1. New Testament – Gospels
   1. What are the Gospels?
      1. Biographies of Jesus, but different
      2. Not about his whole life
      3. Not chronologically arranged
      4. Slight variations
      5. Three Synoptics (seen-together)

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)

• In the earliest centuries of Christianity, the word “gospel” did not refer primarily to a literary genre in any formal sense. Throughout most of the Church’s history, Christians have thought of the Gospels as biographies of Jesus, but it is best to refer to them as theological biographies because whereas they “formally” have parallels in other literature; “materially” they are uniquely Christian.
• The Gospels have proven themselves time and again to be historically trustworthy, despite continual attacks from the tradition criticism proponents, such as the Jesus Seminar and most recently Bart Ehrman. How are we to understand these criticisms?
  • We must read the Gospel both horizontally and vertically, but vertically should take precedence.
    • Horizontally means to compare the ways in which the different Gospel writers treat a certain passage. It is appropriate in thinking horizontally to use one Gospel to interpret another, so long as one does not mask the distinctives of each. For example, by comparing Mt. 27:56; Mk. 15:40; and John 19:25, it is reasonable to deduce that Zebedee’s wife’s name was Salome and that she and Jesus’ mother, Mary, were sisters. Jesus would then have been cousins with his two disciples John and James. This information, if true, might have been widely known in early Christianity so that no one Gospel writer felt a need to spell it out. But we cannot prove any of this. Any application of the stories of Jesus’ death that focused more on these possible relationships than on the actual information in the Gospels would be misguided.
    • Vertically means that any passage in the Gospels should be interpreted in light of the overall structure and themes of that Gospel despite the nature of any parallel accounts that appear in other Gospels. This is where we must allow the Gospel writers to speak in the way that the Holy Spirit directed them. Each writer writes for a different purpose. For example, Mark and Luke report that the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism declared, “You are my Son, whom I love” (Mk. 1:11; Lk. 3:22), while Matthew’s account has “This is my Son, whom I love” (Mt. 3:17). The question that needs to be asked is who is the writer’s audience?
    • Pitfalls to avoid – the Gospels were not written about us. They were written for us. Do not put yourself in the story and make it about you. You were not there. Do not moralize the story by reducing it to examples of good or bad behavior.
  • Key Theological Issues
    • The Kingdom of God
      • Keep in mind the already/not yet aspect of the kingdom. It is already inaugurated, but not yet consummated. Important within this concept is the two ages (this age and the age to come)
    • The Ethics of Jesus
      • Most of Jesus’ teachings apply to all believers in all situations, unless Scripture itself clearly imposes certain limitations. When Jesus concludes the section of the Sermon on the Mount, he declares: “Be perfect [whole, mature; Greek teleios], therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect [whole, mature]” (Mt. 5:48). This remains the standard or ideal of discipleship for all Christians. We will not attain wholeness in this life, but we can arrive at a measure of maturity. Jesus’ standard should be our constant goal (“already but not yet”). He intended his ethic for all believers, not just a select few.
    • The Forms Within the Gospels
      • Parables
        • A parable is not the same as an allegory. An allegory is where just about everything in the story corresponds to something else. A parable is a means of teaching that is designed to elicit a response in the hearer. Usually, they are used as a means to break down one’s defenses by telling a story that exposes their need, their sin, their hypocrisy, their condition, their ignorance or their shortcoming. They are a story with a punch! They captivate then stun. They disarm then sting.
      • Miracle Stories
        • A biblical miracle is a strikingly surprising event, beyond what is regarded as humanly possible, in which God is believed to act, either directly or through an intermediary. The miracle-stories in the Gospels function first christologically to demonstrate who Jesus was, and then salvation-historically to corroborate his claims that the kingship of God was breaking into human history.
      • Pronouncement Stories
        • Common in the Gospels, it designates a short, self-contained narrative that functions primarily to introduce a key climactic saying (or pronouncement) of Jesus. Theses pronouncements are usually proverbial in nature. As proverbs, they instill wise generalizations in the form of concise memorable phrases and should not be interpreted as absolute truths. For example, Mark 2:13-17 offers a classic example of a pronouncement story. The call of Levi builds to a climax with Jesus’ final pronouncement against his Pharisaic critics: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (v. 17). Obviously these are generalizations; healthy people did at times need physicians for preventive medicine, and Jesus did occasionally minister among those who considered themselves righteous, which is probably what the Greek dikaioi here means (cf. Lk. 14:1-24). But both of these situations were exceptions and not the rule. At the same time, Jesus’ claims challenged (and still challenge) conventional ideas of ministry.
      • Other Forms
        • Legal maxims, beatitudes and woes, announcement and nativity stories, calling and recognition scenes, farewell discourses, etc.
      • Questions to ask
        • What is the Gospel’s theme and goal?
        • Who is the Gospel’s audience?
        • Where is this text in the storyline of the Gospel?
        • How does this text fit with that?
        • Why did he say it in these words?
        • Why did he say it in these words to these people?
        • Why did the author (the Holy Spirit) include this account?

