Unit 10:5 Study Lesson

God chose to give us four accounts of the good news of Jesus Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. As we take the Gospels through the Interpretive Journey, it is important to realize that we are dealing with christological biography—stories about Jesus told for a particular purpose. To get across the principlizing bridge we should ask two basic questions: What is the main message of each episode? and, What is the Gospel writer trying to communicate by the way he puts the smaller stories together? Since you will be able to draw principles from both levels, we have looked at how to read individual stories and how to read a series of stories.

We also learned in this chapter that grasping God’s Word does not stop when we cross the river of differences between the biblical audience and today. We must wrestle with how to relate the great truths of the Gospels to the rest of the Bible and learn how to live out Jesus’ teachings ourselves. Developing legitimate applications of some principles will be straightforward and rather easy; for others it will be complex and difficult (as in the case of our tragedy). We close this unit with gratitude that we have the good news of Jesus written down so that we may pick up the Book at any time and read and apply it. As we grasp God’s Word, we also feel God taking hold of us and using us to bring glory to his name.