The Heart of the Story: Jesus

Jesus isn't just the reason for the season, the whole biblical story is centered on him

Dec 23, 2024

jesus christ in cross painting — Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Christmas is a couple of days away. What a perfect time to discuss the New Testament Gospels! The biblical story begins with God’s work in creation, and ends with God restoring his creation. But the heart of the whole story is the earthly life of Jesus. Everything either points forward or looks back to this brief, but climactic, period of time. It’s fitting that our entire society measures history according to this one life. What some observe merely because of the historical development of the modern calendar, we acknowledge in spirit and truth, realizing that everything we are as Christians, everything we believe, everything we do and everything we hope for is all rooted in what Jesus Christ did in first century Palestine.

Four Gospels

Since this part of the story is so essential, it’s important we understand how best to read and study the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Probably the first thing we notice about the New Testament Gospels is there are four of them. Why four? Well, instead of having one official, tightly-controlled version of the life and ministry of Jesus, we have four. And these four accounts were written by very different authors. According to extremely early tradition, Mark wrote his Gospel from the perspective of Peter, drawing on Peter’s personal accounts of Jesus. Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus, but wrote at different times with different styles and emphases. Luke wasn’t even Jewish. He was a Greek physician and understood the need for historical detail and careful research (since he wasn’t an eyewitness). These writers even arranged their material differently, some putting everything in careful chronological order, and others arranging the events and teachings according to topic (which wasn’t an unusual way to write at the time).

These authors wrote at different times, to believers in different settings, and using different approaches. So there’s no sign of imposed uniformity here. But it also becomes clear—despite these differences—they’re recounting the same story, communicating the same message. The differences are real, but these accounts tell us of the same Jesus, and the same faith and hope in him.

As you read the Gospels, it’s important not to fall into either of two extremes. The Gospels record the historical accounts of Jesus, his life and ministry in a particular setting, and the responses of the people of his day. But these books aren’t merely history. If you only focus on the historical details, you’ll miss the pulsing life of the story. On the other hand, these stories are more than inspiring myths or spiritual metaphors; they’re actual historical events. When these authors wrote the Gospels, they were writing what they knew to be true and authentic, what many of them had personally witnessed. We study the Gospels today because we firmly believe these events actually took place in history, and because we understand the life that comes to us through the story of Jesus.

Variations among the Gospels

For many thoughtful readers, the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels brings up a number of questions. I remember as a child reading the Gospels, with the words of Christ conveniently in red. I noticed the statements of Jesus were often worded a little differently in one Gospel when compared to another. These weren’t glaring contradictions, just slight variations. But I was an analytical kid, and it bothered me. How could this be? Isn’t this the perfect, flawless Word of God, recording the eternal words of Christ? How could there be any difference at all between the Gospels?

I came to learn that the common, everyday language for Jesus, for his disciples, and for the local Jews at that time was Aramaic. When Jesus originally spoke the words we read in Scripture, he wasn’t speaking Greek, but Aramaic. Later, some of his disciples recorded these teachings for other believers. And they naturally wrote these accounts in Greek because it was the common language for Jews (and Gentiles) throughout the Roman empire and even beyond. As you might guess, whenever you have different people translating, there are bound to be variations in the results. They’ll convey the same meaning, but often use slightly different words. Just imagine four different people independently translating a story from Spanish into English. Are they going to choose the exact same English words every time?

It’s also helpful to know the original biblical manuscripts didn’t include quotation marks. They weren’t used in the ancient world, and the people back then didn’t expect precise, word-for-word quotes the way we often do. When you see quotation marks in Scripture (or the words of Jesus in red) this is the work of the translators and scholars, not the original writers. First century people were more comfortable with conveying the essence of what someone had said instead of the exact wording. Imagine a child asking: “Mom, can we have some ice cream?” And she replies, “Not right now because it will ruin your dinner.” So the child reports to their waiting siblings, “No, she said we better not or we won’t eat our supper.” Is this word-for-word? No, it’s not. But is it accurate? Sure it is, and ancient people commonly summarized what others said in a similar way, even in their historical accounts. So it shouldn’t surprise or bother us if we run across slight variations in the statements of Jesus.

Historical context

As with any other writing in Scripture, we need to understand the historical context of the Gospels. In many ways, the Gospels have a unique setting. Jesus came to establish a new covenant with his people, one based on his grace-filled sacrifice for us, and our faith in him. But most of the events recorded in the Gospels took place before Christ’s death on the cross. So these teachings and stories are still looking forward to and anticipating the death and resurrection of Jesus. They share much of the same perspective as the Old Testament.

Within this Old Covenant context though, Jesus is already showing them how everything is changing. He’s fulfilling prophecies about the Messiah and the coming kingdom of God. He’s strongly hinting at a different way of understanding the law, fulfilled now in him. He’s powerfully displaying his power over the enemy, casting out demons, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, even raising the dead. The ministry of Jesus was nothing less than light dramatically invading the darkness.

The Gospels cover a period of time when the Old Covenant and New Covenant overlapped to some extent. Jesus’ ministry during this time was to people who were still under the Old Covenant law of Moses. But he was preparing them for a direct, New Covenant relationship with God, through Christ, based on grace and faith. In Jesus, the kingdom of God was right there in their midst, but Jesus was not yet ushering in the kingdom in its fullness as he one day will. This is what theologians call the “already, but not yet.” The kingdom had already arrived on the scene, but it was not yet all-encompassing as it will be in the future. We also see in the Gospels Jesus devoting time and attention to preparing the twelve for a special ministry as his personally commissioned apostles.

