Background of the Gospels

Who were the authors of the four Gospels? Who were the authors of the four Gospels writing to? Because there are differences in theirs we'll go through today. What was their purpose in writing them? When were the four Gospels written? This has been a source of controversy for many years. The answer is actually quite simple, as we'll see today.

Why does the Apostle Paul quote from the Gospels only once in all of his letters? Very profound question there. And what major event took place in Judea after Christ's death and resurrection that helps us understand when the Gospels were likely written?

So we'll be covering and addressing these and other issues as we go through the study today. I'm glad Mr. Harms gave the message here to start with because he gets you all used to writing a lot of material in a hurry, and that's what we'll be doing today, covering a lot of ground. So hopefully you don't have writers cramp from trying to forward on. Hopefully you left a little bit left over for this Bible study today. So what we will be doing is going through the backgrounds of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And then I have some other material that we may or may not get to, depending on the time. I do need to wrap this up by one o'clock here. I apologize in advance. We won't have a lot of interaction today just because there is so much material that I need to cover. We will be doing more interaction in the future when we get into subjects that are more of a discussion-type nature.

But for now, I'm just trying to give you a lot of background material so that we can get into the Gospels here, hopefully next time, and actually get into some discussion there. So we'll be prepared to write a lot here or take a lot of notes. First, we'll start with the book of Matthew, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is also the order in which the Gospels are laid out in the harmony. Matthew in the left column, Mark, Luke, and John doing a cross. Also, we will refer at times to this map at the back. I put it at the very back to make it nice and handy for you.

So if I refer to a place on the map, you can always know it's at the very last page of the book. You can flip over there and see that. And I actually will start there with Capernaum, which you'll see on the map. If you see Galilee, the word up near the top of the map, you'll see Capernaum just to the lower right of that.

And starting with the book of Matthew, that is where Matthew is from, the town of Capernaum. It's also where Jesus Christ made it, the center of his ministry later on. Matthew's name in Hebrew, it would be Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, Matayahu, and that means gift of God.

Yahweh, or Yahweh, on the end, is God. The other part is gift of, so his name means gift of God. In Mark and Luke, he is referred to by another Hebrew named Levi. Apparently, he was of the tribe of Levi, or Levi. He was a tax collector, we read about in Matthew 9 verses 9 through 13. We won't turn to a lot of scriptures today, but you may just write them down. He was a tax collector, also known as a publican, as we're used to in the King James version of the Bible.

Again, that's Matthew 9 verses 9 through 13 that tells us about Jesus Christ calling Matthew. He resided at Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. You might take a look at that if you brought your harmony. If you didn't, that's not a problem. But on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, it was quite a lucrative area if you were a tax collector because of several things.

It was a fairly well populated area there. A lot of economic activity to be taxed by the Romans, including the fishing that took place there on the Sea of Galilee. So Matthew would have been involved in taxing those activities. Also, there was a famous road that I referred to last week called the Via Morris. Via Morris, a Latin term, it means way of the sea. Not referring to the Sea of Galilee, but actually to the Mediterranean Sea. And this was a famous road that existed for oh, a thousand or more years before this time. Ran basically from Babylon and Mesopotamia over there to the east, circled around the desert areas through Damascus to the north, and then ran down alongside the Sea of Galilee by Capernaum, and then over to the Mediterranean Sea and down to Egypt.

And this is a famous route that was used for trade for centuries, many, many centuries. It was also the invasion route. So, for instance, when the Babylonians and the Assyrians came down to invade Israel and Judah, they came along the Via Morris as well. And likewise, the Egyptians, when they would go north to fight Babylon or the Hittites or Assyrians, they also would use the Via Morris. So this was a very well-known road. It would be roughly the equivalent of our interstate highway system today. And Capernaum, again, would be in a position to collect taxes there as a part of that economic activity.

So Matthew was the individual who was named by the Romans to be the tax collector there in the city of Capernaum. They also have—I didn't have this in my notes, but I just remembered—they also fairly recently discovered the remains of a Roman outpost there near Capernaum. So there would have been a Roman garrison stationed there as well for a number of different reasons there.

