19:32: I believe the latter part of Mark that you're referring to is not part of Mark's original, but that's a conversation for another time, but I am going to mention that later when we get to Mark's Gospel.
19:41: But, in that regard, if it is part of the original Mark, which it could be, I just don't think it is, if that is part of the original Mark, you're right.
19:48: It does make certain points that no other Gospel writer makes.
19:53: Right? It talks about the picking up of the serpent.
19:55: It talks about speaking in other tongues.
19:57: It makes certain statements that are not mentioned being baptized.
20:01: He who believes and is baptized will be saved.
20:03: That's in Mark 16, 16.
20:04: So, we have certain things that are said in Mark's Gospel that aren't said in any of the other Gospels in regard to the Great Commission.
20:12: So, you are right.
20:13: I just don't...
20:14: I think that Mark's Gospel ends at chapter 16, verse 8.
20:17: I think the latter part was a later scribal edition, and that gets into the concept of textual criticism.
20:26: I don't...
20:27: Just know this.
20:29: When we talk about textual criticism, that's going down a road that would take us longer than I have time to explain right now.
20:33: But it is an important thing.
20:36: But when we come to the synoptics, again, there are times when it says the same thing.
20:41: There are times when it says different things.
20:43: I remember years ago, I was teaching on Lord's Day morning, Resurrection Sunday.
20:49: It was Easter.
20:51: People call it Easter Sunday.
20:52: Resurrection Sunday morning, I was teaching a Sunday school class, and we had guests come in.
20:58: And because I don't have a mind of let's just do a fun lesson, I always do lessons that tend to be not fun and sometimes rather difficult.
21:10: And so on Easter Sunday morning, I decided to do a survey of the four Gospels and the resurrection narrative from all four Gospels.
21:20: And so we read all four resurrection narratives.
21:22: We wrote.
21:23: We had it on the board.
21:24: I had all four.
21:25: And this one has two angels, and this one has one angel, and this one doesn't mention, this one doesn't mention the gardener.
21:33: This one mentions the gardener.
21:34: You know, I went through all of it.
21:37: Forty-five minutes, not long, but I did the best I could in 45 minutes.
21:40: As we were leaving, one of the guests came up, and he said, he just like stunned.
21:47: He said, I didn't know that.
21:50: I didn't know there were four different resurrection narratives.
21:54: And I said, I don't know how you could not know that.
21:56: You ever read your Bible? I didn't say it that way.
21:59: But in my mind, I'm thinking, how do you not know this? Because if we've read it, we should have picked up on these things, and we should know these things.
22:09: Now, again, I didn't say that in that way.
22:11: I said, oh, I'm glad it was helpful to you.
22:13: But in my mind, I'm thinking, how do you not know? This is all part of what a survey does.
22:19: Because if we were doing the Gospel of Matthew verse by verse, we would be down in the weeds.
22:23: But right now, we're up on top of the tower looking out, and we're saying, oh, this part over here and this part over here, how do they fit together? That's the value of the survey and being able to do this.
22:37: And when we read the Gospel side by side, many questions require deeper study.
22:43: And so there are two basic theories.
22:45: One is common source theory.
22:47: The other is interdependence theory, if you want to write those down.
22:50: Common source theory is that all three synoptics are dependent upon a common source.
22:59: Interdependence theory is that two of the Gospel writers used the other Gospel writer as their primary source.
23:10: It's that all three Gospels are dependent upon a common source, whether it's oral tradition or a written document that we no longer have.
23:24: Common source theory basically says there was a source that all three of them drew from, and that's why we have the similarities.
23:30: Would that be the Holy Spirit? From the perspective of, for our purposes, I would say it could be.
23:42: I think that it is certainly not beyond reason to say that the Holy Spirit was working in this.
23:53: But I'm going to give you my explanation, and I think maybe, and when I say less mystical, I don't mean that we shouldn't be supernaturalists and we shouldn't think in a supernatural way, but I do think there is a simpler way of looking at it.
24:05: Okay, I think, and when I say simpler, Cindy, you're going to throw something at me.
24:10: I'm not denying the work of the Holy Spirit, but please don't think that.
24:16: But I am going to say that I think that the Holy Spirit used a process, and so I would fall more on the interdependence theory, which is the second one.
24:24: The interdependence theory is that the Gospel writers did, in fact, draw from one another.
24:32: And I'll explain my reasoning.
24:35: Brother, you had your hand up before I go into it.
24:36: I just wanted to know the second one again.
24:38: Yeah, interdependence theory is that two of the Gospel writers specifically drew from at least one other.
24:45: And here's my reasoning.
24:47: Everybody turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 1.
24:52: Didn't bring your Bible? That's okay.
24:55: Don't worry about it.
24:56: If you don't have it, I'll read it to you.
24:59: Luke chapter 1.
25:02: By the way, Luke, when we finally get to Luke tonight, Luke is my favorite Gospel.
25:08: It's the book that I first preached verse by verse all the way through when I first started preaching, and it was what I wrote my doctoral dissertation on.
25:18: So I spent more time with Dr.
25:19: Luke than I have with anyone else in Scripture, probably even the Apostle Paul.
25:25: So Dr.
25:26: Luke says this in his opening.
25:29: Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
25:53: So what does Luke tell us? One, he tells us that other people have written about this.
26:00: Inasmuch as others have taken to compile a narrative, which tells us, number one, there's narratives that are already written and he knows of them.
26:11: And, he says, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers who have delivered them to us, which tells us that there is an oral tradition that is happening, and that there is a certain understanding among Christians.
26:26: Because remember, the church existed for 30 years without a Bible, without a New Testament, and yet they were still proclaiming Christ.
26:34: So there is an oral tradition that's happening.
26:37: There is a reality of things that are happening in the early church that we can't discount and say, well, nobody talked about Jesus until somebody wrote a gospel.
26:48: No, we can't think that way, right? And so Luke tells us from the outset that he is seeking to write an orderly account for this person, Theophilus.
26:57: We don't know who Theophilus is, but the word means lover of God.
27:02: Theophilos is the word.
27:04: Theophilos is love.
27:05: Theos is God.
27:06: So Theophilus could mean a person named Theophilus, or it could mean, for the church, those who love God.
27:14: So Theophilus can be referencing the brethren, right? And so when he says, I'm writing to you, excellent Theophilus, and when he says excellent, it kind of makes me think it probably is an individual, because probably a person of nobility, probably someone who has some position, and he's writing this for his, and it's the same person he writes Acts to as well by.
27:38: But remember that Acts is written by Luke, and it's to Theophilus.
27:43: Same beginning.
