Note: The Gospels and Acts

The Gospels and Acts
The crux of the Bible lies within the Gospels. The entire Bible is meant to set up and then compliment the life of Jesus Christ, which is documented in the Gospels. Every key concept in the Bible lies within the Gospels. In layman’s terms, the Gospels are essentially Christianity 101. All of the foundations of Christianity are laid out in the Gospels. Acts on the other hand is more of a transitional book from the evangelical ministry of Christ's original disciples into the ministry of Paul.

Historical Background:
Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great who died shortly thereafter. Archelaus was his designated successor, he was however banished for 10 years due to the problems he inherited from his father. Samaria and Judea subsequently became direct Roman rule, headed by prefects as Pilate. Galilee and Perea became under the rule of Herod Antipas until A.D 39 when he was banished and Herod Agrippa took over. Two years later, Cesar Claudius enlarged his territory to Judea and Perea till his death in A.D44 at which point his land came back under direct Roman rule. Tension between Romans and Jews at this time intensified leading to a revolt in A.D 66 and climaxing in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D 70.

The Character of New Testament Narrative:
The Major historical books of the Old Testament (Joshua, Kings, etc) act similarly to the Gospels in a way that these books were not meant as historical accounts, rather as prophetic messages. The Gospels cannot be therefore being seen as a “biography” of Jesus, rather a collection of selected occurrences, which present the message of the Gospel. Thus we must discern in these narratives why certain events are included. As such, the significance of events in Christ's life, which has been documented repeatedly, can be determined by reading the perspective of each account.


The Synoptic Problem:
The first three gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) reference very similar events especially when contrasted to John, where much of the events in John's Gospel are not mentioned in the first three. Thus the first three Gospels are often branded by theologians as the “synoptic gospels”. Since out of the three Gospels, Mark is the most comprehensive and complete, it is commonly theorized that Mark was written first then Luke and Matthew followed its General outline. Another source then was the source for some important occurrences in Matthew and Luke, which was not documented in Mark. This is called the Two-Source theory. There are also alternate theories called the Gospel of Q theory and the theory that Luke was written first and many more. Ultimately we must look past the unresolved issues of the Gospel and be assured that the truth does not lie in the author's ability to sort out literary development but rather, divine inspiration.



The Epistles of the New Testament
The rest of the New Testament is comprised of what is known as the “Epistles” with the exclusion of Revelations. Similar to the historical narratives of the OT, the authors did not explicitly state the implications of their narratives for Christian readers in different times and places. God ordained that epistles be written to apply the gospel message about Christ to specific needs and challenges which the particular church faced. The epistles contain theology applied to the life of the church. They possess an official character by virtue of their association with the apostles of Christ. They are above all letters, written to meet the specific needs of the Church. Though our problems may not be identical to those of the first readers, discovering similarities between those original readers and ourselves will help us to apply the epistles to our lives.


Paul's Ministry
Saul of Tarsus has been thoroughly trained in Judaism and is familiar with Greek. Through divine intervention, Paul became a vessel to spread the “mystery” of the gospels primarily to the gentiles. Not much is known about Paul's decade long early ministries to Sicilia and Syria. In AD 40, his missionary work began with Barabbas as his cohort and commissioned by the church in Antioch. Paul took the Gospel to Cyprus, Galatia and Asia Minor. After his return to Antioch, he wrote the letter to the Galatians to address the group known as the “Judaizers”, a group who wanted to impose the traditional application of the Law of Moses on gentiles. Paul set off on his second mission in AD 50-52 accompanied by Silas and recruiting Timothy along the way, evangelizing in Europe, particularly in the Greek peninsula. Churches were planted in the cities as Thessalonica, Philippi and Corinth where he resided for eighteen months where he wrote to the Thessalonians who were subject of severe prosecution at the time. Paul went on his third journey through the Galatians region once more where he spends an extended amount of time in Ephesus where, this is where Paul proceeds to write the letter of 1 Corinthians to responds to the problems he has been hearing about in Corinth, many believe that this is also the time where Paul has written the letter to the Galatians. Continuing on his third Journey as going through Macedonia, Paul hears from Titus of the repentance of the Church in Corinth, thus writing 2 Corinthians in addition to a personal visit there. He writes here the book of Romans, which is by far the most comprehensive epistle out of all, as this was directed to a church Paul has not yet visited, hence extensively articulates his preaching in light of many objections during is ministry. Three months passed, at which point Paul made his way back to Judea where he was arrested and imprisoned in Caesarea due to a riot in Jerusalem. He was taken to Rome where he was made to wait for more than two years before seeing the emperor. Paul wrote the “Prison Epistles” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon) at his time in prison. The Bible does not further specify his ministry after that, but it is likely that Paul has embarked after his release on his fourth journey going as far west as Spain and as far east as the regions of the Aegean. The “pastoral epistles” which were the books of 1& 2Timothy and Titus were presumably written at this time. Paul was finally captured and taken back to Rome to be executed, however shortly before, which had written the book of 2 Timothy. During his career Paul has been an emissary of Christ to the unreached region of the world and had bequeathed an understandings and teachings of Christ in the depth which the Church has not yet exhausted.



General Epistles:
The rest of the epistles are called the General epistles are a less significant part than the Pauline epistles yet it does contain important information not found in those epistles. These are named the General epistles because the churches for which the letters are intended for are not specified or they are meant for multiple churches that are why these epistles are named after the authors not the churches. The content of the epistles are also more universal than the Pauline epistles. Some refer to the General epistles as “tracts for the times: because they deal largely with issues that nearly all Christians face. All Christians are exhorted to contend for the Faith delivered to us. We readily learn to respond to those general exhortations with faith and obedience and so to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.


Bibliography:
- The Bible
- Exploring the New Testament: Introducing the Gospels and Acts by: David Wenham (Author), Steve Walton (Author)