The Gospel of Matthew is very thoroughly Jewish. It was probably written somewhere in the Holy Land, it does not say, but probably somewhere in the Holy Land, the land of Judea or Galilee, somewhere in that particular region. Many elements in Matthew's Gospel point to it being written to a Jewish audience. And this is one thing to understand. All of the Gospels were written to distinctly different audiences, each of them different in some ways. It's not to say they're not applicable to everyone—they certainly are—but Matthew's Gospel is clearly written to a Jewish audience. And several different points that indicate that. One, Matthew, of course, is very heavily prophetic, quotes a lot of Old Testament prophecies. He has more quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament than any other author in the New Testament. In other words, what he's doing is quoting the Old Testament fairly constantly to prove that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah. And the Jews of that time were, of course, expecting a Messiah to come. So a lot of Matthew's focus is on prophecy. We'll see that as we get into it, actually starting in the very first verses of Matthew where he gives Jesus his genealogy. What does he do there? He traces Jesus Christ's descent from Abraham. Why is that significant? Well, because it was promised to Abraham that a seed would come who would bless the entire world, the seed being the prophesied Messiah. Also in that same genealogy he talks about Jesus being a descendant of David. The Messiah was to be a descendant of David as well. So that's one of the reasons why the genealogy is in there, to show that Jesus is, yes, a descendant of both Abraham and of David, and therefore was qualified in that way to be the Messiah. He uses a lot of Jewish terminology. One example that we'll talk about when we get into it is Kingdom of Heaven. Why did he use the term Kingdom of Heaven as opposed to Kingdom of God? Anyone know the answer to that off the top of your head?

Well, think about the Third Commandment there. You shall not take the name of the Eternal, your God in vain. Jews at that time and Jews today will commonly never pronounce the name of God. That is one reason why the actual pronunciation was lost years ago, thousands of years ago, because they just viewed it as a restriction to never use the name of God at all. That's why they would substitute, even in our written Bibles, the word Adonai, which is translated Lord. And a lot of the Hebrew writings there. They would never pronounce the name of God, or Yahweh, as best we can tell it would be pronounced there. So Matthew, in accordance with that, typically uses Kingdom of Heaven as a synonym for God. He uses that other synonyms as well, some that come to mind, the power or the things like that. We'll talk about those more as we get to them. So again, this indicates that his gospel is written to a Jewish audience. However, all of this... well, let's see, another point before I get ahead of myself. He also mentions a lot of Jewish customs just in passing. He does not bother to explain them. This would be in contrast to a gospel like Mark's, for instance, where Mark explains a lot of Jewish customs. Matthew, because he's writing to a Jewish audience, does not need to explain them, because again, he's writing about Jewish customs to a Jewish audience. He doesn't need to define or explain them there. Now, having said all of this, this does not mean that Matthew restricts his gospel to Jews. It is also somewhat universal. For instance, he talks about the coming of the Magi, or the wise men, from the east to worship the infant Jesus. It's talked about in Matthew 2, verses 1-12. He also talks about the field, and one of the parables being the world, showing that it is universal, that God is actually dealing with everyone. He also, in Matthew 28, verses 18-20, gives the Great Commission, which is to take the gospel to the world. So he is showing that God's plan and his purpose encompasses everyone, not just the Jewish peoples. The purpose, as we touched on in here, is to show that Jesus is the Messiah. Again, he does this by showing how Jesus in his life and ministry continually fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah found throughout the Old Testament. And again, he also emphasizes that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham, Abraham and of David there. Structure. This is fairly interesting here, something we'll talk a little bit about. I had the misconception for many, many years, probably you did as well, that each of the gospels is chronological, that it just tells a story, because that's the way we would write a biography today. We would start with somebody's birth and go through the events of their life in chronological order until the person died or passed from the scene. So we would naturally assume, because of our western way of thinking, that is the way the gospels are written. However, that is not the case. They organize and structure their material differently. And Matthew does this as well. Matthew organizes his gospel around five great discourses they're called, or we could say, sayings or collections of saying. That's the way his book is organized. And I'll give you these here. Again, I hope you're prepared to write quickly. The Sermon on the Mount is the first one, chapters 5 through 7.

