Discipleship reading might look like the following:

Replacement at the level of ideas (truths to replace falsehood and subtle errors).
Example: Yeshua sought to replace his disciples’ notion that “Messiah’s coming is to bring retribution on Israel’s enemies and to glorify us nationally” with a different notion that “Messiah’s coming is about healing Israel and the nations and the path begins with suffering.” In our time, a notion that needs replacing is “Yeshua came to reward me with an opulent afterlife experience.”

Replacement at the level of desires (the proper desires which replace envy, lust, and pride).
Example: Yeshua sought to replace national pride (Mark 12:1-9) with a desire to see broken people redeemed (Luke 14:15-24).

Replacing wicked and unhealthy habits with good ones. 
Example: Yeshua taught that a tree can only have either good or bad fruit and right after followed this up with a charge to build life on his teachings in order to survive storms. Thus, the many things Yeshua taught by example and by admonition are active ways to bear fruit for God and keep out bad fruit.

More…
Replace fear with faith. Add knowledge to root out ignorance. Abandon unhelpful goals and reorder misplaced priorities. Repent of unforgiveness. I will add more over time to this article, but this seemed like a good start.

Here is the growing Table of Contents (more to come):

• What is in the gospels? (Genre).
• Study Methods and Tips: Beginner to Intermediate.
• Reading as a disciple.
• Parables, Gospel by Gospel.
• List: Teachings of Yeshua.
• List: Teachings Unique to Luke.
• List: Healing Miracles of Yeshua.
• List: Exorcisms by Yeshua.
• List: Nature Miracles of Yeshua.
• Symbolic Actions and Kingdom Enactments.
• Midrash in the Gospels, the Example of Matthew 2:15.
• Yeshua’s Exalted Identity (Synoptic Gospels).

READING IMMERSION METHOD: Read Mark first. Then Matthew. Then Luke. Then John. This is the very likely order in which the gospels were written. Notice that Mark ends at 16:8. Anything after 16:8 printed in whatever translation of the Bible you are reading is based on late manuscripts and was added by scribes. Did Mark ever have an ending beyond 16:8? No one is sure. Notice what Mark does not have that Matthew and then Luke add: infancy narratives and resurrection narratives (Mark ends with the empty tomb). Notice that Luke’s infancy and resurrection narratives are quite different from Matthew’s. Notice how John’s gospel is largely stories near Jerusalem, how the sayings of Yeshua are long discourses, and how his is the only gospel which does not follow Mark’s basic outline.

READING HABITUAL METHOD: Make it your habit to read a bit of the gospels daily, in order either Mk-Mt-Lk-Jn or Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn. You might read one chapter a day. Or you might get a good commentary and read one section or subsection from its outline every day. If you are a Torah reader, following the parashot of Torah, you might read Matthew with Genesis, Mark with Exodus, Luke with Leviticus, John with Numbers, and Acts with Deuteronomy (I have an email list called the Daily D’var that provides these readings daily with my commentary — to request it email me at yeshuaincontext at gmail).

CHECK VARYING TRANSLATIONS: It is good to give preference to translations such as RSV (Revised Standard Version) and NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) and ESV (English Standard Version) and NASB (New American Standard Bible). The DHE (Delitzsch Hebrew English Version) is a good supplement (based on Franz Delitzsch’s Hebrew translation of the gospels and recently translated into English by Vine of David). Loose translations such as NIV, NLT, CEV, and TNIV may give you some false impressions of certain sayings and narratives.

HARMONY: Some narratives and/or sayings in the gospels are parallel passages. In many cases, the section in Mark will be repeated in Matthew and Luke. Some material in Matthew is shared by Luke and not in Mark. Only a few parallels exist between John and the other gospels. It is often helpful to check a Harmony of the Gospels or Synopsis of the Gospels. There is a free online Harmony of the Gospels available a BlueLetterBible (click here). A very helpful printed Harmony is A Harmony of the Gospels: New American Standard Edition by Thomas and Gundry (available at amazon). The advantage of a printed harmony is that the passages are laid out in parallel columns for easy comparison and contrast. A Greek synopsis is also available: Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum: Locis Parallelis Evangeliorum Apocryphorum Et Patrum Adhibitis Edidit by Kurt Aland. Notice the ways Matthew and Luke change Mark. Notice also similarities. And in the double tradition (Mt-Lk) material, compare and contrast Matthew and Luke.