27:46: So both of these books are given to the same audience.
27:50: And he makes the point.
27:53: Other people have written about it, and I'm compiling this, which means all of the information he's getting is not coming from him.
28:03: He's getting information from other people.
28:08: He is a historian.
28:11: In fact, I would say Luke is a historian of the highest rank, and we're going to talk about that when we look at Luke in a few minutes.
28:17: Luke is a historian of the highest rank.
28:19: His Gospel is the longest book in the New Testament, and it's the most thoroughly historic book in the New Testament.
28:28: So, that being said, am I denying that the Holy Spirit oversaw what Luke was doing, and that the Holy Spirit was inspiring what was being written? No, I believe that with all my heart and soul.
28:40: But Luke tells us there was a process here.
28:42: Luke tells us there was a way that he did it, and part of the way that he did it was that he was actually bringing this compilation together based on eyewitnesses, based on people who'd seen it.
28:55: Luke was not an eyewitness.
28:56: Luke is a Gentile, most likely.
28:58: Luke is an associate of the Apostle Paul, so some of this he's getting from Paul.
29:03: But Paul wasn't an eyewitness to Jesus, at least that we know of, right? Paul doesn't come on the scene until after Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, but he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, so Paul is a person who saw Jesus, but not in the ministry.
29:20: So Luke gives us an insight into how his Gospel's put together.
29:24: So we know one thing.
29:26: Of the Synoptic Gospels, it's very likely Luke is last, because he's talked about other writers, and my assumption is that's Matthew and Mark.
29:36: And he has stuff in his writings that aren't in the other ones, correct? Yes, he has a lot, because his is long.
29:42: Well, it's much longer than Luke, and different than Matthew, as far as his content is different.
29:51: So Luke comes along, and we see he's saying, essentially, I'm third in line.
29:56: We know John comes later.
29:57: When we do the survey of John, we'll find out John writes after Luke.
30:02: So the question becomes, who is first man at bat? Was it Mark, or was it Matthew? And honestly, I could go either way.
30:17: In your notes, I put that Mark came first, but I would be just as happy to say Matthew came first.
30:24: I think the traditional ordering of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tells us something about the historical understanding of who came first, that Matthew was the first Gospel.
30:35: Plus, Matthew serves as a bridge between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
30:42: Matthew has more references to Jesus as the king of the Jews and fulfilling the prophecy that the Jewish people were given.
30:51: There's more of that in Matthew than any of the other Gospels.
30:54: And so Matthew, I think, is my pick for the primary.
31:00: So we would say, Matthewian primacy or supremacy.
31:05: You have Matthew first.
31:08: And then the big question, though, and this is where the scholars would come at me, and they would say, well, why is Mark so much shorter and so much denser in certain places? If Mark is drawing from Matthew, why is there so many differences? And I don't have a good answer for that.
31:24: The argument among most scholars is Mark came first.
31:28: I tend to believe Matthew came first.
31:31: And I've given you my reasons as to why.
31:35: But ultimately, the thing that we need to remember is this.
31:39: The process through which the Gospels came into being was so complex that there is no one theory, however detailed the theory, that can really provide a complete explanation for everything that happened.
31:53: As believers in the Holy Spirit and believers in the inspiration of Scripture, we know that ultimately what was written and what was given was by God's Spirit, superintended by God's Spirit.
32:07: But what we do not believe in, remember this.
32:09: This is key.
32:10: And by the way, if you've never read this, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy explains what we mean when we say the Bible is inerrant.
32:19: That was a document that was put together by several scholars back in the 70s, Dr.
32:24: R.C.
32:24: Sproul, Dr.
32:25: Norman Geisler, Dr.
32:27: James Montgomery Boyce, and several others got together and they had a conference on what do we mean when we say the Bible is inerrant.
32:33: Because just like we were just talking about, there's a passage in Mark, I would say it's supposed to be there.
32:36: How can I say that and say the Bible's inerrant, right? So the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy deals with things like textual variation, deals with things like the historicity of the text, and deals with things like authorship.
32:48: None of the Gospels say who wrote them.
32:51: The closest one we have is John.
32:54: Right, because at the end of John it mentions the person who said these things or have written to you.
32:59: But none of the other, Matthew doesn't say it was written by Matthew.
33:02: You say, well my Bible does, it says according to Matthew.
33:04: No, it doesn't say it in the text.
33:09: It doesn't say it in, Mark doesn't say Mark wrote it.
33:12: Luke doesn't, these are the traditional authors ascribed to them.
33:15: In the first century, goes back as early as the first century, that this traditional authorship was ascribed to them.
33:23: But there is a certain level of trust that we're saying these, this is what God meant for us to have, and these are the things that God meant for us to have in this way.
33:33: And so, again, there is no complete explanation except to say this, where the Synoptic Gospels say the exact same thing in the exact same way, there is nothing that violates the doctrine of inspiration to say that they were all either using a same verbal or source of some kind, or that they were, that they had seen one another's writings.
34:03: There's nothing against inspiration that would, there's nothing that would deny inspiration by that.
34:08: And I'll give you an example if you think about it this way.
34:14: When we look at the writings of Paul, and we look at the writings of Peter, and we see the writings of these men, and when Peter references Paul's writings as being Scripture, and we know that he does, he says that there are those who have misused the Scriptures, or misused Paul's writing as they do all the other Scriptures.
34:44: So Peter puts Paul's writing in the category of Scripture.
34:48: That means Peter has read Paul's writings.
34:51: Right? And therefore, we can see within the writings of Peter some connections to what Paul has written.
35:02: For instance, Paul wrote in Romans 13 about submission to governing authorities, and there's a very similar statement in 1 Peter about submission to governing authorities.
35:15: Is there a chance that Paul and Peter were up one night when they were in Antioch together, and they were talking about the persecutions that they were dealing with? Was there a chance that those two men had a conversation about how the church should respond to the government? I mean, I'm asking.
35:37: Certainly.
35:38: Right? And is there a chance that they both understood the importance of telling the church how to behave under governing authority? And you say, well, now you're saying the Holy Spirit's not involved.
35:51: No, I'm saying the Holy Spirit's involved in all this! I'm not denying the persistent input of the Holy Spirit of God, but remember what the Holy Spirit of God does in inspiration.
36:04: The language that is often used, but often misunderstood, the Holy Spirit superintends the writing of Scripture.
36:14: He does not create a first century fax machine where Paul sits down at his desk and he goes, and he looks down and the book of Ephesians is finished.
36:30: That's not how it happened.
36:33: They weren't first century fax machines receiving a message.
36:38: It's not how it worked.