Chapters 5 through 7, Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 10, the Commission of the Twelve Disciples, or Commission 2, the Twelve Disciples, Chapter 10. Chapter 13, the Parables of the Kingdom, gives a series of parables about the Kingdom of God in Chapter 13.

Chapter 18 talks about humility and forgiveness, the necessity of those for his followers. Humility and forgiveness in Chapter 18. In Matthew 24 and 25, we probably all know what discourse that is, the Olivet Prophecy.

Chapters 24 and 25. And that this is clear is because each of these sayings ends with a phrase something like this. It says, when Jesus had finished saying these things, after each of these five discourses, that phrase is included in there, or something very similar to that. And you can write these down. This is in Matthew 7, 28, 11, 1, 13, 53, 19, 1, and 26, what? Now, unfortunately, that's when it starts another section of material, but actually those are pointing to the conclusion of those five great discourses. And then in between those discourses, he has narrative information or story flow, you might say, that leads up to those five discourses. You can also make the argument there are two other discourses. They are not identified by those words, but one is Matthew 23.

What's Matthew 23 about? It's where he excoriates the scribes and pharisees, where they're religious hypocrisy. Whole chapter, Matthew 23, about that. And the other is at the very end of his gospel, Matthew 28 verses 16 through 20, which is about the Great Commission.

Again, about the Great Commission, Matthew 28. I can see I'm not doing well on time here, so I'm going to have to pick up the pace a bit. Okay, that's your introduction to Matthew. Mark is the next one we'll talk about here. The author, as near as we can tell, is Mark, or John Mark, as he sometimes called. You might write down Acts 12, 12, and 25, where he is referred to as John Mark. Again, that's Acts 12, 12, and 25. Mark is probably the individual referred to in Mark 14 and verses 51 and 52. This is where the detachment comes to capture Jesus and get simony. And there's a young man who runs away naked when somebody tries to grab him and grabs his cloak, and the man runs away naked. That's probably a reference to John Mark himself. Again, that's Mark 14, 51, 52. Mark was a close associate of the Apostle Peter, and this is apparently the source of his information there. Apparently, some people, well, some people even refer to this as Peter's gospel, thinking that basically what Mark has done is taken the information that Peter has given either basically through the sermons, messages that he gave that Mark compiled that information and recorded it into a gospel. So it's sometimes referred to as Peter's gospel as well.

And incidentally, the harmony of the gospels that you have here, it is for your information. I didn't mention this or spell it out, but it's based on the order of events in the gospel of Mark, rather than Matthew, Luke, or John. It's based on the order of events given in Mark, because some scholars believe that Mark's gospel is the most chronologically correct order-wise there.

The first mention of Mark is in connection with his mother Mary, who had a house in Jerusalem that served as a meeting place for members of the early church. You find that again in Acts 12 and verse 12 scripture that was given earlier. There's a fairly detailed backstory on Mark that we're familiar with. I'll cover it fairly quickly here. Mark was the cousin of Barnabas, and when Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch from Jerusalem after visiting there early in the story, Mark was accompanying them. This again is mentioned in Acts 12 and verse 25. Mark next appears as a helper to Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. You find that in Acts 13 and verse 5. However, in Acts 13 and verse 13, we find that Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas to return to Jerusalem. That's Acts 13 and 13 again. Because of this, Paul was very deeply disappointed in Mark, did not feel that he was reliable. And then when Barnabas proposed taking Mark on their second journey, Paul flatly refused, believing that Mark was not reliable. And that led to Paul and Barnabas going their separate ways for a time there. No further mention is made of either Barnabas or Mark in the book of Acts after that. However, Mark does reappear later in Paul's letter to the Colossians, written from Rome near the end of Paul's ministry when he is in prison in Rome. Paul sends a greeting from Mark. So if you're sending it from Mark, then obviously Mark is there with Paul in Rome, which tells you something. Paul is under house arrest in Rome, and Mark is there helping Paul. So obviously they have made up and reconciled. And indeed, Paul refers to well Colossians 4 in verse 10. He says that if Mark comes to you to welcome him.

