Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, I am so glad that each of you are here, and I have been praying for you guys and just whoever would be in these seats with me today. And I'm excited to get started. So, as Taylor said, we're going to be talking about the gospels. He also gave some Easter eggs already, but that's fine. How many gospels do we have in the Bible, do you know, Dan?
How many.
How many Gospel accounts do we have? Four. Good. Can someone name those four books for me?
Good. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Good. Does anyone want to maybe share why we call these accounts the Gospels? Why. Why give them that name?
Nicole?
Yeah, it does. Yeah. It means good news. Exactly. Yeah. So we can actually define the gospel. I'm going to define a few things over here. We can define the gospel as the good news. And specifically, as we're talking about gospels as, like, the gospel books in the New Testament, we're talking about the good news of Jesus Christ.
So Gospel good news of Jesus.
And I should have said this beforehand. The two papers in front of you, we aren't going to get to for quite some time, but you can write on the back of them. So if you want to take notes or anything that's available to you, but we won't actually be talking about the table or the activity more towards the end.
Also, before we get started, I wanted to list out the books that I used as my resources. So I've got Literarily and how to Read the Bible for all it's worth and actually goes into, like, all of the genres that we've been talking about. So if anyone wants to borrow these or look through them, I'm happy to share.
But these are the two books that I used most in my study. So any questions before we get started?
Okay. Did I just stand right in front of your picture?
Okay.
So when Taylor approached me and asked me to pray about potentially leading and teaching in an equipped class, at first I was both very nervous but also very excited at the thought of it. And so I think he said something along the lines of, like, is there a genre that you're interested in, one that you would want to teach on? And I think I just said, which one's the easiest? Like, Taylor, give me a nice slow lob here.
Which one is going to be just a really simple, simple start.
And so we landed on the Gospels and I began to study all that I could. And what I found pretty quickly is that the genre of the Gospels is really just all the genres combined.
So to quote, literally, the Gospels read like an Anthology or a collection that contains lots of other subgenres like hero stories, miracle stories, parables, eyewitness accounts, and of course the passion story that details the final week of Jesus earthly ministry culminating in his crucifixion, death and resurrection. Besides stories, the Gospels contain elements of almost every other genre, from speeches to poetry to wisdom literature to prophetic to apocalyptic literature.
And to be honest, that felt really overwhelming. It kind of felt like the slow lob that I asked Taylor to gave me, he really just gave me them like all in one. And so I felt a little anxious about how to tackle.
How to tackle the expanse of that. But I feel like as the Holy Spirit had me step back, kind of look at it as a whole, I really just realized that the Gospels, all four gospels in all of their different genre things, really come down to one thing, and that's glorifying Jesus. And that I felt like I could.
Yeah, that I could relate to and that I could get excited about teaching. So the Gospels, they are primarily narrative. This is a quote. But we treat them separately from Old Testament narratives because the Gospels center on the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it was proclaimed during his earthly ministry.
Gospel means good news. So the good news of Christ's life, ministry, death, resurrection and return dominates every book. So that's what makes it slightly different than the Old Testament narratives that we have looked at previously is that this narrative that we have in the Gospels is specifically focused on the life, death, resurrection ministry of Jesus Christ.
So before we consider each book, I want to look at the collection of the Gospels as a whole. So we're going to consider the four books as a whole. First, the Gospels consist of four books, as we know via Dan, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And it's important to note two things.
First, the Gospels were not written by Jesus, but about Jesus. We have four different perspectives, four different accounts. And some of those accounts were written by men that did not actually study under Jesus perfectly. That might cause some concern of variations in what we're going to read and we're going to talk about that and that it's actually a good thing. But I want to keep that in mind that because these four books were written by four different men, four different accounts, there's going to be some differences. And that's okay.
Two things. The second thing to note of the four gospels, three are remarkably similar and the. Whereas the, the fourth one is very unique in and of itself. Okay, so we have very, three very similar ones and then one very unique one.
So to talk about the first Note the fact that it's four different accounts.
We're going to see differences.
When you read two eyewitness accounts of the same event, say two people describing a wedding or a football game, do their stories always sound identical?
No. And that's exactly what's happening here. Each gospel written, each gospel writer is describing the same truth from a unique God inspired angle.
So we may see that quote. The same saying frequently occurs in two or three of the Gospels. And even when it occurs in the exact chronological sequence or historical setting, it's seldom found with exactly the same wording in each.