36:40: Paul writes with a specific Pauline style that's much different than the style of Peter and much different.
36:53: John's Gospel, very simple Greek.
36:56: Hebrews, very high, difficult Greek.
37:00: Much higher and more difficult than John's use of the language.
37:05: I believe Hebrews is written by Luke, by the way.
37:07: We'll talk about that when we get to Hebrews.
37:09: I believe Hebrews is a sermon preached by Paul and written down by Luke.
37:14: Because the language is Pauline, but the writing is Lukean.
37:20: So, that's how we know, what does Peter tell us? That no one should think that the Scripture came by someone's own interpretation, but holy men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
37:38: So, as Luke is compiling his Gospel, he's being carried along by the Holy Spirit.
37:44: As he's writing, he's being carried along, he's being kept in the truth, kept from error.
37:51: Now, some people might want to argue and they say, well, I just don't like the idea that Luke may have seen Matthew's Gospel.
37:56: Okay, if you don't like the idea, that's fine.
37:59: I just don't have a problem with it.
38:01: Huh? I don't have a problem with the fact that Luke may have seen Matthew and Mark.
38:06: Because I do think they predated Luke's Gospel.
38:09: Now, I don't know who came first, as already said.
38:13: But I think that that alleviates the issue of the problem when people start claiming collusion.
38:19: It's not collusion.
38:20: It's not the same as we're trying to get in a room and secretly not let anybody know.
38:25: Luke says it in his first chapter, first verse.
38:28: I gathered information to do this.
38:30: I researched.
38:33: I did this.
38:35: So, it's not a secret.
38:35: All right, somebody had their hand up.
38:39: Yes, Mark.
38:41: I'll testify really quick.
38:48: At Set Free, we have a tremendous amount of teaching in a week's time.
38:52: We don't get together and script it.
38:55: We don't lay out a set of teachings that we go by.
39:00: But you will find in a month's time that the teachers who come in there they all collaborate.
39:08: They all collaborate in some way.
39:10: There's nothing we've done on our part.
39:13: Sure.
39:13: It just happens.
39:14: Yep.
39:15: And I want to highlight, too, that if it's possible for the Holy Spirit to help me on my walk daily, of course, it's going to be inspiration for the writers as well.
39:23: Because He works in my life every day.
39:25: Sure.
39:26: We would say, though, that the inspiration...
39:28: This is an important distinction.
39:31: The inspiration of the text is the text, not the person.
39:36: The writing is what is inspired.
39:38: What? It stopped.
39:40: Thank you so much.
39:41: You're welcome.
39:46: So the only difference is, it's the same inspiration just written by a different person.
39:50: Is that one still recording? That was good.
39:51: Yeah.
39:52: All right.
39:52: Well, I'm going to reset this because I don't know what has happened.
39:57: It froze.
40:01: Oh, goodness.
40:09: Maybe what I was saying was so bad, God didn't want anybody else to hear it.
40:16: I want to say this.
40:19: I hope that nothing I've said in the first few minutes during this issue of the synoptic problem, I hope this isn't causing consternation for you.
40:27: I'm just trying to remind you that when the secular scholars, when the skeptical scholars come against the Scripture, and they're bringing all these arguments, a lot of times, just like the commentary said, it's only a problem if you don't know the synoptic problem.
40:43: If you don't believe the Bible.
40:45: If you believe the Bible is true, and you believe it's from God, then there's answers to all of these questions, whether or not...
40:54: And it is possible, and I want to make sure I say this, it is possible that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were absolutely independent of one another, never saw each other, never saw what each other wrote, and they all wrote the exact same thing because they were under the inspiration of the Spirit.
41:06: I don't deny that that's possible.
41:08: I just don't think it's necessary.
41:10: That's all I'm saying.
41:11: I don't think that that is necessary because of what Luke says.
41:16: I searched it.
41:17: I researched it.
41:18: So, based on what he says, I think it's possible that he saw Mark and Matthew.
41:25: That's all I'm saying.
41:26: So, with that being said, the synoptic problem for me is not the problem that I think that a lot of people try to make it out to be, because what they're basically trying to argue is that these things aren't true because of collusion.
41:40: And I'm saying it's not collusion.
41:43: I don't think it's collusion.
41:44: Interdependence and collusion are not the same thing.
41:47: I'll give you a quick quote to finish up this part.
41:51: The synoptic problem is not a bigger problem as some try to make it out to be.
41:55: The explanation as to why the synoptic gospels are so similar is that they're all inspired by the same Holy Spirit and are all written by people who witness or were told about the same events.
42:04: The Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew the Apostle, one of the twelve who followed Jesus and was commissioned by him.
42:10: The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark, a close associate of the Apostle Peter, another one of the twelve.
42:15: And the Gospel of Luke was written by Luke, a close associate of the Apostle Paul.
42:19: Why would we not expect their accounts to be very similar? To one account, each of the gospels is ultimately inspired by the Holy Spirit.
42:26: Therefore, we should expect coherence and unity.
42:29: So that's what I said.
42:30: I don't have a problem with the fact that they may have seen one another, but ultimately it's the Holy Spirit who inspired what was the finished product.
42:37: He superintended the finished product.
42:39: And to add one other thought, there was an attempt early in the history of the church to gather the four gospels up and make one gospel.
42:52: If you read your commentary, it was mentioned, it's the Diatessaron.
42:56: And that's where they took...
42:57: The attempt was to try to collect all four of them, fix all the synoptic issues, and just make one big long book.
43:05: The Diatessaron.
43:06: The four in one.
43:08: But that never became accepted by the church because that's not how God gave it to us.
43:14: It was not received by the church because that's not how God gave us His Word.
43:19: He gave us four witnesses to the work of Jesus Christ.
43:24: Four witnesses, four distinct perspectives on the work of Jesus Christ.
43:31: And it's one gospel.
43:32: Remember that.
43:33: It is one gospel according to four perspectives.
43:41: That's why it's not called the gospel by Mark.
43:44: It's called the gospel according to Mark.
43:47: Same gospel as the gospel of John.
43:49: Same gospel as the gospel of Matthew.
43:52: But it's from the perspective of...
43:54: And remember this, because this may end up on a pop quiz later.
43:58: Mark writes from the perspective of Peter.
44:01: Historically.
44:02: And I'll explain why I say that.
44:04: But that's just a quick thing to put in your notes.
44:07: So, Mark is from the perspective of Peter.
44:11: And Luke would be from the perspective of Paul.
44:16: Alright.
44:17: So moving on.
44:20: Now we're going to look at authorship and purpose.
44:23: And I spent way too much time on the synoptic gospels.