Also Philemon, verse 24, Paul calls Mark one of his fellow laborers. And also by the end of Paul's life in 2 Timothy 4, verse 11, he is very complimentary toward Mark. Again, that's 2 Timothy 4, verse 11. So Paul has fully accepted Mark, and Mark has repented change from the apparently immature person he was earlier on, and has become a good helper and fellow laborer to Paul near the end of Paul's life.

Where was Mark written? Apparently from Rome. Again, as we referred here, Mark was in Rome near the end of Paul's life. Who was it written to? Apparently it was written to the Roman world. Perhaps the church members in Rome, perhaps the church members in Italy, or Gentile readers. But he is writing it to a predominantly Gentile audience. Several indications that he's the opposite of Matthew. Matthew mentions a lot of Jewish customs and does not explain them. Mark does the opposite. He does explain the Jewish customs. So he's writing to an audience that is clearly non-Jewish. Mark also translates Hebrew or Aramaic words that are used in there. We'll touch on examples of that as we go through the Gospel. So he translates these words in Hebrew or Aramaic. Again, the Jews who understood Hebrew and Aramaic. Mark's audience does not understand Hebrew or Aramaic, so he translates them. And he also sometimes uses Latin phrases in there that Romans would have understood, but Jews would not have understood. Last but not least, he also has a special emphasis on persecution and martyrdom. Again, because this is starting to show itself more and more, particularly starting in Rome as well.

Several emphases of Mark's Gospel, covering this fairly quickly, first is that Jesus is the Son of God. He emphasizes that Jesus is a miracle worker. He includes 18 different miracles in his Gospel. His is the shortest Gospel, but includes 18 different miracles in it. He regularly emphasizes both Jesus Christ's humanity and the fact that he is the Son of God. He emphasizes the death of Jesus by emphasizing both that it was the Jewish leadership that conspired to kill Jesus to murder him, but also that it was a divine necessity that Jesus die to pay the penalty for the sins of mankind.

He also heavily emphasizes the teachings of Jesus. Mark actually records fewer teachings of Jesus in the other Gospel writers, but he does strongly emphasize Jesus's role as a teacher, as evidenced by the words teacher or teach or teaching. And Rabbi, one of the meanings of that, also his teacher, he applies those to Jesus 39 times in his Gospel, emphasizing that Jesus is the Teacher. A discipleship, he talks a great deal about discipleship, what it means to be a follower and a disciple of Jesus. And you might write down Mark 834 through 91. That's 834 through 91.

Mark 935 through 1031. 935 through 1031. And 1042 through 45. And I'll let you read those on your own later, but he talks about the commitment that it takes to follow Jesus Christ above everything and to give up all to follow Jesus Christ. Mark's Gospel also has an emphasis on action. It's a fairly simple story of Jesus Christ's ministry, emphasizing more of what Jesus did rather than what he said there. Why does he do this? Well, if you think about it, again, who was the person behind Mark's Gospel? Well, the Apostle Peter. Peter was very much an individual of action. He was a man of action, often jumping in feet first before he even knew all the facts or circumstances there. So it's only natural that Mark's Gospel would reflect that mindset. And also, because he's writing to a Roman world or Roman audience, the Romans were a people of action. One thing the Roman world would really appreciate was people who got things done. Because who were the Romans? They were the road builders. They were the constructors. They were the people who built the great things that we can still see to this day. They're in Italy or the Middle East or North Africa. There you can still see their calceums, their roads, their temples, things like that. So they were people of action. Mark seems to include that in his Gospel because the Romans could identify with man of action, people who really knew how to get the job done.

So that's our introduction to Mark. Move on to the Gospel of Luke.