We're going to dive into these differences and how they're helpful and how they have a purpose. And before we do that, I think it's really important, I want us to first cling to truth. As we look at these differences, it might feel threatening to question why don't these scriptures match up line for line, why are there variations?
But I think we can cling to second Timothy 3, 16 that says that all scripture is God breathed. And with that in mind, I love this quote from this book, how to read the Bible for all it's worth. He said God gave us what we know about Jesus's earthly ministry. In this way, God designed for us to learn about Jesus's earthly ministry from these four different books and from these four different men.
So he entrusted the story of Jesus, Jesus's life here on earth to these authors. And so there are important things to learn amongst their similarities and their differences.
So let's look at some of those of the four gospels. The first three, Matthew, Mark and Luke are so like that they're called the Synoptic Gospels. I don't think I had heard that word maybe once before from Taylor in a different class for some reason.
But does anyone have their own personal working understanding of what the word synoptic means and when define it? Yes, sir.
It's like a synopsis of the exact of the events in a similar form. Good. Yeah.
Yes. And I think that word similar is the most important thing here.
So per Taylor's definition, to me it literally means seen together. So this idea of the synoptic. Synoptic Gospels means seen together.
All right, so they narrate the same events, they use similar wording and they follow roughly the same chronological order.
While impossible to know for certain, it is widely believed that Mark was written first. And as Pastor Taylor mentioned, I approached him about this and he just encouraged me to that. The elders view this as a historical academic point of discussion, not a closed handed theological issue. Right. So lots of different viewpoints on who came first.
Widely believed is that Mark was written first. So the Holy Spirit inspired either Matthew, Mark or Luke to write an account of the first gospel. And it was written. And if we accept that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke, this means that Mark was the first gospel to be circulated among the early Christian church.
Drawing upon Mark and potential other oral documentation, oral narratives, or other documentation, Matthew and Luke then each composed their own Gospel. But the key is that each author had a differing audience in mind, and we're going to discuss more of that.
But recognizing which gospel was written first helps us understand how early church began to shape its memory and teaching about Jesus. But it doesn't change the truth of the message. Right. So understanding the perspectives and the viewpoints of each of these authors and thinking through maybe who was writing first, it helps us kind of form this idea of what the early Christian church was experiencing. But it's not going to change the truth of the message of Jesus.
So to summarize, quote, for the later church, none of the four Gospels supersedes the other, but each stands beside the other as equally valuable and equally authoritative.
These books stand side by side because at one and the same time, they record facts about Jesus, recall the teaching of Jesus, and bear witness to Jesus. This is their nature and their genius. The four Gospels therefore require us to think both in terms of the historical setting of Jesus and the historical setting of the authors. So that's kind of where we're going to dive into next, this setting that the authors are sitting in.
So let's first talk about language. Jesus would have been, would have done all of his teaching in his native language, which is Aramaic. But rarely, rarely does Aramaic appear in the Gospels. The most noteworthy phrase might be Jesus's cry out on the cross, but the teachings come to us in Greek. Does anyone want to take a stab at why they think the Gospels were written in Greek when Jesus taught in Aramaic?
Primarily, most of the Gospels since Rome conquered Greece. Afterward, most of the Gospels would have been like, Greeks under Roman rule or someone from that region who had adopted the Greek language.
And it's also what.
And the audience would have been. And the primary audience would have been reading it in Greek.
Yeah, exactly. That's perfect. It's all about the audience. It's about the audience of these authors. So Dan's correct. So the authors felt that not only was their historical need of the Gospels to present who Jesus was, his teachings and actions in life and ministry, they wanted to document, obviously, but they Also felt, quote, there was an existential concern of retelling this story for the needs of later communities that did not speak Aramaic but Greek. They did not live in a basically rural, agricultural or Jewish setting, but in Rome or Ephesus or Antioch, where the Gospel was encountering an urban pagan environment.
So the main reason the Gospels were written to us in Greek is because it was the most common language in the Greco Roman world. At that time. Greek was the common language spoken in trade, education, commerce, travel, and it spanned across local boundaries and provinces.
So we see that the gospel being. Being made available in Greek was really the gospel being made available to the multitudes.
And we'll talk a little bit more about God's heart behind that here in a bit.
Another historical aspect that is really important to consider when considering the Gospels is that although the synoptic Gospels, so Matthew, Mark, Luke, were most likely all written within a decade of each other, the first synoptic gospel, which we believe is Mark, potentially didn't come out until after 30 years after Jesus death and resurrection.