HEBREW BIBLE: A.K.A., Old Testament. You need to understand the first five books of the Bible to get past a basic level of understanding in the gospels. If you are somewhat Pentateuch illiterate, habitual daily reading is a great idea. The Jewish readings (called parashot — singular is parashah) bring you through the Pentateuch in a year (see HebCal.com for the readings of the day). If you need a Torah course (recommended), First Fruits of Zion’s Torah Club is a great one (start with Year One). My book, A New Look at the Old Testament may be helpful also (available at amazon or at my site here: MountOlivePress.com).

ALLUSIONS AND REFERENCES TO THE HEBREW BIBLE: Look them up. You will often find that Yeshua’s way of using the Hebrew Bible (or the way the gospel author uses the Hebrew Bible) is unusual, perhaps different than the ways you have seen people use the scriptures. Yeshua’s methods are very Jewish. Also, see the category here: “Hebrew Bible as Testimony.” Certain themes from the Bible are very important: Creation, Covenant, Temple, Wisdom, Messianic Age, Messiah (Son of David), Son of Man.

ASSUME A POSITIVE VIEW OF TORAH AND JUDAISM: You will find it more illuminating to read Yeshua as positive about the Mosaic Torah, Temple, Law, and customs of Judaism than negative. Keep in mind that the Pharisees were a small sect and did not at this time dominate Jewish practice. Keep in mind that various Jews differed on the best way to keep Torah and that Yeshua is teaching how to do it, not arguing whether it should be done. And, Yeshua is Galilean, while Sadducees and Pharisees are Judean (and Galileans mistrust Judeans).

COMMENTARIES: If you want commentaries that combine readability and scholarship, the Sacra Pagina Series (Catholic) is hard to beat (so, for example, if you search “mark sacra pagina” at amazon, you will find the commentaries I am talking about).

This principle is not evident to everyone. Recently I posted something positive on Facebook about the Pharisees. I met with fierce resistance from a well-meaning Christian (actually, I’m not so sure he was well-meaning). He started posting comments with exclamation points and some words capitalized. Didn’t I know Pharisee means hypocrite and they are of their father the devil? And he had a Bible verse to back up each point.

I told him that from knowing a little history we could see that the Pharisees were not what many people think. They were a smaller and far less influential group than many think. They were not all hypocrites and neither were their teachings all opposed to Yeshua’s way. I pointed out a few positive things said about Pharisees, such as Matthew 23:1-2.

The commenter fired back, “All we need to know is in scripture. No need to bring up history to understand the Pharisees. The Bible only is our source.”

It sounds good. It’s not true. The Bible assumes knowledge of some history, trends, facts, and personalities that is not talked about in the text itself. People in Israel in Yeshua’s time knew plenty about Herod Antipas, Essenes, Sadducees, the differences between Galileans and Judeans, the way oil lamps worked, and a thousand other things that are not common knowledge.

So, the first basic principle for gospel study is that you will need some information that is not in the gospels themselves, and sometimes not anywhere in the Bible. You’ll have to consult parts of the Bible outside of the gospels (it is best to have a good knowledge of the Pentateuch and at least some of Isaiah and Psalms before getting too far). You’ll have to consult some resources outside of the Bible too.

How is your Bible study library? Want to know the very first tool you should get?

A Bible dictionary. Which one do I recommend? First, do NOT (please) use one of the free ones to be found online. For most readers, I would recommend either The New Bible Dictionary (eds. Marshall, Millard, Wiseman) or The Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible (ed. Freedman).

Anyway, First Fruits of Zion is publishing a booklet based on a presentation I gave with Boaz Michael at the “Jewish Gospels Seminar” here in Atlanta in September. This video goes over point #1. The booklet could be available in December 2011. And thank you to two of my kids, Josiah (13) and Hannah (15), who edited and posted my video!

#5 Read habitually in a recurring cycle, which imitates discipleship.

Disciples were with Yeshua often. The call to a disciple was, “Follow me.” They heard Yeshua’s words again and again in different contexts. The way we can imitate this repeated exposure to his words now is to read daily, habitually, and cyclically. Mark 4:10 shows that nearness to Yeshua was key, “When he was alone, the men that were with him approached with the twelve and asked him about the parable.” Peter’s saying in John 6:68 further this theme, “My master, to whom will we go? The words of eternal life are with you.” My practice is to read the gospels with the Torah cycle (Matthew during Genesis, Mark during Exodus, Luke during Leviticus, John during Numbers, and Acts during Deuteronomy).

I appreciate those who order books and resources. I think this practical presentation will help you dig deeper in your reading the life and message of Yeshua. And your support is a blessing to this writer. Order by clicking here to go to the Mount Olive Press store.

“Love has ever in view,” says George MacDonald, “the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds.” This, I think, is some of what is going on with Yeshua’s kingdom mission. “Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving,” he goes on, “it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more.”