This Gospel is a companion volume to the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts and the language and structure of these two books indicate that both were written by the same person. Vocabulary is very similar. Structure is very similar. They are addressed to the same individual, which we see in Acts 1 and verse 1 there. In the first few verses of Luke, they're addressed to the individual by the name of Theophilus.

And Acts 1 and verse 1 actually refers to the previous volume that he had written. That's a reference to the Gospel of Luke. A little digression into Acts. Certain sections in Acts use the pronoun we. We did this. We went there. We went to this place. We did that. And so on, showing that the person is actually there in the company of the Apostle Paul at the time. So Luke was, by process of elimination, you look at the people who were traveling with Luke at various times. And it seems evident that, as Paul referred to him, his dear friend Luke, her physician, as he's called in Colossians 4 and verse 14, and his fellow worker, as Luke is referred to in Philemon 24. Again, that's Colossians 4, 14, and Philemon 24. And so he becomes the most likely candidate for it. Again, it doesn't state who wrote it, but the most likely candidate is Luke. And then also later, a Christian writer said very clearly that Luke was the writer of this.

Luke was most likely a Gentile by birth. This would make him the only non-Gentile writer there of the Bible, except for a few very minor portions. He was well educated in Greek culture. He was a physician by profession and had an outstanding command of the Greek language. He was a very highly educated individual. And also, as we read from 2 Timothy 4 and verse 11, 2 Timothy 4, 11, he was a very loyal friend to Paul who was there with him at the end of his ministry there in Rome after others had deserted Paul. Because Paul largely went to the Greek world, that is what Luke's gospel seems oriented to. So we have Matthew writing to the Hebrew world, Hebrew and Jewish. We have Mark writing to Romans. And Luke, by structure and content, is apparently oriented more to the Greek world because that is primarily where Paul traveled. He spent a lot of time in Asia Minor, in Greece, in Corinth, in Philippi, and cities like that, Thessalonika, and so on. So Luke's gospel seems oriented more to the Greek world and the Greek way of thinking. Luke's writing is very logical, who were the Greeks. They were the the spox of the ancient world. They tended to think of things very logically, very orderly, and so on. And that is the way Luke approaches things in his gospel. He includes a lot of detail in his gospel as well as the book of Acts. A lot of detail that incidentally has been verified by archaeology. He mentions things like a particular official who lived in a particular city at a particular time. And archaeologists have gone to those cities and activated him and find inscription that say, lo and behold, this individual was this particular official, held this particular office, and this period of time, the very same time that Luke describes Paul or Barnabas or others being in those areas there. So it's rather interesting that that Luke wrote all of this detail to prove to his audience then that Jesus was the Messiah. And now hundreds, well, two thousand years later, archaeologists can go back. And because of the amount of detail Luke includes and what they go in and find with the activate these cities just proves over and over again that Luke's gospel is true. So it worked back then two thousand years ago, and it's also proving the very same thing now, two thousand years later. So recipient, we mentioned this is oriented more to the to the Greek world, the Greek way of thinking. Specifically, it's directed to Theophilus in Luke 1 and verse 3, Theophilus. What does Theophilus mean? Break it down. We'll talk about words a lot in the study. Theo, theology means study of God. Theo, theos in Greek means God.

Philia or phyllis, philia means love. There you might think of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. So Theophilus means lover of God or God lover. That's the way we translate it into Greek, or one who loves God. Luke uses the title Most Excellent Theophilus. This title indicates that he may have been a high government official or some sort of wealthy individual there to have this title applied to him. He was possibly, this was fairly common in that time, if you were a fairly wealthy individual. You might even have a slave who would do nothing but write for you. He would be your scribe, your secretary, the person who would write and prepare your legal documents, and so on. So it's quite possible that this Theophilus was a fairly wealthy individual who would come in contact with the truth and is probably, again, this is a fairly common system of that day, paying Luke, supporting Luke, paying him essentially a salary or something, to write these materials for him, to research and write out the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts there. And this would have been also why Luke would have referred to him as a Most Excellent Theophilus, that he's essentially paying his way there to do that and helping support Luke so he could do that. Also, a dedication like this, like Luke wrote to Most Excellent Theophilus, is fairly common for individuals who were the patrons of authors during that time there.

