01: Introduction to the Gospels

[McNeely] I have given you two handouts today. One is a listing of the emperors of the Roman Empire that are by and large mentioned in the New Testament. Not every one of them are. I think this particular list covers the Roman emperors of the first century, many of whom are mentioned in the New Testament text. I think it's important that you know those. I'm going to mention one of them today.

So this handout will be something that you will want to refer to, keep in your notes, which is why we have it punched. The other handout is a family tree of Herod the Great and what is called the Herodian family. It's a pretty handy one.

I don't know where I got it off the internet. I think it's attributed here from Biblical Archaeology Review. So we have that covered. But the numbers that you will see on the graphic on the front page, you'll turn on the back page, and each of those numbers then will describe that individual and particularly the biblical or New Testament reference to them.

There's a lot of Herods in the Bible, in the New Testament. Keeping them sorted out is important to be able to understand the text and the flow of the story. So this handy chart can be pretty helpful to you in understanding how they fit and interacted with Jesus, with John the Baptist, with the others in the book of Acts.

So hold on to that. And again, they're in a folder, will be on a website available for those of you that are online and watching later. There's a great deal of understanding that we need to have in regard to the background, to the New Testament, and especially the harmony and the life of Christ.

Let's go ahead and turn in your Bibles over to the book of Galatians, chapter 4. Galatians, chapter 4. This is a pretty good place to start with where we are and what's going on.

Galatians 4, and let's read verse 4. This is Paul writing to the churches in the region of Galatia in what was called Asia Minor, today in the nation of Turkey. But he writes, and we're going to break into the thought, "When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons." (Galatians 4:4-5)

So what does that mean when he uses the term, "the fullness of the time had come"? (Galatians 4:4) At the time when Jesus then was sent forth, born of a woman, which opens the Gospels, opens the Gospel accounts.

Well, the fullness of time refers to the actual historic setting of the birth of Jesus. Now this map here, AI-generated, but copyright ChatGPT, for those that want to know this, sets the Roman world at the year 4 BC. And I'm not getting into the dating or the date of Jesus' birth right here in terms of the year. 4 BC is generally the timing of the death of Herod. Sometimes they say 3 BC. But for a general purpose, this at least sets the scene for the Roman Empire.

And this is the Mediterranean world, and the countries that are colored there, in the brown and the, let's call it red, represent the extent of the Roman Empire on this particular map. We don't have Great Britain, the British Isles, on that. That's a little bit further up. ChatGPT is not perfect on its rendering of everything. But it's the setting for the Roman world and the Roman Empire.

Now, as you go through Daniel later on in your Daniel class, you will learn that Daniel has interpretations of the visions of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, of four world empires beginning with Babylon, the time setting of Daniel.

The second is Persia. The third is Greece. And the fourth is Rome, the Roman Empire. All right? Those are the four empires understood to be covered in the prophecies of Daniel and applicable to the story of Daniel and Revelation.

But the setting for the timing of the New Testament, the birth of Jesus and the New Testament Church, the apostle Paul, and all the books when they were written, first century, what we call the first century, is at the time of Rome, the Roman Empire.

All right? The Roman Empire came into existence just a few years before the birth of Jesus. Rome had existed as first a city, then a country, 500 years roughly before the time of Christ. And it grew to become ultimately a republic at first for about 500 years.

And then after a series of political and military upheavals from the time of the assassination of Julius Caesar, and after that, Rome became what we call an empire. And the empire, or Rome, with its united empire basically from Rome, existed for about 500 years.

And so when Jesus was born, and we start counting of, let's say, AD from BC to AD, before Christ to the time after Christ, Rome is an empire.

There's a Caesar in charge. And its extent is the known world at that time. It is a large, diverse, powerful, multi-ethnic, multilingual, multireligious conglomerate of an empire held together by the iron hand of Rome.

That's why in Daniel's vision of chapter 2, Rome was pictured by the legs of iron, of the image that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed. And it is an empire of iron. It's pretty strong. It's pretty hard, durable, like iron from a metal. I'm not going to get into all the others here. This is where we come in Galatians chapter 4.