44:26: I spent a lot more time on that than I meant to.
44:28: Or on the problem.
44:29: Synoptic problem.
44:30: But see, we get digging in.
44:32: And I love it when you guys start asking questions.
44:34: Because then I want to just roll up my sleeves and dig in.
44:37: So let's look now at authorship.
44:40: Some scholars argue that the gospels are anonymous.
44:42: And technically that is true.
44:44: Because none of them actually mention the author in the book.
44:47: The closest that we have is John.
44:48: I mentioned that already.
44:51: But, of the four writers, the traditional writers are Matthew the tax collector, John, who was the brother of James, sons of Thunder.
45:01: We know who he was.
45:03: The beloved disciple.
45:05: Luke, who was a physician, associate of Paul.
45:09: And Mark was the associate of all the apostles, but specifically Peter.
45:14: And here's where that comes from.
45:15: In 130, there was a man by the name of Papias.
45:19: He was the bishop of Hierapolis.
45:21: And he made three claims about the gospel of Mark.
45:25: Now remember, this would have been one generation removed from the death of the last apostle.
45:30: So this is very early in the history of the church.
45:33: And this is what Papias said about the gospel of Mark.
45:37: One, he said Mark wrote it.
45:40: John Mark.
45:41: The same John Mark we read about in Acts.
45:44: So that gives us weight to the tradition.
45:47: We have an extra source that's telling us who wrote it.
45:50: Two, that Mark wrote his gospel from Peter.
45:56: So again, coming back to the issue of the Holy Spirit of Inspiration.
45:59: Mark's getting his information from an eyewitness.
46:02: That doesn't make it any less inspired by God.
46:04: You understand? So Mark is writing from Peter's perspective.
46:09: And number three, Mark's gospel lacks rhetorical and artistic order reflecting the occasional nature of Peter's preaching.
46:18: The reason why Mark is structured the way it is is because it followed a pattern in Peter's preaching.
46:24: And this again gives weight to why we would say Peter is the source of Mark's gospel.
46:29: And it makes sense, because wouldn't you think the one apostle you hear the most about would have been a gospel writer? I mean, isn't Peter the one you hear the most about? It's always Peter, James, and John.
46:42: The inner circle of Jesus is twelve.
46:45: Wouldn't you imagine that Peter would have had a gospel? Yet you go Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
46:48: Where's Peter? Well, Peter is in Mark.
46:52: And so that's an important historical point.
46:59: And I'll mention something else.
47:01: This is later in my notes, but I'll go ahead and mention it now.
47:03: Remember the story of the cock crowing? Jesus said, before the cock crows...
47:13: Did you know Mark's gospel is the only one that mentions that the rooster would crow twice? None of the other gospels mention that? Ever wonder why Mark would include such a seemingly insignificant, yet important piece of information? Well, I think Peter remembered it very well.
47:35: And that's why Mark has that and no one else does.
47:38: Mark is telling the story of Peter, and Peter remembers that day better than anyone.
47:45: So he knew it was twice that the rooster would crow.
47:51: So it makes sense.
47:53: Alright, moving on to purpose.
47:55: There are three gospels that we're looking at, so we have to look at the three purposes.
48:00: And I'm going to quote to you from Introducing the New Testament by Moo and Carson.
48:04: So if you have this book, this is directly from the book.
48:08: Speaking of Matthew, Matthew did not directly state his purpose in writing, so all attempts at describing it are inferences drawn from his themes and from the way he treats certain topics as compared with the way other gospels treat certain topics.
48:26: Since Matthew's dominant themes are several and complex and to some extent disputed, it would be difficult to delineate a single narrow purpose.
48:35: But there are five things that we consider as all themes in Matthew.
48:41: Number one, Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jews.
48:45: And I would say that's the dominant theme in Matthew.
48:48: But that's one of five.
48:51: Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jews.
48:57: Number two would be the failure of the Jewish leaders.
49:05: Number three would be the dawning of the kingdom.
49:16: Number four is the messianic reign of Christ.
49:26: And number five is the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes.
49:34: So again, all of those are themes we find in Matthew, and they all relate, if you notice, they all relate in some way to the Old Covenant.
49:42: Jesus is the king of what? He's the king that would take David's throne.
49:47: He's the Messiah.
49:48: To who? To the Jews.
49:50: Matthew relates so much to the Old Covenant, and therefore we find in that the theme.
49:57: We can't say there's one specific theme, but all of those themes converge on one idea, and that is the bridge between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant in Christ.
50:08: Then we have Mark.
50:10: Mark's purpose, again, is hard to determine.
50:13: Since there's nothing explicitly stated, he doesn't say, my purpose is this.
50:16: What we're going to see next week with John's Gospel, he says it outright.
50:20: I've written these things so that you may believe in the Son of God.
50:22: I mean, his purpose is very simple.
50:24: John's Gospel is like a Gospel tract.
50:27: That's why some people give out just the Gospel of John rather than Gospel tracts.
50:31: A lot of people just give out the Gospel of John because these things have been written that you might believe in him.
50:37: John has a purpose, right? Mark and Matthew are not as specific to say, this is my purpose for writing.
50:44: So when we look at Mark, we say, what's the purpose of his writing? I would say the first thing, Mark focuses mostly on the passion narrative, Jesus as the suffering servant.
50:56: The passion narrative, and then I would just put comma, Jesus as the suffering servant.
51:04: In fact, if you read Mark, Mark is one long passion narrative with an extended introduction.
51:12: It doesn't say anything about Jesus' birth.
51:14: It doesn't say anything about his early life.
51:16: It comes right in with him preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and then several stories in, quickly, you start immediately getting to the passion narrative, the passion week, and boom.
51:25: The whole rest of the book is that week leading up to the cross.
51:29: Short book, most of it is passion narrative.
51:32: Focus is Jesus' suffering.
51:35: So we would say the theme of Mark is the suffering servant, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53, the servant of Yahweh who would come and suffer.
51:49: And as far as, I would say that's the main thematic thrust of Mark's Gospel.
51:57: Now, I've already mentioned that the ending of Mark is disputed.
52:02: I don't want to spend a lot of time on that, but I have taught on that a lot, and I have records of me teaching records, recordings of me teaching on that subject.
52:14: So if you have a question about textual variation, particularly on the longer ending of Mark, send me a message.
52:20: I'll send you some things to listen to, because that's important to understand what I mean when I say that, because I don't want to confuse anybody, but I can't spend 30 minutes explaining it.
52:29: When we come to the Gospel of Luke, we find ourselves in a place, as I said, that I love.
