A year and a half ago, our church began a journey through the book of Revelation that lasted for 48 messages. It was a journey of excitement, deep content, and necessary application on our modern world.
This Sunday, we will begin a new journey. One of my favorite types of books to read is a biography. By the time I finish, I often feel as if I know the person and I am connected to their joys, burdens, and experiences. I got to thinking that this type of strategy would be very helpful if applied to Jesus. We have four biographies on the life of Jesus that we call, "The Gospels." Matthew, Mark, and Luke have very similar content while John is 90% different. The strength of the Gospels is that they are written from different viewpoints.
Matthew - Matthew was a Jewish tax collector who wrote to the Jews to display Jesus as the perfect King.
Mark - Mark was the youngest of the Gospel writers. He was Jewish and wrote to Gentiles, most likely Romans, to display Jesus as the perfect Servant.
Luke - Luke was the only gentile writer who wrote to another gentile, Theophilus. Not much is known about this man. Luke was a medical doctor who employed many medical terms in his writing. He also wrote the book of Acts and possibly Hebrews. His Gospel was written to display Jesus as the prefect Man.
John - John was the beloved disciple and a Jewish fisherman turned pastor who most likely wrote to his church made up of Ephesian Gentiles. His purpose for writing was to display Jesus as the perfect God.
Since we have four biographies of Jesus all written from different perspectives, our new sermon series, The Chronology of Christ, will weave all four Gospels together to make a whole story or narrative of the life of Jesus. We will not cover every chapter of every verse in the four Gospels since some content is repeated. Rather, we will create an overall picture of the life of Christ. My hope is that by the end, we will know Jesus more as we walk beside him in our journey through the Gospels. How well do you know Jesus?