First, now that I’m finished, I’m sorry this is so long.
Should I feel bad that I am writing this from my New Testament class? Don’t worry Dad, its been twenty minutes and this is as far as I’ve gotten. And besides, I want to write about what is being talking about right now. This entire class is about the gospels. We’re on John now. It has always been my favorite gospel ever since I read the things. I’m pretty sure that everyone who has ever read all four gospels gets a feeling that there is something different about it. I think I can also say with a bit of certainty that most of us don’t know what that difference is, and really probably haven’t thought about it. Well I’ve been thinking about it because its one of the more interesting things I’ve been learning about. If you don’t think my little summary is interesting, imagine what the rest is like. Actually, it might be a little difficult for me to pop out a summary of the differences in the four gospels in the next few lines that’s sufficient to get you to think about and appreciate it. It’s like trying to go speak at a high school in the morning when you’ve got like seven minutes to tell a story and make a point. This would be my story.
Return to the point:
I’ve got this book called Four Gospels One Jesus by Burridge. It’s a nice easy normal book; the kind of thing that I might read even if I wasn’t required to. Some of you might like it. As it turns out, the first three gospels share a huge amount of material and are really similar. Each has some stuff that is exclusive to it, but both Matthew and Luke share stuff from Mark, and then share some more things just between them. It’s like a story sharing triangle. Don’t get weirded out by that. They each organize this stuff in totally different ways to make it appropriate to their specific audience and make different points about Jesus. Each one tells the story to convey a different perspective, and get across a different point.
Mark rushes through it trying to get across exactly what happened as concisely as possible. The word ‘immediately” and other similar phrases are all throughout the book. Then Matthew tells most of the same stuff but adds a huge amount of teaching, and organizes his book into five main teaching sections. Go look at it. It really is organized to explain the teachings, not just one long story. Then Luke, adding his own flavor, has this feeling of everything moving toward Jerusalem. Finally John. Burridge likens the book of John to a “soaring eagle” that gracefully soars around, and can see everything from its high vantage point. John’s gospel is concerned with the divinity of Jesus much more than the others. Everything is laid bare. Jesus explicitly says talks about himself as the Son of God even to the point that he says, “the Father and I are one.” The text makes literary spirals and circles that you never pick up on unless you are looking. The writing style communicates on the narrative, basic level, but also circles and dives deep below the surface. If you want a Bible study, get a good book on John and go pick up on some of this stuff. Don’t just read it chapter by chapter and be done. Get the outline. Figure out the big picture of the book. What’s the point John is trying to make? Then start getting smaller and smaller taking it apart. If we don’t, we’re not getting everything out of John, or any other book. I think many times my perspective on Scripture has been far far far too narrow. I’ve never spent much time trying to get a broad understanding of anything, but have always tried to burrow down to some minuet truth buried in some specific verse. The writers of all of Scripture had reasons for writing. If I write you a letter, you read it to get the point of what I’m saying. Then you might look a little more carefully at a specific comment I make. But if you try to figure out what the single comment means without knowing my main point, you’re going to wind up misinterpreting me. It’s a big deal to do that with the Bible.
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