52:39: And I love Luke for so many reasons, not the least of which I preach through it, not the least of which I wrote my doctoral dissertation on it, and not the least of which it just reads to me so vividly, personal.
52:52: There are so many places in Luke that I just love.
52:55: Did you know there are several parables that are in Luke that aren't in the other Gospels? The Good Samaritan is only in Luke.
53:02: The Prodigal Son is only in Luke.
53:06: The encounter with Zacchaeus and the raising of the widow's son at Nan, only in the Gospel of Luke.
53:12: Yep.
53:15: And the pardoning of the thief on the cross is not mentioned in any other Gospel except Luke.
53:22: Huh? That's right.
53:32: Luke's the only one that says he repented.
53:35: One of them repented.
53:36: I've preached that sermon several times.
53:38: What side of the cross are you on? Because we both start in the same place.
53:42: Both of them were mocking Christ at the beginning of their death, but as death began to close in on the one, he saw Jesus rather than as one who he hated, as the only one who could save him.
53:55: And he repented on the cross, and he turned from his sins, and he trusted in the Savior, and at death he received the greatest of all promises.
54:05: Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
54:07: It's a beautiful part that no one else mentions except Luke.
54:13: And think about the prodigal son.
54:15: How many people that that tale has changed their lives, that they can come to God, and He will love them, and He will accept them, not as a slave but as a son.
54:28: Yeah.
54:28: So we have...
54:30: Luke is just...
54:31: All right, let's get excited.
54:32: Luke is, to me, very important.
54:35: No, I wouldn't say it's more important than the others.
54:37: I just think everybody is touched in a different way as God provides the four Gospels.
54:44: I know a lot of people, the Gospel of John is everything.
54:47: That's me.
54:48: And it's fine.
54:49: And that's what I'm saying.
54:50: So for me, it's always been Luke.
54:54: There's so much that Luke does.
54:56: And I want to read to you, because I said earlier, I said Luke is the consummate historian.
55:03: I want to read to you a lengthy quote, so please pay attention.
55:08: This is from Christian History Institute.
55:12: William Mitchell Ramsey, Oxford University's first professor of classical art and archaeology, originally accepted the German scholarly thesis that the Acts of the Apostles was a second-century work full of errors.
55:27: He announced he would prove it.
55:29: However, research in ancient literature and on the ground in Turkey forced him to recognize that Acts was an accurate report written in the first century.
55:41: At dig after dig, spanning 15 years, he accumulated evidence supporting Luke's account, but none detracting from them.
55:49: Overwhelmed by his findings, he became a Christian.
55:53: He started out to deny history, denying Acts.
55:57: Remember, Luke wrote Luke and Acts.
55:59: And he started out to deny what Luke wrote in Acts, and he became a Christian.
56:04: But it goes on.
56:05: The preface of the second edition of his book, St.
56:08: Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, was dated March 25, 1896.
56:12: It is from the second edition that we have taken the following assessment that disposes of some elaborate theories of composition by multiple authors.
56:21: Because some people believe Acts and Luke were put together by multiple authors.
56:25: This is what he says.
56:27: This is what Ramsey wrote.
56:29: Quote, There is only one kind of cause that is sufficiently complex to match the many-sided aspects of the book, and that cause is the many-sided character of a thoughtful and highly educated man.
56:42: Our hypothesis is that Acts was written by a great historian, a writer who sets himself to record the facts as they occurred, a strong partisan in deed, but raised above partiality by his perfect confidence that he had only to describe the facts as they occurred in order to make the truth of Christianity and the honor of Paul apparent.
57:06: What is he saying? He's saying this, some people have said this is many authors compilated.
57:11: No.
57:11: This is one man who loved the story that he was telling and the people that he was talking about.
57:17: Yes, he was certainly partisan, but he was accurate.
57:21: His writing was accurate.
57:23: He was a physician by trade, he was a historian by the grace of God, and he was used to give us the most accurate, well, the perfectly accurate retelling of Jesus' life and ministry and the ministry of the apostles in the first several centuries, or first several decades after the death and resurrection of Christ.
57:49: So, Luke, huh? I was going to say, well, Luke, I know after some parts of the Acts that he makes I statements.
57:55: Yeah, yeah.
57:56: I'm going to talk about that when we get to Luke, why we believe Luke is the writer of Acts, because he says in certain points, we, I, us, he's referring to being one of Paul's companions later in the life of Paul's ministry.
58:11: All right.
58:11: So, Luke, as I said, introduces many things that are not in the other Gospels, and so all three of the Gospels together make a wonderful four-part or four-piece telling of the story of Jesus Christ, all coming from different perspectives.
58:31: And I would say this, if you wanted to simplify the whole thing, Matthew tells Jesus to the Jews, Mark tells Jesus to the suffering, and Luke tells Jesus to the Gentiles.
58:48: And John, we will see next week, tells Jesus to the world.
58:54: What is the focus in John? For God so loved the world.
58:58: All right.
58:58: So, and we'll see that as we study next week.
59:01: I'm going to give you three minutes to go to the restroom and do what you've got to do, and when we come back, we're going to look at some of the theological insights and harmonization.
59:08: Take a quick break.
59:11: Ross made a good point during the break.
59:13: He said, when I hear Luke compiled it, then it makes me think it could be fallible.
59:17: And my answer to that would be, going back to the word superintending, if we believe God can superintend the writing of something, why cannot God superintend the compilation or bringing together of something? And why is it only if it's done this way does it have to be from God? For instance, I have heard of pastors who don't prepare for their sermons because they say, when I get to the pulpit, God's going to tell me what to say.
59:47: And you know what I tend to find among men like that? Bad preaching.
59:55: Because they have not taken the time to study, to show themselves approved unto God as workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
01:00:04: Handling the word of truth takes study and effort, and God is just as present with me in the study as he is in the pulpit.
01:00:13: And so if I'm not studying, then my preaching will suffer.
01:00:21: Absolutely, absolutely.
01:00:23: I've heard people say, I don't read the text until I get to the pulpit.
01:00:27: Brother, your depth will be highly, highly lessened.
01:00:35: Or maybe I should just say you'll be pretty shallow.
01:00:38: Well, I mean, you're more prone to error, too.
01:00:40: Absolutely, absolutely.
01:00:41: And they say, well, God's carrying me along.
01:00:44: No, you're still a man.
01:00:45: Yeah.
01:00:46: What do I pray every time I preach? Keep me from error.
01:00:51: Keep me from error.
01:00:53: Because even if I've studied this text, read it a hundred times, looked at the original language and everything else, I am still a man.
01:01:00: And you won't make a mistake, just imagine the one that's not reading it.