Even though the Gospel was written specifically to Theophilus that does not narrow or limit its purpose, it was written to strengthen the faith of all believers and to teach them about Jesus Christ as well as to answer the attacks of unbelievers. Luke was not an eyewitness, unlike Matthew, Mark and John. I include Mark in that because he was clearly president. Some of the circumstances, though not all. However, Luke did speak to those who were eyewitnesses. He spent a lot of time with the Apostle Paul, as we see in the book of Acts. So obviously, Paul would have been one of the sources. You might remember that Paul was taught personally by Jesus Christ for three years in the desert at the beginning of his ministry.

You might turn over to Luke 1 and verse 1, either in your Bible or in the Harmony here. We'll read a few verses here about this. Where Luke begins his Gospel with, "...inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, delivered them to us." So you look at this and you see that there were others who had already written things down about Jesus Christ as well before Luke comes on the scene. So he uses that as part of his source material. And then he spells out the purpose of his writing in verses 3 and 4. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus. And here's his purpose, "...that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed." So this is the purpose of Luke's Gospel, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. So let's see. Okay, skipping ahead a little bit here. The place of writing was probably Rome, again, because Luke was there near the end of Paul's imprisonment.

Because he includes detailed descriptions of places in the Holy Land, the Gospel seems to be intended for readers who are not familiar with that land. Another indication this is not written to a Jewish audience, but again, primarily to the Greek-speaking world.

Key points in Luke's Gospel. He presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially important for understanding salvation. He covers the entire story from the birth of Jesus to his ascension after his resurrection to heaven. And then the book of Acts picks up where that leaves off and continues with the story there. His writing is written to appeal to both Gentiles and Jews. It's characterized by a warm and sensitive understanding of Jesus and those around him. Luke also seems to have, you might say, a tender heart or tender approach. He has a special emphasis on women and children, much more so than the other Gospels. He talks a lot about family, talks a lot about the poor. For instance, some of the parables will mention the poor. Luke includes a parable which the other Gospel writers do not. He also recognizes the place of Gentiles in God's plan as well as Jews. Again, that's because he's writing to a larger audience there. Again, as we just read, Luke tells us that others had written before of Jesus' life. We see that from Luke 1.1, but he went beyond this for his own writing. He wrote based on testimony from eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word as it's stated in Luke 1 and verse 2, including the preaching and oral accounts of the apostles. He has a large amount of distinctive material separate that's not included in Matthew or Mark or John there, although at times he obviously is including the same source material as we find in Matthew and Mark.

The way Luke's Gospel is organized is a bit different. Matthew, as we saw, was organized around the Great Discourses. Mark's is organized as near as we can tell, chronologically. Luke basically covers Jesus' ministry geographically. It's another logical approach, not the approach we might do it, but to agree it would have made sense. So he talks Luke 4 through Luke 9 and verse 50. Again, that's 4-14 through 9-50 is about the events in Galilee. Then he moves to what took place in Judea and Peraea, and that's in Luke 9-51 through 1927. 9-51 through 1927. And again, on your map at the back, you can see he starts out describing the events up here in Galilee, then moves to Judea and Peraea down in this area. And then last of all, he talks about the final period in Jerusalem. And that's in Luke 19-28 through 24-53. Again, that's Luke 19-28 through 24-53. The main theme of the Gospel is the nature of Jesus' Messiahship and mission. And a key verse you might write down is Luke 19 and verse 10. Luke 19 and verse 10, which says, For the Son of Man is come to seek, and to save that which was lost.

So that's our indication outline of Luke.

Move on to John here, and looks like this will be the last part we get to cover.

