Written as late as 100 A.D., John probably was the work of one of Jesus’ closest disciples. It may have been written earlier since it has some details that only a person would know who was living before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. It is the only gospel that is not considered synoptic (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) because of its major differences in miracles reported, lack of parables, unusual opening, order of events, the focus on the Jerusalem ministry, the literary style, and the material covered.

It is less of a biography and more of a meditation on the theological significance of Jesus. Christian morality is not the focus. Instead, we are introduced to Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the God-man. To prove this, John focuses on miraculous signs that Jesus provided. The key word is “believe,” which is found 98 times in the book. Like a drama, the book has a prologue (chapter 1) that introduces its themes, one act (chapter 2-12) that explains the revelation of God’s Word to the world through six signs (miracles), a second act (chapters 13-20) in which Jesus prepares death and resurrection, and an epilogue (chapter21).  As you read the book, look for John’s attempts to prove his case for the divinity of Jesus.

Luke, written somewhere between 60-80 A.D., is the third and longest of the synoptic gospels (the three that agree with each other–Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The author may have been the physician who accompanied Paul on some of his trips, so that would explain the educated language and rich vocabulary of the work. In addition, the author is acknowledged to be one of the best historians who ever wrote; his eye for details and historical accuracy are exceptional. Archeological finds over the years have proved his statements repeatedly, regarding politics, ship sailing, winds, harbors, towns, . . .

Luke had several purposes in mind when he penned this gospel. He wants to show Jesus as the Messiah, but he extends the message of hope to all the world, not just the Jews. One example of this is the new name he gives Jesus, seen nowhere else in the gospels—savior. Jesus is shown as not only the fulfillment of the Old Testament but a bridge to the new world of Gentiles. In addition, he shows Jesus with the outcasts of society such as women, children, the poor, the oppressed.  Other themes involve joy, prayer, and the Holy Spirit. Luke is the warmest and most vibrant of the gospels. As you read it, remember he also wrote Acts, which should be seen as a continuation of Luke.

This is the second of the synoptic gospels that also include Matthew and Luke. The three are considered closely related because they cover similar themes and events. Written around 60 A.D.(thirty years after the death of Jesus), it may be the first gospel written down, although it would not have been the first Christian book written. That honor belongs to Paul, who wrote some of his letters earlier than Mark. The book never says who the author is, but tradition claims it was John Mark, a missionary who accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their travels. Many believe the author got a great deal of his information from Peter because the book begins with the call of the disciples, it features the ministry at Capernaum (Peter’s home town), it leaves out positive aspects of Peter’s life, and it includes scenes that only Peter and a couple of other disciples were part of.

Mark stresses facts and action, not teachings or themes like Matthew did. Throughout the book there are phrases like “immediately,” “at once,” and  “quickly” that indicate fast-paced movement. His view of Jesus is a man of authority and accomplishments. That’s not surprising, considering his audience appears to be non-Jewish—it has few Old Testament quotations, there is little on Old Testament laws, it translates Aramaic terms that would be known to a Jewish audience, and it explains Jewish customs. There appears to be a missionary purpose for this book, which would be in keeping for someone who went on missionary trips himself.

Matthew is the first of four books called gospels (“good news”) that start the New Testament. These gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, tell the story of the life of Jesus, the central figure of all 27 New Testament books. The stories and teachings of Jesus first circulated orally, which make modern readers, with limited memorization skills, wonder how accurate the disciples were in what they remembered. We fail to realize that Jewish disciples were expected to memorize enormous amounts of information passed to them by the rabbi they sat under. These four accounts were probably written down within one or two generations after Jesus’ lifetime.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels, a term meaning “seeing together,” a reference to their similarities. They share related language, stories, and order of presentation. Critics are not sure of how this came about. Many believe Mark was the original source used by the other two, some say they all used a common oral source, others think they depended on a missing early gospel, others argue for a mutual dependence, some say there was a mutual dependence, while still others are convinced Matthew was the original source.

Matthew, for whom the book is named, was one of Jesus’ disciples, but the gospel itself doesn’t say who the author was. It appears to be written for  Jews for several reasons. Jewish laws and customs are not explained, there are many quotations from the Old Testament, and there are a great deal of references to messianic claims (“king” and “kingdom of heaven” are used throughout the book). The book is not as concerned with presenting Jesus chronologically; instead, it is arranged around five great discourses of Jesus. There is more space devoted to the teachings of Jesus than in any other gospel. Matthew has been called the “teacher’s gospel”—it was the most widely used gospel in the early church because much of the book’s collected sayings and stories had to do with church teachings. In fact, Matthew is the only gospel to use the word “church.” With its details of his teachings, Matthew makes a good introduction to the life of Jesus.