01:01:03: Yeah.
01:01:05: All right, so we're going to look at...
01:01:06: Yes, ma'am.
01:01:11: Oh, I'm sorry.
01:01:16: Let me look back at my...
01:01:17: I want to make sure I say it as I have it here.
01:01:25: Well, that was when I said who it was generally to.
01:01:28: As far as the purpose of the Gospel of Luke, I would say it was to present Jesus, the man.
01:01:36: And as we will see next week, the purpose of John is to present Jesus as the God-man.
01:01:43: How many of you have ever seen the Jesus film? Now, I know there's a bunch of Jesus movies, but this is literally called The Jesus Film.
01:01:52: It was produced in the 70s.
01:01:54: It's used by missionaries all over the world.
01:01:57: Now, I'm not a big fan of Jesus movies, especially ones that are poorly done and even ones that are well done, like The Passion.
01:02:06: I don't like The Passion.
01:02:08: Some of you love it, so don't stone me.
01:02:12: The way they portray Jesus in the film, it's not Jesus to me.
01:02:18: It's Jim Caviezel on a cross.
01:02:19: So I just don't have the same...
01:02:21: I'm not being ugly.
01:02:22: It's just I don't make that connection in my mind that that's Jesus.
01:02:26: I didn't make it through the whole thing.
01:02:29: And there's also a lot of Catholic overtones in The Passion, the seven stations of the cross and all that.
01:02:34: But there is one film.
01:02:36: It's used by missionaries.
01:02:37: It's called The Jesus Film.
01:02:39: And it is...
01:02:40: I think you can watch it for free.
01:02:42: I'm sure it's online.
01:02:44: But I look it up on YouTube.
01:02:46: The Jesus Film, and it is a...
01:02:49: It's taken from the Gospel of Luke.
01:02:52: So the stories in The Jesus Film are the Gospel of Luke.
01:02:55: And I will tell you this.
01:02:56: The woman coming in and crying at the feet of Jesus and wiping her tears, wiping his feet with her hair.
01:03:04: If you don't cry in that moment...
01:03:07: That was Mary, right? Doesn't say it was her.
01:03:10: Doesn't say it was Mary Magdalene.
01:03:12: Tradition says it was Mary Magdalene.
01:03:13: The text doesn't make that connection.
01:03:16: But anyway, the point is, that's a good one.
01:03:18: I would say...
01:03:19: And again, based on Luke.
01:03:20: I sort of just have this affinity for Luke's Gospel.
01:03:24: All right, so...
01:03:25: But it presents Jesus certainly as divine.
01:03:28: But it's presenting him as the Savior of man.
01:03:32: He is man.
01:03:33: And it presents...
01:03:34: And this is why...
01:03:35: Here's a good example of why I say that.
01:03:37: Matthew's Gospel gives a genealogy for Jesus.
01:03:40: But where does it stop? Abraham.
01:03:43: Matthew's Gospel takes Jesus back to Abraham.
01:03:45: Why? To prove that he is a true Jew.
01:03:48: Where does Luke's genealogy stop? Adam.
01:03:55: It's showing his humanity.
01:03:59: Luke...
01:04:01: Yeah.
01:04:13: Well, there's a lot in the...
01:04:17: What's interesting...
01:04:18: I think I know what you're talking about.
01:04:19: What's interesting in the Gospels...
01:04:23: When we look at the genealogy of Jesus...
01:04:26: That there are...
01:04:27: There are women in the genealogies mentioned.
01:04:30: And typically, they are Gentiles.
01:04:34: You look at the...
01:04:37: Yeah.
01:04:41: All right, so...
01:04:42: Let's look quickly.
01:04:43: I may keep you for an extra five minutes tonight.
01:04:45: Don't hate me.
01:04:46: But this is just important stuff.
01:04:48: When we talk about theological insights...
01:04:51: A couple things to remember.
01:04:53: One...
01:04:53: Only two of the Gospels mention the birth of Jesus.
01:04:57: But both of them confirm that it was virgin birth.
01:05:00: So that is a theological point that we should remember.
01:05:06: John does focus on Jesus' pre-existence.
01:05:08: And we'll talk about that next week.
01:05:09: But only two mention his birth.
01:05:11: Both mention his virgin birth.
01:05:14: Matthew contributes strongly to the understanding of Christ's Old Testament fulfillment.
01:05:18: We've already said that.
01:05:19: Mark's Gospel is the shortest.
01:05:23: And here's a little thing.
01:05:25: I don't know if you want to try to write all this.
01:05:26: But over 90% of Mark is in Matthew.
01:05:29: And 50% is in Luke.
01:05:32: Say that one more time.
01:05:33: Over 90% of Mark's Gospel is also in Matthew's Gospel.
01:05:37: And 50% of Mark's Gospel is in Luke's Gospel.
01:05:43: So there's only a few passages that are in Mark that are unique to Mark.
01:05:53: 90% is in Matthew and 50% is in Luke.
01:05:58: 90% of Matthew's Gospel is in Luke? No.
01:06:01: 90% of Mark is in Matthew.
01:06:06: And 50% of Mark is in Luke.
01:06:11: Again, that goes back to the whole issue of who wrote first and who's drawn from whom.
01:06:16: And all those things kind of brings that up.
01:06:18: The question.
01:06:19: Yes, sir.
01:06:19: I don't mean to slow you down, but on this theological insight, you said something about the virgin birth.
01:06:27: Only two Gospels mention the birth, but both of them reference the virgin birth.
01:06:32: So we have two witnesses to Jesus' birth, and both confirm the most important part, that he was born of a virgin.
01:06:39: I see a pattern here.
01:06:43: Luke presents Jesus as a genuine human person, taking his line back to Adam.
01:06:48: And Luke also focuses on outcasts.
01:06:53: As you just mentioned, women and Gentiles.
01:06:56: But also think of this.
01:06:59: I'll give you an example.
01:07:01: There are two sermons that are very similar.
01:07:04: Matthew 5 is called the Sermon on the Mount.
01:07:08: If you look in Luke 6, you will see Jesus preaching almost the same sermon, but it's not the same sermon.
01:07:16: Because it says he was on a flat place.
01:07:19: Matthew says he was on a mountain.
01:07:21: Luke says he was, we usually call it the Sermon on the Plain, because he was on a flat place.
01:07:25: Both of them are similar sermons.
01:07:28: And you say, why would Jesus preach the same sermon twice? Because it's important.
01:07:34: Learning is repetition, and repetition is the key to learning.
01:07:37: But in Luke's Gospel, he focuses on things that he doesn't in the sermon in Matthew.