So with that, sorry. So for 30 years before the gospels were written down, Jesus teachings were delivered orally.
When stories are told out loud around a campfire, around a dinner table, does someone want to share what makes the story stick out, what gets emphasized? What's your favorite part of a campfire story?
Dan?
Descriptions.
Yeah.
You can't overdo a description.
Okay, well, that's why I used to.
Fine.
You can describe for as long as you want.
Okay.
Anything else? If you're sitting around the dinner table with family, what makes something fun to.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Listen to, how it builds to a particular point sometimes.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Or a bad joke in Matt's case.
Yes.
Yes.
I love you.
Yeah. So the author of literally says, think of the Gospels more like campfire stories and less like a chronology. Chronology or linear story. You might find in a book. Each story is a self contained unit. We call any excerpt or passage of scripture that fits together as a unit a pericope. Yes. Okay, I said that wrong earlier.
A pericope.
So a pericope is a cohesive unit of language.
All right? A section of text with a definable beginning and end that forms a complete thought rather than being based on an arbitrary chapter or verse. Divisions. Right. So a pericope is a cohesive unit of scripture. And that doesn't. That's not defined by chapter or verses. That's just a unit of thought, a story. We'll talk about that in a second. So cohesive unit of scripture.
So to give more depth into a pericope. Examples include a specific parable or a specific miracle account, or a narrative reading, such as when Mary visits Elizabeth in Luke chapter one. Percopes are these complete stories resting in the larger story.
So some of these pericopes were handed down with context, right? We're talking about how the teachings, the life of Jesus were spoken orally. That's how for 30 years before anything was written down. That's how things were transferred among the Christian community. And some of these teachings were given, handed down with context, but many were not. So remember, because of.
Yes, let me go into my quote. So, quote, many such sayings without context were available to the evangelists, our Gospel authors, and that it was the evangelists themselves, under their own guidance of the Spirit, who put the saying in their present context. This is one of the reasons we often find the same saying or teaching in different contexts in the four Gospels, and also why sayings with similar themes or subject matter are often grouped together in a topical way. So an example of this, the parable of the Mustard Seed, appears in Matthew 13, but in Mark 4 and Luke 13, and each writer is placing that pericope, that story, that parable, in an intentional spot within their gospel.
They have an. They have an intentional reason in doing that. And that's going to be the audience of their gospel, which we will discuss more in a minute.
So again, this kind of pulls me back to this idea that we were looking at in second Timothy, right? This idea of like, we can trust that all scripture is God breathed like God had his hand in all of this. So even if things do not line up exactly in all four books, you're not putting all these different puzzle pieces together to make one big puzzle. Each book is its own resource, its own account, and that's important.
And I just kept thinking, as I was thinking through this, it's all guided by the Holy Spirit. Nothing penned by these human authors could thwart God's intention for this text. This is how God intended us to know and learn more about Jesus. It's all intentional.
So knowing this about pericopes specifically, that they can be that they were sometimes orally handed down without a specific context, it impacts how we read these Gospels and what reading the Gospels and what we take from it looks like.
Thus, as you read the four Gospels, one of the questions you will want to ask, even if it cannot be answered for certain, is whether Jesus audience for a given teaching was his close disciples, larger crowds, or his opponents discovering the historical context of Jesus or who his audience was.
Will not necessarily alter the basic meaning of the given saying, but it will hopefully broaden your perspective and often help you understand the point of what Jesus said. So remembering this idea that the Gospel was handed down in these oral stories and elements, and knowing that the Holy Spirit empowered each of the four authors to write them as they did, that can help broaden our perspective as we're studying these four books.
So while each gospel reflects a particular voice, setting and emphasis, together they all tell one cohesive story of redemption, the good news of Jesus Christ. It is one gospel, four different lenses.
All right, so before we move in that. That's kind of like my look at the whole of the gospels.
We're going to look into what makes them each unique and different aspects of them individually. But are there any questions before moving on?
And I don't know if I'll have the answer, but I'll try.
There's other smart people in the room too. Any questions before moving on? Yes, Nicole, do we know if the Gospels are written to a specific region or if they all started circulating in the same area? Yeah, that's a great question. Yes, they were written with a specific region mission in mind, which is what we're going to get into next? Yes. Yeah, no, that's a great segue.
Anything else?
Okay, now we're going to get into specifically looking at each of the four books. And so in front of you somewhere on the table. And I have extras here. If somebody does not have one. You're looking for this chart we're going to kind of fill out together.
