Four Gospels

This is a chart I made for a class I was helping with, I prepared it to go along with a short (10 minute) presentation… as such I could only take things so far… I stopped short of going into the Symbolism & how it relates to the Standards of the tribes as they moved through the wilderness, or how it relates to the faces on the cherubim… I didn't mention 1st miracles, or many many other comparisons… I'm publishing this in hopes that it will spur you on to learn & discover even more.  Blessings!!

The Four Gospels

Gospel = Good Tidings (a.k.a. Good News)

* Synoptic = “seeing together”, these are very parallel in content & order.

Matthew*	Mark*	Luke*	John
Author: Jew, former Tax Collector / Customs Official, Disciple (one of the 12), Levite.  Able stenographer (of sorts) due to his former occupation.	Jew, a younger man & understudy of Peter, believed to be a disciple of Jesus (but not one of the 12). Also worked alongside Luke & Paul.	Greek, Medical Doctor by profession, traveling companion of Paul, Historian. Wrote Acts which is a follow-on companion book to Luke.	Jew, former Fisherman, Disciple (12), Inner Circle (3), the “Beloved”, cousin of Jesus,  died of natural causes. Wrote the book of Revelation.
Date written: AD 50s-70s	AD 50s-70s	AD 50s-70s	AD 85 or later, 50s-70s
Audience: Jews: religious, spiritual, meditative, knowledge of Scriptures / Prophecies.	Romans: action-oriented, conquest, politics, business, reigning world power.	Greeks: philosophy, intellect, education, culture, poetry, music, idealistic re: truth.	Church, World, all who would come to know Jesus as Lord, the Masses.
Supreme (ruler/king/messiah): genealogy is of the Royal Line, chapters 5-7 (Sermon on the Mount) are a type of Manifesto for His Kingdom.	Servant: no genealogy - who cares about genealogy of a servant, records more miracles than other Gospels, emphasizes Jesus actions.	Son of Man (perfect humanity): genealogy is traced to Adam, frequently pictured in prayer or with Angels ministering, songs (poems) are recorded.	Son of God (deity): points to Jesus divine relationship, there is a genealogy of sorts “In the beginning...” which is that of the pre-existent eternal one.
Promised One	Powerful One	Perfect One	Personal One
What Jesus Said: Recorded Jesus discourses verbatim (stenographer).	What Jesus Did: Like the script of an action movie, a reflection of Peter as a man of action.	What Jesus Felt: His humanity, how He wept, how He trembled with compassion, etc.	Who Jesus Was: He was God, the pre-existent One, the Creator, the “I Am”.
Closes With: Jesus the King commissioning His disciples. Resurrection	Jesus the Servant laboring with His disciples. Ascension	Jesus the Perfect Man carried up to Heaven in Glory. Promised Holy Spirit	If all Jesus did could be written the whole world couldn’t contain it. Promised Return
Symbolism: Lion	Ox	Man	Eagle

Final Thoughts: Don’t get hung up with differences in order of events between the Gospels, in the days these were written accounts weren’t necessarily given in a chronological order.  These are the accounts of Witnesses to very specific events, not all events are recorded but only a tiny fraction.  If Witnesses today give identical accounts in a court of law they are suspected of being in collusion, with this in mind we shouldn’t expect authentic written accounts of different witnesses to be identical.  There’s so much more…

Word Study - Propitiation

We are told that Jesus is our Propitiation.  Propitiation is a word that most of us don’t use on a normal day-to-day basis, its root is the word Propitiate which is defined as follows:

To make favorably inclined; appease; conciliate.

The point of studying this word is not to increase our vocabulary, but instead to increase our understanding of Jesus death on the cross as both an amazing gift and an outrageous sacrifice, and to attempt to fully grasp the fact that without Jesus sacrificial death on our behalves we’d have absolutely no hope whatsoever of reconciliation with God.

What does Jesus being our Propitiation mean?  First we need to understand our own position with God before we can answer this question.  Prior to faith in Christ, prior to inviting Him in to be our Savior & Lord we are lost, unable to have a relationship with God.

Romans 3:10-12 & 23:

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In addition to this, we were under God’s wrath, subject to judgement under God’s perfect justice.  In God’s perfect justice sin must be destroyed - it cannot be allowed to exist in His presence - and the sinner destroyed as well.  Who or what can withstand the wrath of God?

Nahum 1:6:

Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him

Revelation 6:15-17 (People - future):

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Isaiah 34:4 (Heavens):

All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

Revelation 20:11 (Earth):

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

Only those/that which can pass God’s perfect judgement can escape God’s wrath, but we’re all sinners, we’re all imperfect people, we can’t pass His perfect judgement on our own, even the creation itself can’t pass His perfect judgement. On top of that we know that Nothing & Nobody can withstand the wrath of God... except... God Himself!!  

This is where Jesus steps in, Jesus is fully God and fully man, as such Jesus is able to pass the test of God’s perfect judgement on man, and thus is not subject to God’s wrath.  However, Jesus chose to trade places with us, to trade with us His righteousness for our sinfulness, and He’s willing to trade with whoever will come to Him.  Jesus put Himself in our place on the cross, He became the perfect spotless sacrifice God required, He took the wrath of God on Himself, He suffered in ways we cannot even fathom, He suffered not just as a man but as God.  So we needed God Himself in the person of Jesus, to take our place, to absorb the wrath of God’s Perfect Justice, in order to provide a way for sinful man to be in a Love Relationship with Him.