This is the fullness of time, as Paul reckons it, which means that the birth of Jesus, His entry of God into the world in human form, happened precisely on time, the fullness of time when God intended. Not 30 years, not 300 years, about 500 years earlier.

Jesus was not born during the heyday of the Greek Empire, the Persian Empire, or the time of the Babylonian Empire. There's reasons for that, but beyond our scope today.

He was born during the time of the Roman Empire when the world was at its height, and Paul calls it in Galatians 4:4, "the fullness of time."

Had Jesus been born at any other time, the conditions of the world, and particularly Judea, Jerusalem, and where He lived, would not have been appropriate to His birth, His life, His ministry, and even His death and resurrection, and the beginning of the Church.

That would not have been able to have been done in the way God intended during any other previous period. It was done during the time of the Roman Empire.

Why is that? There's something called the Pax Romana that you should understand here. Can you see that screen? Well, everybody at the back, how are you guys at the back? You're able to see it? Okay.

The Pax Romana. Anybody know what the Pax Romana stands for? Roman Peace. Roman Peace, or the Peace of Rome. Pax is Latin for peace. Romana, Rome. The Peace of Rome.

Rome had imposed a peace upon the world, this world that it ruled from what is today England and the British Isles, all the way down to the Arabian sands across North Africa, the entire Mediterranean world, much of Europe, what is today France, Germany, at least up to the border of the Rhine River, Italy, Greece, parts of the Middle East that are today Turkey, Judea, parts of Syria.

The Roman line went up somewhere in what is today Iraq, ended there, but all the way down into Egypt and the Sinai. And it was a majority of the known world. It wasn't the entire world. There were cultures and civilizations in the rest of Africa, in the Far East, in China, in Asia, there were cultures going on at that time.

But for the biblical record, and this is why this is important to know, sometimes people say, well, why doesn't the Bible cover the history of China? Or other kingdoms and cultures in Central or Southern Africa, more Central at that time?

Well, the reason is it's not that they weren't there and that they were not necessarily insignificant. That's not the issue. The Bible tells us the story of world empires as they deal with the plan of God, and particularly as they come in contact with God's people, Israel, the descendants of Abraham.

That's why the Bible focuses upon really this section of the world, what is the Mediterranean world. And when it comes down to the timing of Christ and His birth, what we have here then is a picture of a world that is largely at peace.

Now, there were Roman legions that were stationed all over this world. They kept the peace, and if anybody got out of line, they thumped them on the head. You didn't want to disturb the peace. One of the things about the Roman Empire is that it had an obsession for order. Everything in its place, everybody in their place.

I'm a Roman, you're not, literally. And if you were not a Roman, you were a foreigner, and many of those foreigners were actually slaves, both black and white, all different races.

The Romans, some say that upwards of 35 to 40% of the Roman Empire was composed of slaves, people who were bought and sold, owned by people as a result of conquest, etc. And if they ever got out of line, again, they thumped them on the head.

If the people up in Gaul and what is today France, if they rebelled, a legion went in and settled the issue. We will find that in the story of the New Testament, especially as well. There's a reason that there were Roman troops in Jerusalem, Judea, in the setting of the Gospels and the book of Acts. They were keeping the peace.

The Jews were highly fractious, insolent people. They didn't like being under the Roman yoke. And Rome kept an order.

Now that had positive impact as well. The Romans created a system of roads. You're not going to see it on this map, but you can look at it on others, and we'll make this available to you. But they created a system of roads, some of which are still around today. You can walk on an ancient Roman road in parts of the Middle East today.

They had a transportation system. They had that work. They had a postal system. You could write a letter, and it could get somewhere and be delivered. So the communication was good. By roads, by ship, by caravan, by other means, there was largely stable government.

And so the political situation was, again, relatively stable. It was Roman, and it worked. It worked to the advantage of Rome, but for those who came under it and cooperated with it, they had their own benefits as well. But all of this created a peace and an order and a system of direction.

There was even a religious order. Look, Rome was pagan. They had inherited and amalgamated the Greek gods and goddesses and those from Asia as well. They put their own Roman names on them, where it was Zeus was the chief god of the Greeks. His Roman name was Jupiter. So they put their own Roman name upon it, but it was pagan.