01:07:43: For instance, Matthew gives the Beatitudes.
01:07:46: Blessed are this, blessed are that, blessed are this.
01:07:47: What is Luke's Gospel? But woe unto you who are rich.
01:07:52: Woe unto you who are filled.
01:07:53: Woe unto you who are...
01:07:54: Luke provides a statement regarding those who are hurting, those who are outcasted.
01:08:01: And therefore, there's a distinction in how they are explaining and how they're recounting the sermons of Jesus.
01:08:09: And focusing on the things that are the focus of their writing.
01:08:14: Wouldn't that be focusing on who they were around at the time? Could be, but again, the focus is on the audience.
01:08:23: Matthew's audience is Jewish.
01:08:27: And Luke's audience, I believe, would be more Gentile.
01:08:30: And to the focus of...
01:08:31: It's the early church.
01:08:32: Remember, the early church was made up of Jews and Gentiles.
01:08:36: And outcasts.
01:08:38: Luke speaks to the outcasts.
01:08:42: There are two common theological themes that run through Matthew and Mark and Luke.
01:08:49: Number one, the Kingdom of God.
01:08:51: The Kingdom of God is a unifying theological theme that is found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.
01:08:58: But one thing that you will notice is the Kingdom of God is used in all three Gospels.
01:09:04: But the words Kingdom of Heaven is only used in Matthew's Gospel.
01:09:10: That term, Kingdom of Heaven, is specifically Matthewan.
01:09:14: It's only used by Matthew.
01:09:20: So that is one theme.
01:09:22: The Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, is one theme that runs through all three.
01:09:26: And the other theme is the shift from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
01:09:32: All three of them have a focus on the coming of Christ as the inauguration of the New Covenant.
01:09:38: This is mentioned, of course, several times, but most specifically in the Last Supper.
01:09:44: This is the New Covenant in my blood.
01:09:46: This is the purpose of my coming.
01:09:48: This is why I'm here.
01:09:49: To inaugurate the New Covenant.
01:09:52: Now, I want to spend our last few minutes talking about harmonization.
01:09:58: One of the most common attacks hurled at the Bible is that it contains contradictions.
01:10:02: And many of these supposed contradictions happen in the narrative portions.
01:10:06: Anytime you have the same story told from different perspectives, you will have differences.
01:10:10: But these differences do not always mean they are contradictions.
01:10:16: We need to understand the law of non-contradiction.
01:10:20: The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
01:10:31: That is the law of non-contradiction.
01:10:33: For instance, a man can be both married and divorced.
01:10:41: My father is married.
01:10:43: My father is also divorced.
01:10:45: But he cannot be both married and divorced to the same woman at the same time in the same relationship.
01:10:51: Because the relationship would be different and it would be contradictory.
01:10:56: Do we understand what I mean by that? So, when we talk about this, for instance, I'll give you another example.
01:11:01: An animal can be both white and black.
01:11:05: A zebra, a swan, can be both white and black.
01:11:09: But an animal cannot be both white and not white.
01:11:14: If you said he's white and not white, that would be exercising a contradiction.
01:11:19: So that is the law of non-contradiction states something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
01:11:26: So, in the Bible, when you hear somebody say, that's a contradiction, your first thing that needs to come to your mind is how do we define contradiction? What do we mean by the term contradiction? And what do they mean? That's an important thing to realize.
01:11:45: Because harmonization means we take the different stories that are in the Bible and we bring them together and we put them together in their constituent parts to make one whole narrative.
01:11:59: One of the great hopes of my life.
01:12:01: And I'm 40, so I don't know how many years I have left.
01:12:04: I might not have any years left.
01:12:06: I don't know how long I have left.
01:12:08: But in my lifetime, I have a goal.
01:12:11: And my goal is to do a complete study of a harmony of all four gospels.
01:12:16: And I'm suspecting it's going to take me several years to go through that study.
01:12:22: Because I want to take Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I want to, from the beginning, I want to take each gospel and harmonize the whole account.
01:12:34: And it's for no other purpose than for my own joy.
01:12:38: Because that's something that matters to me.
01:12:41: Looking at the life of Christ from the perspective of all four.
01:12:47: And there are men who have done it in books.
01:12:49: I've thought about maybe trying on Wednesday night, trying to use one of those books.
01:12:53: You know, Jackie, we have our Wednesday night study I thought about maybe at some point.
01:12:57: Just studying through a book, just maybe get me started.
01:13:01: But one of the things that we have to remember is that when we're considering the concept of harmonization, there are some things that are easy to harmonize, and there are some things that are not easy to harmonize.
01:13:14: And I want to remind you about telescoping.
01:13:18: One person tells the story differently because he's focusing on certain points that matter.
01:13:24: Sometimes, though, telescoping is a little more complex.
01:13:27: Sometimes, it's not only just telescoping by leaving things out, but it's compressing things that happened.
01:13:33: And I'll give you an example.
01:13:39: If you have...
01:13:40: J.P., do you have your Bible? Will you turn to Mark 5, 22? Janice, do you have your Bible? Okay, John, would you turn to Luke 8, 41? And Jackie, do you have your Bible? Would you turn to Matthew 9, 18? This is the story of the man who came to Jesus whose daughter was sick, Jairus.
01:14:11: Remember this? Okay, now we're not going to read the whole story because we don't have time.
01:14:16: But we are going to read three accounts of this man coming to Jesus.
01:14:23: Start with the Mark passage, Mark 5, 22.
01:14:26: Mark 5, 22 says, Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet.
01:14:33: Read 23.
01:14:35: And implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death.
01:14:40: Come and lay your hand on her so that she may be made well and live.
01:14:44: All right, my daughter is at the point of death.
01:14:46: Right? Okay.
01:14:49: Now, we know she's going to die later.
01:14:51: But at this point, she's at the point of death.
01:14:54: John, read Luke's account.
01:14:58: Same narrative.
01:15:00: Just then a man named Jairus came.
01:15:02: He was a leader of the synagogue.
01:15:04: He fell down at Jesus' feet and pleaded with him to come to his house.
01:15:08: Because he had an only daughter about twelve years old, and she was at death's door.
01:15:16: Read the next verse as Jesus went.
01:15:18: Oh, well, the people pressed around him.
01:15:20: Okay, we'll stop right there.
01:15:20: Okay, so say that last part again.
01:15:23: She was where? At death's door.
01:15:25: She was at death's door.
01:15:26: Okay.
01:15:27: Not dead yet.
01:15:29: Right? Right.
01:15:31: Jackie, read Matthew 9.18.
01:15:33: While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.
01:15:48: Not dead yet.