So the Gospel of John. The author is the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, as he's referred to several times in John's Gospel, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

John is the brother of another one of the apostles, James. John and James were the sons of Zebedee, fishermen, and there... Anybody remember what they were called? Yes, Sons of Thunder. There's actually an excellent article you can find online. I should have mentioned this about the others, too. But, yeah, early in the Good News, 13, 14 years ago, we did a series of profiles called Profiles of Faith of Different Individuals. And the one on John, I remember in there particularly, describes the story of how John transformed from a son of Thunder. He's apparently a pretty rambunctious individual to becoming the Apostle of Love, as he's commonly referred to later on in his life, very heavily emphasizing love in his Gospel and in the letters that he wrote for 2nd and 3rd John. So quite a transformation that took place that we see in his life through the power of God's Spirit working within the man to call and convert him. He was called the Sons of Thunder because he and his brother wanted to call down fire on a village that had not been hospitable to them. He says, Yeah, God, Jesus, bring down fire on them. That'll learn them. Yeah, that'll... So that's kind of individual, he was. Kind of reminds you of Peter, too. But he changed. It became a very...an individual who really emphasized love later on in his ministry there. It's quite a good example. He was a very deeply converted man. Later on, he had such a love of Jesus that what did Jesus do? As he's hanging there dying, he gives John a special job to do. What was that? Anyone remember what that was? Take care of his own mother. So that tells you a great deal about the character of John and how much highly regarded he was by Jesus. Another interesting sidelight. You can read about this in the Book of Jesus Christ, the real story. But John was actually a cousin of Jesus as well. There, you might read about that. There, that gives the evidence based on the different names that are used in their relationships. And through that, we find that John was a cousin of Jesus.

John knew Jewish life well there. We see this from references to a lot of things. The way the people expected a Messiah to come, the hostility between the Jews and Samaritans. He talks about that pretty openly. Jewish customs, such as circumcision, and even circumcision taking precedence over the Sabbath, though we're not working on the Sabbath.

There, so you'll find that in John 7 and verse 22. He's very familiar with Jewish life, which again is an indication that he was the author of that. He also knew the geography of the Holy Land very well. He talks about that. For instance, Bethany being about two miles from Jerusalem over on the side of the Mount of Olives. He mentions Cana, which was a village that isn't referred to in any other early writing period, not just the Gospels, but nowhere. And yet, he describes that and gives us a general indication where it was. And indeed, archaeologists have found what they believe is the side of Cana. He also includes a number of touches that show that, yes, they had to have been written by an eyewitness. An example of that, John 12 and verse 3, he talks about the house at Bethany being filled with the fragrance when Mary anointed Jesus with the perfume. And he described how it smelled. If you're a historian and you're writing about historical events, you're not going to write about how perfume smelled or how anything smelled. No, but if you were there, if you were an eyewitness, it was obviously something that struck him. How the smell of the perfume filled the house that they were in. So again, this is an indication that it was written by an eyewitness there. Date. Let's see, I'm not sure if I want to get into that here. There's two different views about John's Gospel. Let's see, I think I'll save that for later, considering our time here. Because I want to go into that in some detail here.

Purpose of John's Gospel and the emphasis of it. John's Gospel is quite a bit different from the other three. The other three Gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels. Again, let's break down that word. Synoptic, not S-I-N, sin, but S-Y-N, sin, meaning with. Optic. Well, what's optic about? It's about seeing as an optics, your optical nerve, and so on. So that basically means they term it those Gospels synoptic because they are seeing with the same eye or the same viewpoint. However, John's Gospel is very different. The material, there's very little overlap between John's material and the other Gospels. John doesn't include parables, for instance, which the other Gospels do. John gets into a lot of very deep theological discussions there, as we find very early on. What's John 1.1 about? It's about Jesus Christ's pre-existence there before the universe began. None of the other Gospel writers touch on that at all. So John is very different compared to the Synoptic Gospels. His view of Christ is considerably different. Not that they are presenting a different view, but different viewpoints, different perspectives. John presents a view that is much more detailed and in-depth theologically about who and what Jesus Christ was. What is His purpose? He states His purpose in John 20 and verse 31. John 20 and verse 31, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. Again, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

John is also combating Gnosticism. We'll talk about that a fair amount when we get into John 1, where it's brought out there. He also discusses this in his epistles. This is part of the reason with the dating issues over John's Gospels. Most scholars believe that John's Gospel was much later than the others, that he probably wrote it in the 90s AD.