They had temples. They had priests and priestesses and a whole system. And because it was a multi-ethnic, it was a multireligious empire. But the one thing about Rome is they had a level of tolerance for other beliefs.

And this was especially important for the fullness of time because the Jews had a huge influence on the Jews.

The fullness of time because the Jews had a unique religion. What was the most unique thing about the Jewish religion? Does anybody know? Tell me. One God. One God. What else?

And what was even more unique about that one God? Anybody? 

[Student 1] He created everything. 

[McNeely] He did, but there's something else that stood in contrast to the Greek and Roman gods. Yeah.

[Student 2] He was a loving God. 

[McNeely] Well, He was loving too, but He was invisible. They didn't have an image. They didn't have a statue of this God in their temple because that would have violated the commandment.

So they had one God and no image of Him. But that made the Jewish religion unique among just about everything. But the Roman government tolerated that. You know, begrudgingly, Romans didn't like Jews for that reason and the fact that the Jews didn't eat pig.

That just galled the Romans to no end that they would not eat pork because the Romans love pig. They still do to this day. Any of you ever watch any Italian-American culinary shows? They love pig. You know, prosciutto and a lot of other stuff there.

Jews wouldn't eat any of that. And that was an affront to the Roman honor, dignity, everything else. But they tolerated it as long as those Jews kept in line.

Now, as we'll read along as we study, we'll find that Jews didn't always stay in line. And that had a tremendous impact upon it.

And so as we look at this and think about all of it, this Pax Romana created a window for the preaching of the gospel. This is why the fullness of times is important.

The birth of Christ at the fullness of time, call it, you know, 4, 3, 2, 1 BC, whatever you want in terms of the year of Christ's birth. Notice I'm not addressing the date of Christ's birth today. But it created a window for the gospel, everything about the gospel.

Christ Himself being, having been prophesied by all of the, virtually all of the Old Testament prophets, that He would come. His message, His teaching about the Kingdom of God. And then one of the key things Christ did was to commission His disciples who became apostles, and they founded the Church. All right?

So there's a window right now for this to take place. This is why it's the fullness of times. And so the Bible says that the Roman government had created a means by which an apostle Paul could travel and proclaim the gospel.

There was a religious toleration because Paul can go into a synagogue that is allowed in Rome or in Athens or in any of the other cities that he will visit.

There is a Jewish synagogue to which Paul will go and preach the gospel and from there to others. And he can do so with freedom. That's important. That's big. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a pagan temple right next door, because literally there would be in Athens, in some of these places. But the Jews could practice their religion.

And Paul, we will find, he is able to move about with a certain amount of liberty. And so there's a window of time here for a few years with the fullness of time and the Roman Empire to allow Christ to come, live, His teachings, die, be resurrected, and then empower the Church to go out and take the gospel to the world. And Paul to write the letters that we have then as the New Testament to study.

There's many other things. There was a language that was important at this time. Where would we put the language? Here or over here? What do you think? Language? All right. We'll default to this.

Anyone know what the language, common language of the time was in the first-century Roman world? Greek. Yeah. Greek was what is called the lingua franca. It's what was universally known. Lingua franca, kind of a universal language.

Now there was Latin. The Roman Empire ran on Latin. There was Hebrew in Judea and a close form of it called Aramaic. But the New Testament texts and the Gospels are written in Greek. They were originally written in Greek. Christ spoke Hebrew and Aramaic.

So did Paul, but Paul also spoke Greek. And the writings of the Gospels and the New Testament come out in Greek for a very wide dissemination among all of these people because people, at least in the educated class, they spoke Greek. So language is another means for the fullness of the way by which the fullness of time is allowed for the preaching of the gospel.

Let's see, what else might we need to mention here? This particular, yeah, let me call attention here in the remaining minutes to the person that's depicted on my image here. That is a man named Augustus. His name is up there, but I'm going to write it up here. I'm going to put it at the top because that's kind of where it should be at this point in the discussion. Augustus. His full name is Caesar Augustus or Augustus Caesar.