How Should We Read the Gospels?

• Our method of reading the Gospels must respect the means God used to inspire them in the first place. The Gospel writers are saying something about Jesus in each episode and they are saying something by the way they link the smaller stories together to form the larger story.
• 2 simple interpretive questions:
  • What does this small story tell us about Jesus?
  • What is the Gospel writer trying to say to his readers by the way he puts the smaller stories together?

1. How to read individual stories (Mark 4:35-41
   1. Who? (Characters)
   2. What? (Storyline)
   3. When? (time)
   4. Where? (place)
   5. Why? (reason)
   6. How? (means)
   7. Are there any interpretive instructions from the author?
2. How to read a series of stories

Mark 4:35-41 → Mark 5:1-20 → Mark 5:24b-34

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Mark 5:21-24a    Mark 5:35-43 → Mark 6:5-6

3. How do we apply it?

1. New Testament – Acts (Theological History)
   1. A sequel to Luke
      1. Compare Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-2
      2. Are there thematic and structural parallels between the two books?
         1. Prayer, the work of the Spirit, the gospel for all people, etc.
         2. Miracles – Acts 9:32-35; cf. Luke 5:17-26; Acts 9:36-43; cf. Luke 8:40-42, 49-56.
         3. Journey motif
            1. Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross (Luke 9:51; 13:22; 33; 17:11; 18:31; 19:41)
            2. A number of journeys concluding with Paul in Rome

• There is a definite overlap between the ending of Luke and the beginning of Acts

1. Theological narrative (Acts) – (Moo and Stuart)

• Luke’s two volumes (Luke and Acts) fit into two types of history, Hellenistic historiography and Old Testament history. Luke has interests that go far beyond simply informing or entertaining. There is a divine activity going on in this story, and Luke is especially concerned that his readers understand this. For him, the divine activity that began with Jesus and continues through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church is a continuation of God’s story that began in the Old Testament.
• Acts, includes not only the purely historical questions like “what happened?” but also the theological ones such as “what was Luke’s purpose in selecting and shaping the material in this way?” Our exegetical interest, therefore, is both in what and If you were given an assignment, it would look like this: (1) Read Acts all the way through in one or two sittings, (2) As you read, make mental notes of such things as key people and places, recurring motifs (what really interests Luke?), and natural divisions of the book. (3) Now go back and skim read, and jot down with references your previous observations. (4) Ask yourself, “Why did Luke write this book?”
• How is Acts structured? Acts has frequently been divided on the basis of Luke’s interest in Peter (chs. 1-12) and Paul (chs. 13-28), or in the geographical expansion of the gospel suggested in 1:8 (chs. 1-7, Jerusalem; 8-10, Samaria and Judea; 11-28, to the ends of the earth). Although both of these divisions are recognizable in terms of actual content, there is another clue, given by Luke himself, that seems to tie everything together much better. As you read, notice the brief summary statements in 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:4; and 19:20. In each case the narrative seems to pause for a moment before it takes off in a new direction of some kind. On the basis of this clue, Acts can be seen to be composed of six sections or panels that give the narrative a continual forward movement from its Jewish setting based in Jerusalem, with Peter as its leading figure, toward a predominately Gentile church, with Paul as the leading figure, and with Rome, the capital of the Gentile world, as the goal. Once Paul reaches Rome, where he once again turns to the Gentiles because they will listen (28:28), the narrative comes to an end.
• What is Luke’s purpose? A few observations are in order, partly based also on what Luke did not
  • The key to understanding Acts seems to be in Luke’s interest in this movement of the gospel, orchestrated by the Holy Spirit, from its Jerusalem-based, Judaism-oriented beginnings to its becoming a worldwide, Gentile-predominant phenomenon. On the basis of structure and content alone, any statement of purpose that does not include the Gentile mission and the Holy Spirit’s role in that mission will surely have missed the point of the book.
  • This interest in “movement” is further substantiated by what Luke does not tell us.
    • He has no interest in the “lives,” that is, biographies, of the apostles.
    • He has little or no interest in church organization or polity.
    • There is no word about other Geographical expansion except in the one direct line from Jerusalem to Rome.
    • All of this together says that church history per se was simply not Luke’s reason for writing.
  • Luke’s interest also does not seem to be in standardizing things, bringing everything into uniformity. Such diversity probably means that no specific example is being set forth as the model Christian experience or church life.
  • Nonetheless, we believe that much of Acts is intended by Luke to serve as a model. But the model is not so much in the specifics as in the overall picture. By the very way God has moved him to structure and narrate this history it seems probable that we are to view this triumphant, joyful, forward-moving expansion of the gospel into the Gentile world, empowered by the Holy Spirit and resulting in changed lives and local communities, as God’s intent for the continuing church. And precisely because this God’s intent for the church, nothing can hinder it.