Part of that is because he is combining Gnosticism, which was apparently much more of a problem toward the end of the first century. Well, we know it was more of a problem. It's not that it appears that way. Basically, Gnosticism taught that anything that was physical was evil, and anything that was spirit was good. Gnosticism had this weird philosophy that influenced everything they did. Gnostics could be very ascetic. The early monastic movements came out of Gnosticism to some degree. These are the people who would go away and set up monasteries out in the desert, and people would live their celibate lives there. They did not believe in eating, well, not eating, but eating good food or fine food. They would just live on bread and water, proverbial bread and water, this type of thing. Part of that is because they believed matter, the physical life, is evil and corrupt. You have to become more and more spiritually enlightened, and that is what is good. An outgrowth of this, as it manifested itself toward the end of the first century, is they taught that Jesus could not have been a physical being, that he was essentially a spirit or a mirage type, an illusion, you might say, that he didn't really exist as a physical human being at all. Yes, David? The word he used was phantom. Phantom, yes, phantom. Yeah, good. I was trying to think of the word there. Yes, phantom is another one of the words, Greek word they use to describe it. But how does John begin his gospel? He begins his gospel by describing how in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word what? became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld him, and we touched him, and all of this, and John's gospel is full of this, talking about how Jesus was a physical human being, how he got tired, how he was thirsty, how he really loved other people, how he showed emotions, how he cried, he wept, John records on one occasion. So it's showing again and again that, yes, Jesus was divine, but yes, he came in the flesh. And what does he say in his epistles? He says, he who denies that the Son of God came in the flesh is an antichrist, is of the spirit of antichrist, denying that Jesus is who and what he was. So that's some of the background to John there. So all of these things that John talks about so heavily were diametrically opposed to what Gnosticism taught. So that's one o'clock. That's our time is up here, and I get through five out of about 12 pages here. So we have the material here for the next, I thought one, but maybe the next two. We'll see. But thank you all for coming. Yes, Tim.

Oh, good. Yeah, we'll get into that in detail as soon as we get into the Gospels, because where did the Gospels start? John 1-1. That's actually the first verse of the Bible. John 1-1, because it's before the beginning that's described in Genesis. Any other questions from people? Yeah, I meant to leave a little time for questions. Anything that's not clear about that? Prompt any other questions here? So if not, okay. Reminder, we do need to be out of here by 1 30. And I believe there was announcement. Aaron, did you have that about a prayer request? And there is a card back at the table. So Aaron's got his own microphone there. No, I wanted to say, for those of you that have ever been to Phoenix, Arizona, and know Jerry and Karen Crayer. They have a son who moved to Los Alamitos, who works for the government in New Mexico, and he married a Filipino. Her name was Paulette, and she just died. She went to the hospital on November the 5th, and she died on the 9th of a brain aneurysm. And she had many strokes. And it was extremely sudden, obviously, because they just took her for feasts and everything. And I was reading some comments that she had written to her mother-in-law, and she just passed. She just died. And they have a daughter, and he is currently, obviously, grieving in New Mexico. If you want to contact him, I recommend, through his mother, Karen Crayer. And that would be through a minister in Phoenix, John Elliott. They're having a fund and everything. They have a website set up and everything. But her name was Paulette, Paulette Crayer. And Cheryl Macarek actually schooled with her in the Philippines. Very good friend of Paulette with Cheryl. So if you're in contact with Cheryl, she will tell you, obviously, a lot more details than I know about. But, yeah, the service was last Sunday. So, that's all.

Okay. Thank you, Erin. We're dismissed. Hope you all have a good week, and hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And we won't see you. We'll be out of town, but wherever you might be, hope everything goes well for you.