He is the first Roman emperor. And he also is the emperor alive at the time Jesus was born. That's why he's important. All right, you got that written down? Got it noted? Caesar Augustus. The big guy, we'll call him. Okay? He founds the Roman Empire. He's the adopted son of Julius Caesar.

Anybody know what happened to Julius Caesar? Why he's famous to us? Dallin? He got killed, yep. Right, right. And he got it. On what day? You know the day?

March 15th. What's that also called? Ides of March. Very good. The Ides of March. He was killed in the Senate House on the Senate floor by his friends. Brutus. Put it right in. Et tu, Brute? Anybody ever read Shakespeare here? Huh? Have you? Yeah. Et tu, Brute? And you, Brutus, you're one of the ones who killed me.

Julius Caesar died, created a big civil war. A guy named Octavian was his adopted son. Octavian comes out on top after about 20, 30 years of civil war and just tears the Republic apart. Octavian comes out. He's the winner. He takes the name Augustus. From that point on, he's known as Augustus. Octavian.

Adopted son of Julius Caesar. The big guy. This guy right here. He's Caesar when Jesus is born. Why is that important? A lot of reasons. Caesar Augustus created all—he set in place what became the Pax Romana.

So much so that by the time Jesus is born, they've already written great literary works praising Augustus. Anybody know what one of those might be? What the number one literary work might be? Ever heard of the book, a poem called the Aeneid? The Aeneid? Ever heard of Aeneas? Anybody seen the movie Ulysses this summer?

Nobody seen it, Ulysses? The Odyssey? Oh boy, we've got some work to do here. You guys saw it? Okay, good.

Anyway, out of that period comes a poem called the Aeneid. It is written to tell the story of how Rome was founded in the aftermath of the Trojan War, but its big purpose was to praise Octavian, Augustus, the big guy, because he restored order out of chaos or civil war and the conditions for the Pax Romana.

And for the Roman people and the Roman, the entire, this empire, they say, he's our savior. They look upon him as Soter. And we'll give you a Greek word today. We're really starting off at a high level.

Soter. You might want to write that one down. It means savior. It's Greek for savior. They actually begin to call Augustus Soter. He's our savior. He saved the Roman culture. He saved the Roman Empire. And they began to venerate him as a god while he was still living.

They called him the divine Augustus. Why am I telling you this? Because the world is being set up with a false savior a few years before the real Savior is born.

Who's the real Savior of mankind? This is the interactive part. Christ. Yes. Jesus. This is what we're studying.

The life and times of Jesus, the Soter, the Messiah, the Savior. But by the time Jesus is born as a babe in a manger in Bethlehem, the world at the time is worshiping Augustus through statues like this, through plays and poems as the savior. It's a counterfeit meant to divert the world away from the coming of the Son of God.

This is the setting for the Pax Romana. This is the setting for the world into which Jesus is born. And it's all kind of stacked against Him already. There's a reason behind Herod so afraid for his own life that he engineers the killing of the firstborn sons, male children, in Bethlehem.

You know that story? We'll read about it. The world was set up to deny Christ, to not recognize Christ, His message, His teaching, His life, His ministry, and His death because they already had a savior, the divine Augustus.

And this becomes the cultural context into which not only Jesus is born but where the Church begins. And as you will study the book of Revelation and other parts of the New Testament, and you see that Paul and Peter write and to warn the people against persecution, the whole book of Revelation is kind of set in the context of the Church under fire.

It's because the world is worshiping the Caesars as gods. And if you're going to be a Christian, you have to go down to the temple. Or if you're going to be a Roman citizen. Your civic duty is to go once a year to the temple and make a pagan animal sacrifice to the Caesar or the divinity of the city to keep the order of the city.

And if you don't, you might not get a contract for a job if you're a carpenter because it's all fixed. This is the setting for the New Testament. This is all the background there to what we're in for here as we look at this.

All right, this kind of gives a little bit of the political, cultural aspects of the background of the New Testament here.

And I think we'll bring this part to a close in this first session so we can cut any questions from anybody.