I joked with Elizabeth yesterday that the teacher and me could not fathom giving you a filled out chart. You have to take responsibility for your learning. So you get a blank chart.
Matt, you can scroll in. Does anyone need any? I have extras.
There's. Anyone? No. Okay.
All right, so we're gonna go like as in the order in which they're written in the Bible. So we're gonna start with the Gospel of Matthew. So you can click once, Matt.
All right, so the Gospel of Matthew. Again, we don't know exactly when these books were written, but the scholarly consensus is that Matthew was written in the range of 80 to 90 AD.
Some think maybe earlier, but we're going to stick with 80 to 90 AD.
And so to meet Nicole's point, the audience of the Book of Matthew is the Jewish people.
So Matthew's hope, the person, the people that he wanted to reach and teach to, was primarily the Jewish people.
In the apostles section, we're going to talk about just Some of the associated apostles disciples.
And so the book of Matthew was written by Matthew, sometimes known as Matthew Levi.
He was a former tax collector and he was one of the 12 called disciples. So you remember earlier I said not all the four gospels were written by men that followed Jesus personally, but Matthew was.
And then also to meet Nicole's point, another associated apostle with the Book of Matthew is James Jesus half brother because he was a huge leader proponent within the Jewish community in Jerusalem.
So he, while he doesn't have any authorship of the book, he would have been very acquainted with it.
Headquarters Jerusalem Yes, I can also speak too.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: So Matthew in particular with its associated apostleship, James is probably the most loosely associated to Matthew, but the Roman. The reason that scholars like to kind of pair them together is in the book of James, the way that he echoes some of the sayings and teachings is actually derived a lot. It's very Matthian language.
And so because both of them were apostles specifically for the Jews, they're going to be the ones that are the most loosely associated it. But Mark, Luke and John obviously have more direct apostolic connection.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: That makes sense. Okay, thank you for the clarification.
And then the main truth.
So again we've been talking about these different audiences, these different lenses behind the, the push behind why the Gospel is written as. As it was from Matthew, specifically his hope. His. His truth that he said stuck to is that Jesus is the Messiah, the proph. Sorry, Jesus is the promised Messiah and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. So that fulfillment of Old Testament prospect prophecies is going to be really important to Matthew.
So I have this. I have just some like bullet point things that I found interesting about each book as I was pulling things out and so I'm going to share those with you.
So again, Matthew emphasized the filament, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. See a lot, just a few of the examples.
Matthew 2, 5, 6. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For you. For from you shall come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel. So we, he, we see that Jesus being born in Bethlehem fulfilled that order Testament prophecy or another one here in Matthew 5, Jesus speaking. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come, I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
And so this idea that Matthew was really focusing on the Jewish people, the Jewish people would have known The Old Testament, and they would have known of these prophecies. And so for Matthew to align how Jesus fulfilled them was important to him reaching the Jewish community.
Another interesting thing, in Matthew, he refers to Jesus as the son of David. And even in the genealogy that Matthew presents at the beginning of the book, he pulls it all the way back because again, he's relating into that. That Old Testament, they would have known the Old Testament, and they would have known the importance of being in the genealogy of David. So for Jesus to be called the son of David is just pulling into that historical background that they would have all known.
Okay, I had some questions, but I think we're gonna move forward. I'd rather you get into the activity. Any questions on Matthew before I move on to Mark?
Yes, please.
Is.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: It's in a similar theme. You'll notice in Matthew, he doesn't refer to the kingdom of God. He refers to the kingdom of heaven, saying the same thing. But in Second Temple Judaism, which is when he's writing that time period, there was an emphasis on not using Yahweh or the word God.
And so just another indicator that he's writing to a primarily Jewish audience. He's taking that into account. Yeah, so he writes kingdom of heaven instead of kingdom of God.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. My notes say that it's a phrase used uniquely by Matthew.
All right, we can fill in Mark.
So Mark, again, widely believes that this was the first Gospel written. And so we're going to see an approximate date earlier than that of Matthew, so 65 to 70 AD Mark's specific audience was the Roman. The Roman people.
That's who he was writing this lens to.
So Mark is the author of the gospel, but he was not the disciple. So the associated apostle here was Peter. Peter was the one of the 12 disciples. And so Mark followed along with Peter and wrote this gospel based on Peter's experiences.
And I was reading one thing that, like, it's interesting too, because in Mark, Peter's not painted like there are other more honoring stories of Peter and the other gospels than there are in the book of Mark.