During this time between the Old and New Testaments, the books called the Apocrypha (“hidden”) were written. Generally, there are fourteen of these Jewish books accepted as valuable, uplifting reading but not canonical. They were incorporated as additions to the Bible by early Christians. Eventually, the Roman Catholics, unlike the Protestants, put these books, which they referred to as “deutero-canonical,” on a par with the other sixty-six works in the Old and New Testaments.  The Apocrypha has different kinds of material—apocryphal writing (revelations of secrets), moral tales, stories of heroes, wisdom literature, prayers, poetry, the history of the Maccabees. Neither Jesus nor the disciples ever referred to these works, and the Jewish community that produced them repudiated them.

Jewish teaching of this time depended on the Pentateuch as the basis for living, but several different groups arose with widely different interpretations. The Pharisees wished to reinterpret the Law by adding oral commentaries. In addition, they believed in the sovereignty of God, the existence of angels, the future resurrection and judgment. They became the spiritual ancestors of modern Judaism Another more aristocratic group  called the Sadducees rejected all the above teachings; they followed only the Torah. They were friendly to the Romans and faded from history when the Jews rebelled against Rome shortly after the time of Jesus. A third group, the Essenes, saw religion as corrupted, so they withdrew to wilderness areas where they lived ascetic lives. It was near an Essene commune called Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. These are the oldest surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible, in some cases nearly one thousand years nearer to the originals than we had before.

One concept of this time had great impact on writers of the New Testament. The Jews had a term, “Messiah,” which meant “anointed one,” referring to a person commissioned by God through the anointing of oil. God had promised to David an everlasting kingship as recorded in 2 Samuel 7, 23:1-5, and Psalm 89:19-31. People of this time read the prophets who had envisioned a future in which another one like David or from his line would liberate Israel, defeat her enemies, and bring God’s kingdom to earth. This Messiah would be a warrior-king to set the Jews free from political and religious persecution. It was into this world of Jewish thought and literature that Jesus was born.

By the end of the Old Testament, many Jews had settled back into Palestine, they had rebuilt the temple, and they were conducting their own religious ceremonies. Alexander the Great swept into the area in 332 B.C., leaving wherever he went an emphasis on Greek culture called Hellenism. After his death, his kingdom was divided into four kingdoms run by different families, two of which became important for their relations with the Jews. One, the Ptolemies, took over Egypt while the other, the Seleucids, ruled Syria and Mesopotamia. Both battled endlessly for dominance, and, as in the past, Palestine was caught in a tug-of-war struggle between the two powers.

Jews continued to spread throughout the known world. This Diaspora, as it is called, led to widely scattered groups of Jews settling into a life focused on the Torah and the synagogue where personal piety and a relationship with God replaced national ideals. In 285 B.C. the Old Testament was translated into Greek. The resulting work was called the Septuagint, a Latin term meaning “seventy,” a reference to the story that seventy men worked on the translation. This was an important book because it made the Scriptures available to all people of the western world; it became the Bible of the early Christian church.

The struggle for political control took a bad turn when the Seleucids defeated the Ptolemies, who had given the Jews religious freedom. Persecutions started in earnest under the leadership of Antiochus Epiphanes with the result that a Jewish guerilla group, the Maccabees, fought for freedom from 167-142 B.C. For the next eighty years, the Jews enjoyed autonomy until 63 B.C. when the Romans took possession of Palestine and put an end to Jewish nationhood until 1948.

MALACHI

After the Jews were allowed to return to their land from exile in Babylon, they rebuilt their temple and the walls surrounding Jerusalem. The story of this part of Jewish history is found in Ezra and Nehemiah with prophetic utterances from Haggai and Zechariah, who lived during the same time. But eighty years passed; the people had sunk into apathy.

Around 440 B.C. the prophet Malachi came on the scene, calling for better temple worship and ethical living. He condemns the same sins Nehemiah saw long before—people weren’t tithing, they were breaking the Sabbath and intermarrying with foreigners, and their priests were acting in a corrupt fashion. Much of this sounds familiar–the prophets rebuked the people for failing to live up to the covenant they had agreed to in the desert at Sinai. We see God here as in other prophetic books as a jilted lover, asking his people to return to him. Take a look at Malachi 4:4-6; it serves as a good conclusion to all the Old Testament prophets.