To whom is Jesus speaking?

What does all of this mean for us when we’re reading the Gospels? It means we have to ask ourselves, “To whom is Jesus speaking in this passage?” We can’t assume every statement applies directly to us. For example, in Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus gave these instructions:

So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

To whom is this addressed? To New Testament Christians? Not unless we’re still supposed to be taking sacrifices to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus spoke these words to people who were still in an Old Covenant context. We can certainly learn from this instruction, but it wasn’t given directly to us.

What about these instructions from Luke 9:3:

“Take nothing for your journey,” he instructed them. “Don’t take a walking stick, a traveler’s bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes.”

Who was he talking to? Us? I mean, I like traveling light, but this is a little extreme! No, Jesus is giving these instructions specifically to his apostles (and he later changed these requirements even for them). Jesus gave many commands to the disciples that had a limited application during a unique period of history. If we try to fulfill these instructions now, we’ll just confuse and frustrate ourselves. So pay attention to whom Jesus is speaking. Thankfully, much of what he says applies to all of us the same way. Just make sure to clearly see what the text says before figuring out what it means.

This is particularly important when reading the parables of Jesus. Many of his parables are so familiar to us, we naturally apply them to our lives today. But always take note of the setting, and just who was there listening to him. These parables were communicated specifically to the Jewish people of Jesus’ day; many were intentionally aimed at the Pharisees. This doesn’t mean these parables have no meaning for us, we just need to determine what they meant to them then before we can understand what they mean to us now.

Use common sense

We learned last week to look for the main point in biblical stories, not some secret, hidden meaning. A similar principle is to use common sense, and don’t overcomplicate something in the passage that already makes good sense. A test case could be the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast in Luke 13:18-21. You may have heard someone say these parables are speaking of abnormal growth of the church (a mustard seed growing into a tree) and the permeation of sin in the church (represented by the yeast permeating all the dough). Not only is this interpretation technically incorrect (mustard plants naturally grow 10-12 feet; yeast doesn’t always represent sin in Scripture), but it completely misses the clear point of the parables. The kingdom of God begins small and inconspicuous, but grows and spreads to a surprisingly large scale—as it’s intended to do.

Notice, Jesus wasn’t saying these things about certain institutional churches, but about the kingdom of God. Was Jesus really teaching that God’s kingdom would become corrupt and bloated? Of course not. So, again, use a healthy amount of common sense, and don’t needlessly complicate something that already makes sense. Pay attention to the main points of the passage, as well as the little details. If Jesus is talking about God’s kingdom (and not human, institutional churches), it should be obvious he’s not talking about it becoming corrupted. We should recognize when we’re starting to get off-track—when we’re adding our own ideas to the text—and look again at what Jesus is saying in the passage.

Don’t feel bad about double-checking when someone tells you “this” in the passage means “that.” If a mustard plant commonly grows to 10-12 feet, there’s nothing odd about birds nesting in it. This just shows how expansive God’s kingdom will become, even though it seems to begin in such a tiny form. If the Bible uses the imagery of yeast in both positive and negative ways—which it does—we can’t assume a negative connotation when we read a parable about yeast. The point here is how thoroughly the kingdom of God will permeate everything else. Don’t be afraid to check out and verify what you hear people teach! (And be gracious and patient with them. Many times they’re just passing on what they’ve heard, without taking the time to confirm it!)

Finally, also be aware that Jesus was a creative, expressive communicator. He used culturally familiar (to them) idioms or figures of speech, and—as was common at that time—he often used hyperbole (intentionally exaggerating) to make a point. We do this all the time without even thinking about it: “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times!” “I’m so tired, I’m going to sleep for a week!” The challenge for us is that we aren’t naturally familiar with these ancient figures of speech or the particular forms of hyperbole they used. So we have to be paying attention, and really think about what we’re reading.

For example, when Jesus told the people (Matthew 5:29-30):

So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. . . . And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

they would have understood immediately he wasn’t literally telling them to start gouging out and cutting off body parts. Would gouging out your eye really keep you from lusting? Would cutting off your hand cause you to no longer take what doesn’t belong to you? Is it really our eye or our hand causing us to sin? They recognized Jesus was dramatically making a deeper point. If gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand won’t keep us from sinning . . . what is it in ourselves that’s causing us to sin? What is it that needs to be removed? What needs to be completely changed and transformed so we’ll no longer desire to sin?

You can see how a healthy use of common sense can be really helpful when studying the Bible. The more you take time to think about what Jesus is saying and what it meant to them then, the more clearly you’ll see the flow of thought in the passage and how it all fits together. (And you’ll often see an underlying humor in the words of Jesus!) This helps our study of the Bible to be not only more accurate, but more real, more alive, and even more fun!

The bigger story

Most importantly, don’t forget why the Gospels are the heart of the story. Don’t forget just who Jesus is, and what he’s doing in these accounts. At the time, the disciples couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of all this. We need to make sure we have the deeper significance firmly in our minds as we read and study the Gospels. Especially at this time of year, with what’s going on in our world, we need to see the bigger picture. We must understand how incredibly vital it is that God brought his light into our darkness. How the birth of Jesus changes everything. And how the promise of Christmas will one day be wonderfully fulfilled, when Christ returns and completely dispels the darkness, bringing everything into his perfect light.

Merry Christmas!

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