So almost like he was taming it down for Peter.
Okay, so headquartered headquarters in Rome.
And then kind of the main truth, the main push behind Mark's gospel.
Jesus is the powerful son of God. So Roman. I mean, obviously they valued power. And so to be able to paint Jesus as this powerful son of God would hopefully appeal and intrigue them to listen and learn more.
Some other interesting things about Mark.
Mark emphasizes action, using words like immediately. So in the book Of Mark, there's about. He uses the word immediately about 40 times. So he's a quick paced Gospel writer because he was writing for a Roman audience who were less familiar with the Jewish customs. Mark tends to explain a lot more of the Aramaic terms and Jewish rituals for his audience in this book.
In that fast paced nature, he focused a lot more on what Jesus did rather than what Jesus said.
This was from my study Bible and I appreciated it. So I wanted to also touch on this and I'm just gonna quickly quote it directly. The ultimate purpose and theme of Mark is to present and defend Jesus universal call to discipleship. This fact implies that discipleship for Mark is essentially a relationship with Jesus, not merely following a certain code of conduct.
Fellowship with Jesus marks the heart of the disciples life. And this fellowship includes trusting him, confessing him, taking note of his conduct, following his teaching, and being shaped by relationship to him. Discipleship also means being prepared to face the kind of rejection that Jesus faced.
So also a big proponent in Mark's gospel was this idea of discipleship.
Any other fun tidbits about Mark that anyone wants to share? Questions?
Okay, let's get into the last of the Synoptic gospels. We'll get into Luke.
All right, so Luke also approximated around 80 to 90 AD.
His mission field was the Gentiles. So yes, Romans were Gentiles, but Mark was much more focused on the Roman culture in nature, whereas Luke was maybe a little bit broader.
It says it at the end. But Luke especially sought after the marginalized, the poor women.
So his mission was the Gentiles.
Luke was a Gentile physician and his associated apostle was Paul. So Luke traveled with Paul and so he wrote Paul's teachings headquartered traditionally linked to Antioch, which is now Syria.
And then again this kind of main truth, the drive behind Luke's Gospel. Jesus is a savior to all nations, especially the marginalized.
Some interesting things I love in Luke, Chapter one. In the first four verses he says, and as much 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 that you've been taught. Just this idea that he's, he is very detail oriented. He's taking eyewitness accounts into everything that he's writing.
And I don't, I Love that little sneak peek into Luke's character.
Luke emphasizes compassion, justice and inclusion.
Luke is the longest gospel with the most parables.
So many. And many of those parables are unique to Luke, such as the good stuff, Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son are unique gospels to the book of Luke.
And last but not least, about Luke. Luke is kind of considered a two part work.
So if we want to think of it as Luke is kind of book one and Acts as book two.
So they are traditionally kind of thought of together. They're combined as a two part work.
Any questions about Luke? Yes, ma', am.
I. Yes.
No.
I have here that he was a gentile physician, but I don't really trust people, that's for certain. Yes.
Yeah, I'll do some more homework.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: And Luke, he was an associate of Paul, but there's pretty strong evidence that he gets a lot of material from Mark.
And there's even a growing consensus. Not a consensus. There's a growing thought that he, he had access to Matthew as well.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: And then as he, as you read, like he was doing a lot of investigation. So he has content that's unique to Luke as well.
But he wasn't a lot of it was. Yes, he was with Paul, but he was getting a lot of material from other places.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Mark as well. Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Before you push the button, we're gonna get into John. I had like all kinds of questions, but we're gonna not have time for the activity. So I want to move forward.
I just. Before like Matt puts the things up on the screen. I personally have a soft spot for the Gospel of John. I got to study the book in Bible Study Fellowship a few years ago. And I just rem 30 weeks of lessons and lectures and studies. I just walked away with this sense of how much John loved Jesus. Like just this intimate friendship, brotherly connection between John and Jesus.
And like you could feel the excitement of John getting to walk with Jesus and getting to be a part of Jesus's ministry.
And I think it's just really special because John came out significantly later than the first three. So the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, were all written kind of around within the same time period of each other. And then John came out potentially 50 years after Jesus ministry. And so John got to sit with his, with his memories, his recollections, and then he, then he penned them for us. Right. So it wasn't just kind of this like rush to share. And my, my study Bible said this and I thought this was special. It Quotes somebody called Clement of Alexandria. And I don't know who that is, but I like this quote. Last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had all been made plain in the other canonical, canonical gospels, composed a spiritual gospel. And we're going to see that in the book of John. A big portion, a big influence into his teaching is that Jesus is the eternal, like our source of eternal life. So Matt, you can go ahead and fill those in. Thank you.