Romans 5:6, 9-11:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ... Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 9:22-23

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory

The good news is this: those of us who have come into a relationship with Jesus Christ now have His righteousness and are no longer objects of God’s wrath.  We are among those who are objects of God’s mercy - and blessed so much more beyond that with amazing blessings from God!

Back to Propitiation - Propitiate: appease, conciliate, make favorably inclined.

Jesus is our Propitiation: Jesus is our wrath-absorber, Jesus appeased the wrath of God.  Jesus reconciled us to God, allowing sinful man to be righteous & enter into relationship with a perfect God.  Jesus causes us to be objects of God’s mercy, God is favorably inclined to us when we have faith in Jesus as our Lord & Savior.

Yikes!! WARNING: Things Will Be Changing….

This is a warning to all who may be following this blog…

I just ran into a limitation in the Blogger software that is forcing me to do some reorganizing, this is unfortunate as I was very pleased with the format I'd created…

What does this mean?  This means I will be having to create several posts from content that is currently in another form (called Pages in Blogger) to keep the information available on this site.  If you have this site available to yourself by a "feed" you'll be seeing a large number of posts placed in a short amount of time.

When will this happen?  I hope to have time to get this done sometime in the next couple days…

In the meantime I was able to place the latest lesson in my Life Of David series under that tab (for now), so for those who attend the Sunday classes who were unable to attend last week the latest study is now available.

Sorry for any inconvenience my "reconstruction" causes…

Pressing On...

Summer is always a nice time to take a break from teaching, I miss it but I appreciate the chance to rest and rejuvenate.  I'm back to teaching on the Life Of David, I'm prepping to begin to teach on the book of Revelation, and I'm assisting a friend with a study on Mark… whew!!  No wonder I need a break when Summer comes… :)

Check out the Life Of David tab to see the latest lessons or catch up on previous lessons.

Check out the new 4 Gospels tab to see a brief comparison that I prepared to help with the Mark study.

Coming Soon will be a tab for Revelation… but that's at least a month away.

May God Bless You!!
  - Annette

Compassion...

At church today the pastor spoke about Compassion… how it is a response to the cries of real needs… how being compassionate is not comfortable, but is necessary… how compassion is an expression of Love for others, even when loving is hard…

I met a little friend in need this week… a little wild turtle...

I had seen him on an asphalt path, looking dead (head half out of shell & very still)… I didn't want him getting crushed so I decided to move him off the pathway, I also wanted to see if he was alive (and yes, he was very much alive)…

I had also noticed there was something on his back that looked like a dropping of some sort… so after he was in the grass I tried to gently push it off with a twig… and he Hissed at me - very loudly!!  Later I discovered that this is a growth - I suspected it when he hissed, but when I looked at the above picture full sized (double click on the picture) I could tell by the coloration & texture that it was some sort of growth (my heart is sad for him).

He ran away from me (yes ran - he was fast for a little guy) toward a swampy area, and I said a little prayer for God to protect his young fragile life.

I got thinking a bit about this turtle… It was easy to be compassionate toward him even though he hissed at me because I knew I probably hurt & scared him… What's amazing is how difficult it can be to be compassionate toward people that "hiss" at us, and I wonder if they're not going through the same thing, I wonder if they're not hurt & scared as well.  It made me pause, this little turtle that delighted me (he's so cute & colorful) and moved my heart has lessons to teach me about people, I need to be aware that when they are cruel to me there may be reasons for their behavior…

God help me to see people through your eyes so that I can be compassionate despite their attitudes, actions, behavior…

Lessons from the Chicken Carcass...

What happened to Annette?  Has she gone off the deep end?  This isn't her food blog… what's going on?!?!

Not to worry, you'll get it once I'm done explaining…

I was having a very busy day, and I was getting a picnic dinner pulled together using one of the roasted mini-chickens that are available at my local store…

I guess I should also back up and say that because I spend so much time alone (now that I'm retired) I tend to talk to the living things around me (my cat Oreo, visiting birds & insects, the plants…).

So I had brought this little chicken home hot, and subsequently put it in the fridge to get it cold for use in our picnic dinner… I pulled it out of the fridge & started talking to it (ok, maybe I'm just a bit nuts) saying "I guess that wasn't very nice of me to bring you home all nice and warm & then put you in a cold fridge, but I'm going to be cutting you up anyway so I'm sorry about all that…" then I realized how crazy it was talking to a dead chicken carcass… and so I said "ok, I just realized you're already dead so you don't care, you're probably up in heaven sitting next to God, looking down & laughing yourself silly at this crazy person talking to your dead carcass…" then it happened, I had an epiphany….

I got thinking about all those Old Testament sacrifices, and how those animals were in the presence of God once sacrificed, having gone from one life to another & the better off for it… it made me realize that the sacrifices weren't all that hard for the animals, they were hard for the people!!  In OT times frequently the family raised the young animal (typically a lamb) for a time in their home before taking it to sacrifice, I'm sure they couldn't help but get a bit attached (especially the children), can you imagine the tears of the kids watching their pet be led away to be sacrificed?

Up until this time I've always felt bad for the sacrifice, but I realize now that I had the wrong perspective… when I look at things from the perspective of eternity I can see how God was using this to tug at the heartstrings of His people & preparing them for His perfect sacrifice - the Lord Jesus Christ.

Word Studies...

Sometimes its nice to change things up and do a different sort of study.


I was asked to do a single devotional for a group of Christian friends, and I decided to do a basic Word Study…


Taking a different approach to the scriptures sometimes gives us a fresh new perspective, keeping things fresh always a good thing!


Here's a link to my word study, its on: Propitiation.


I'm thinking I may do a series of these, if that's the case I may start a new tab… we'll see.


Blessings!!