This prophetic book also has good examples of figures of speech like other books in the Old Testament.  Some critics comment on the mirror image produced by scenes here in which the sections appear in this format—ABCCBA. In other words, the first section is reflected in the last section, the second section is mirrored in the next-to-last section, and the third section is followed by another section resembling it in content. See if you can construct this pattern by using the following sections—1:2-5, 1:6-2:9, 2:10-16, 2:17-3:5, 3:6-12, 3:13-4:3.

HAGGAI

After the Persians came to power, they decreed that displaced peoples could go back to their homelands. So about 50,000 Jews made their way back to their promised land and began to rebuild their temple destroyed by the Babylonians. But that was only a small remnant of Jews who returned after 70 years of captivity. Much local opposition stopped the work; for sixteen years the temple stood unfinished and ignored. It was at this time (about 520 B.C.) Haggai came on the scene, and along with Zechariah, he successfully urged the people to resume their task. The same events are recounted in Ezra chapters 1-4. Haggai represents a new type of prophet who existed after the Babylonian exile. He describes many hardships in the first chapter.  What sort of hope does the conclusion offer?

ZECHARIAH

The prophet Zechariah ministered at the same time as Haggai to the exiles who had returned to their land from Babylon about 520 B.C. He, like the other prophet, encouraged the Jews to finish rebuilding their temple. The first eight chapters are fairly straightforward, but the final six chapters are obscure ones focused on the far future. Christians point to 9:9, 11:13-14, 12:10-13:9 as looking forward to Jesus.

 Habakkuk

Imagine a sensitive Jewish man about 600 B.C. thinking about the world situation and the future of his land, Judah. He sees his people have strayed from their religious heritage, but God has not stepped in to make it all right. He asks God why the wicked seem to be doing well—where’s their punishment? Later he asks why God would use the hated Babylonians, a wicked bunch much worse than the backsliding Jews, to punish his people. Habakkuk offers questions and answers with a concluding prayer.  See 1:5-11. What is God’s answer to why evil people are not being punished? See 2:2-20. What is God’s answer to why the Babylonians are being used to punish the Jews? 5.  Habakkuk 2:4 was a key verse for Paul in the New Testament and Martin Luther. Can you see why?

Zephaniah

Covering events about 630-610 B.C., this book comes from one who was a contemporary of Jeremiah. Zephaniah predicts a future catastrophe, the Day of the Lord (1:7-3:20) , which will be judgment not only on Judah but on the entire world because of wide-spread corruption. Is there a typical prophetic pattern of judgment and restoration?  There is a long genealogy in 1:1. Why does he stress this? Look at chapter 1; it is frightening in its scope. But then chapter 2 offers some hope. Who’s to blame for the ills of the land? See 1:4-6, 3:4-5, 3:1-3.  Notice the interesting interplay between God and the prophet. Watch for a shift in pronouns. Who’s speaking in each section—1:2-6, 1:7, 1:8-13, 1:14-16, 1:17, 1:18-2:7, 2:8-10, 2:11, 2:12, 2:13-3:5, 3:6-13, 3:14-17, 3:18-20?

Micah

Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, prophesied as Assyria threatened to attack the northern kingdom in the 700s B.C. He warned about God’s judgment against both northern and southern nations using the voice of a commoner, one familiar with the countryside. He was especially concerned with social sins of the Jewish people. Christians turn to 5:2–can you see why? There is an alternating pattern here–see the key point of chapters 1-3 and 6:1-7:6? Check the pattern for chapters 4-5 and 7:7-20.  There are lots of figures of speech in Micah; look for good examples.

Nahum

Nahum was written before the fall of Ninevah in 612 B.C. by a contemporary of Jeremiah. It’s important to realize how much fear the Assyrians had spread as they ruled their part of the world. They had conducted total war—butchering and maiming people, leading thousands into slavery, scattering conquered individuals throughout their kingdom. Nahum prophesied against Ninevah, the capital city of this terrifying nation, with great relish. Throughout the book there is good poetry with figures of speech, repetition, short but powerful phrases. Find some that strike you as powerful.  For what sins did God judge Ninevah?