Okay, so John written later than the others.
His mission was mainly in Asia.
Why am I forgetting Ephesus?
All right, is that on here somewhere? Yes, modern day Turkey.
So he was mainly headquartered in Ephesus.
John was one of the 12. He was a disciple and he's the author.
And his main truth, Jesus is the divine son of God and the source of eternal life.
So John really honed in on this divinity of Jesus.
Some interesting takeaways and I think, I think this is, this is my conjecture. But because he waited to write this gospel, much later we get a lot of unique material found in John that we don't get in the other gospels.
I found this interesting. Some of the things that John lacks that are in the other gospels is Jesus baptism. He references it, but he doesn't narrate it.
John does not talk about the calling of all 12. He mentions the calling of some, but not all. He does not mention exorcisms.
And he also, he doesn't teach the parables.
So he does a lot of metaphors, but the parables are mostly found in the other three. And he also leaves out the transfiguration.
Conversely, some of the things that John does include that are not found in the synoptics.
Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana. Cana. So Jesus first miracle is found in John.
The encounter with a Samaritan woman.
The resurrection of Lazarus is only found in John. And that's direct foreshadowing of Jesus, death and resurrection.
Jesus washing the disciples feet, depicting servant leadership.
And then I found this interesting too. In the Synoptic gospels they kind of make it sound like they only go to Passover in Jerusalem once. But John actually narrates at least three different trips to Jerusalem for the Passover.
So just some interesting tidbits.
Okay, the last thing I want to say about John, John has contains the seven I am statements.
So the seven statements are I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door or gate of the sheep.
I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection of life.
I'M the way, the truth and the life and I'm the true vine.
Okay, sorry. I had some other engaging questions that I wanted to ask, but I would rather get into the activity because it's 1:15. Right. So we have 20 minutes. Okay. So for our last 20 minutes, and this is on the activity sheet on your table, what I would like us to do is going to be horizontally comparing the same pericope across all four Gospels. Okay. And before we do that, I want to. I want to note something that I read quite a bit as I was reading just this cautionary tale of. Don't think of it. If you can line up the same God, you know, the same story in all four gospels that you're going to puzzle piece these different pieces together to make one larger, more cohesive story. That's not. That's not the case. That's not the hope of the. The books of the Gospel. Right. Each book. Hopefully what you've learned and, and heard so far today is that each book in the Gospel has a very specific purpose, audience and hope behind its writing. And so we don't want to necessarily mush them all together to make us feel like we have some more unique or fulfilled story. That's not the case. But it is interesting knowing these different lenses to look at the same story in each of the four gospels and kind of compare and contrast. You should see similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke because they're the synoptic gospels. You're going to probably see a big shift in John. You're going to see that the Gospel writers emphasize different things based on their audience and their mission.
And so I want us to approach this activity with the idea of, like, let's celebrate all the differences and some similarities that we see. Let's take it all together.
Okay, so this felt shocking to me, but did you know that there's actually own only two pericopes that can be found in all four Gospels? So only two stories are actually found across all four. The feeding of the 5000 and the passion story.
And so, and I'm really glad I did this due to time, I chose the feeding of the 5,000.
And so today I want you to read within your tables the account of the feeding of the 5,000 and each of the four Gospels. And so in front of you and I printed the small. I don't know why I have the scripture reference for you. And then I have some just different questions for you to discuss within your groups that kind of lean into parsing out those different similarities and or those similarities and differences that we were talking about.
And I hope to kind of come together at the end and maybe talk about some of the summary questions at the bottom. So with about 20 minutes left and four different.
Four different passages to read, maybe about five minutes a passage.
So I'm going to come around and join some of you. Are there any questions before I get started? Before you get started?
Yes, sir. How do we do this in five minutes? There's so much I know. I believe in you, though. You know what if it becomes overwhelming, I would suggest maybe picking just one of the synoptic gospels and then John so that you can kind of get the difference because Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar.
And so if you feel like you're going to run out of time, maybe focus on picking one of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And then also John and I also, we talked about this a little bit at our table, but I just hope you're walking away with seeing just the compassion that Jesus has for his people in this miraculous feeding of the 5,000. So it's 115. I'm going to pray.