01:15:49: Not dead yet.
01:15:52: She just died.
01:15:54: But couldn't it be three different people writing it three different times? Okay, before we even try to answer, do we see the problem? Almost definitely.
01:16:04: Not dead yet.
01:16:05: Not dead yet.
01:16:07: She's dead.
01:16:11: Huh? It's a what? Never mind.
01:16:16: Okay.
01:16:17: Before we try to answer, we need to recognize the issue.
01:16:21: Because I do think this is one of those times where I do sit back and I say, Okay, we have an issue of harmonization here.
01:16:30: So how do we step back and actually find cohesion? Or is it a legitimate contradiction? We're all going to fold our Bibles up and go become Muslims or something else? I mean, I'm serious.
01:16:44: This is serious, right? This is one of those things that if you were only reading Luke or you were only reading Matthew, you wouldn't know.
01:16:53: You wouldn't have.
01:16:54: This wouldn't be an issue.
01:16:56: But when you look at the texts side by side, and all three of them are dealing with Jairus.
01:17:01: All three of them are dealing with the same.
01:17:02: This is not two different stories, like the Sermon on the Mount, Sermon on the Plain, right? Now, I want to give you some facts that may help you.
01:17:14: Matthew's whole encounter of this event, including Jairus coming to Jesus, healing the daughter, all of it, eight verses.
01:17:26: Mark, which is much shorter than Matthew, 21 verses.
01:17:38: Luke's 15 verses.
01:17:41: So Luke is twice as much information and Mark is almost three times as much information.
01:17:49: So what do we see happening in Matthew's Gospel? Telescoping.
01:17:57: It's telling the same story in a condensed form.
01:18:02: In Matthew's Gospel, it doesn't matter that she's not dead yet.
01:18:06: What matters is that she's going to die.
01:18:09: So the story is told from the perspective of she's died, let's get to bringing her back to life.
01:18:15: That's what I was thinking, compression.
01:18:17: That's what I said, telescoping, compression, whatever language you want to use.
01:18:20: But we do have to come to it from the perspective of how do we understand this in light of that? Is it a contradiction or is it a compression? I would say it's a compression or a telescoping.
01:18:33: Again, think of the difference between eight verses, 15 verses, and 21 verses.
01:18:36: More information.
01:18:37: Much more information.
01:18:39: And you know what we learn in Luke's Gospel that we don't learn in the other Gospels? We learn that the woman with the issue of blood had come to Jesus, touched him, and then in Mark's Gospel, we learn that she'd been to many other doctors.
01:18:54: Luke doesn't mention the other doctors.
01:18:56: Why not? Maybe because he's a doctor and he doesn't want to throw the other guys under the bus.
01:18:59: I don't know.
01:19:00: But there's all of these details that are spread among these three narratives, but they're all telling the same story, focusing on either the expanded story or the telescoped, compressed story.
01:19:20: I already mentioned this with Peter and the rooster crowing.
01:19:24: The only one that mentions the rooster crowing twice is Mark.
01:19:29: Does that mean the other two got it wrong? No.
01:19:34: But the focus in Mark's Gospel is to retell the story from Peter, who would have known it better than anyone.
01:19:45: So, I point that out to you to say that there are others.
01:19:48: I think the resurrection narrative is one.
01:19:51: It takes time to sit down and really make a cohesive understanding of all the things that happened when Jesus rose from the dead.
01:19:59: And not only does it take time to make a cohesive understanding of the four different Gospel narratives, but you also have to deal with tradition.
01:20:12: Because when it comes to the resurrection, there's a lot of tradition involved as well, with people thinking things that didn't happen.
01:20:21: So, I believe the Bible is the Word of God.
01:20:25: I trust it.
01:20:26: I've made my life preaching it.
01:20:31: But if we stick our head in the sand, and we say that I'm just not going to deal with these things, then what we find ourselves in is we find ourselves in a dilemma when we're faced with the atheist who says, I don't believe your Bible.
01:20:48: It has contradictions.
01:20:49: And we've never considered what those contradictions may be.
01:20:53: Did you know there's websites that are filled with supposed biblical contradictions? But if we understand the law of non-contradiction and the law of telescoping and how stories are told and biographies and things like that, we understand there's no contradictions at all.
01:21:09: But it comes down to the willingness to, one, be a little uncomfortable.
01:21:15: Do you know what cognitive dissidence is? Cognitive dissidence is when you hear something you don't like and your brain automatically begins to hurt a little, and so you stop listening.
01:21:32: You don't want to hear it because it's going against something you already hold true, and so I'm not going to listen.
01:21:39: You know who I listen to a lot? Scholars that I disagree with.
01:21:45: I've been studying recently the writings and the teachings of N.T.
01:21:49: Wright.
01:21:50: I know I disagree with them.
01:21:53: I disagree with them on justification.
01:21:56: I disagree with them on the perspective of Paul.
01:21:59: I disagree with them about Second Temple Judaism.
01:22:04: But he is one of the most read New Testament scholars in the world, and if I'm going to be a teacher and if I haven't considered at least what his arguments are so that I can interact with them, then I wouldn't be much of a teacher myself.
01:22:24: We have to be able to hear what the other side is saying, if for no other reason than to give a response.
01:22:33: And that isn't the only reason we read.
01:22:35: We don't just read with our fists up to give a response.
01:22:37: Listen to what they have to say.
01:22:40: Deal with what they have to say.
01:22:43: But I'll end with this illustration and we'll close.
01:22:48: When it comes to the Bible, as I said, I believe the Bible.
01:22:52: I believe it's true.
01:22:55: And so when I come to a passage like the one I just showed you that is difficult, I already have confidence that it's true, and so therefore I have a certain level of faith going in that an unbeliever wouldn't have.
01:23:12: And I look at it like this.
01:23:14: If I were to go home early one day from the office and I were to pull into my driveway and a man that I've never met before walked out of my front door and I knew my wife was at home, I would not immediately think that she was doing evil because she's never done me wrong in 21 years.
01:23:40: Now think about the Bible.
01:23:42: When you come to something that's difficult, do you look at it like the skeptical husband who would say, where have you been and who have you been doing it with? Or do you say, I trust that there's an answer here? I just have to dig a little deeper.
01:23:57: So there is an answer, but sometimes it requires more than a Sunday school explanation.
01:24:04: Let's pray.
01:24:05: Father, I thank You for Your Word.
01:24:07: May it be that it continues to enlighten our hearts and drive us forward to a closer walk with Christ.
01:24:13: I thank You for this time of study.
01:24:15: I pray it's been fruitful for Your people.
01:24:16: In Christ's name, amen.