The disciples were constantly misunderstanding Yeshua. And even this was part of Yeshua’s method. He was willing to defer much of their learning to the moments after the great crisis of his death and the great revelation of his resurrection. Meanwhile he gave them perplexing lessons, exposed them to contradictions at every turn, and he was ambiguous. He refused to be defined in straightforward categories.

The kingdom of God is at hand, he said. To you, he told the disciples, has been given the secret of the kingdom.

Really? What is that secret? How is it given to the disciples? It seems they, rather, had to read between the lines. Or, better yet, they had to pursue a path which Mark 4 hints at.

For those outside, it’s all parables. What does this mean? What does that mean?

But those inside have come for a private explanation. They dig deeper. They ask questions. They hear the teaching repeatedly and through questioning and repetition begin to understand. They follow and see the teaching in action, so that they come to understand what he means by things like fruit and seed.

Yet Yeshua is a mystery. He often has to be read between the lines. Is he campaigning to be Israel’s king or not? Will he put the critics in their place and oppose power with power? Will he speak plainly and name the times and upcoming events clearly?

Not at all. Instead, he will sleep on the boat during the storm, unconcerned. When the disciples wake him he will ask, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” It is as if he is saying, “Are you not grasping yet who I am? Have you seen beyond the Elijah-figure, the prophet working wonders with fish and bread?”

“Are you without understanding?” Yeshua asks three times in Mark.

Important people from Judea come and say to him, “Show us a sign from heaven.” The same Yeshua who talked to a storm and stilled it says to them, “Your generation is looking for signs.” He refuses to give them one.

In Nazareth, the people said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” And Yeshua, Mark tells us, could do no miracle there.

Peter got a glimpse of the higher truth about who Yeshua was, a far better understanding than the wonder-worker idea. “You are the Messiah,” he said. But moments later he was rebuking Yeshua for talking about dying and being taken prisoner. That will never happen, Peter thought, not to the king of Israel.

James and John said, “Let us sit at your right and left in your glory.” After all, Yeshua said the kingdom was near. He said the disciples were the inner circle, the ones who had the secret. In another place he even said they would sit at his table and judge the tribes of Israel. James and John just wanted to claim the first spot in all this glory.

“Can you drink my cup? Can you be baptized the way I will?” Yeshua asks.

People come to him from all over Galilee, Judea, and even Samaria and Perea. He heals them and demons, who were hidden beforehand, start speaking and revealing their presence.

Yeshua takes people away to private places and heals them. He says, “Tell no one.” The demons call him the Holy One of God and he says, “Shut up.”

He is everything the disciples think he is and more. They barely begin to grasp his exalted identity. King of Israel hardly does it justice. “All things have been given over to me by my Father,” he says in one place. “I thank you, Father . . . that you have hidden these things from the wise and have revealed them to babes.”

He will do nothing the way the disciples think he will. There will be no power showdowns with the Judean leaders. There will be no public signs from heaven. There will be no taking command, leading the nation in a popular movement, making the Sadducees and chief priests bow. Pilate and the Roman garrison in Jerusalem will not see any movement of resistance or power to match power.

This powerlessness confuses disciples even today. The risen Yeshua did not appear to Caesar or even Pilate. The sign of messiahship is still lacking.

If we believe in Yeshua, we must admit the divine plan is not like the methods we are used to. Our distorted understanding of true goodness is bound to interfere with the right unfolding of the messianic age. If people planned the kingdom it would be a sad substitute for the infinitely wise outworking of pure love God has planned.

Our vision of the kingdom is corrupted by our violent nature. Our lack of depth in the understanding of love holds us back. Even those who claim to see the grace and suffering of Yeshua too easily become religious movements seeking personal gratification. He becomes merely “my savior” and “my afterlife” and “my blessing.”

The cross would never be our guess and the idea of it still makes little sense to disciples today. Is it more about God punishing sin or is it something else? Is it God sharing in the suffering of this world?

In the fourth gospel, Yeshua says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” The way of Yeshua’s messianic mission is hidden in the mystery of something larger, a love that predates creation, that is the essence of our nature but is veiled by corruption. The way Yeshua loves us comes from the Father, from God in his Direct Being, the Infinite One and his ways.

It is no wonder, then, that mere disciples were in danger of misunderstanding and needed to be warned, “Tell no one that I am Messiah.” It is no wonder that we face the danger of misunderstanding the messianic mission.

So, as readers of the gospels, we, like the disciples, need to assume that our understanding is not yet deep enough. Like the disciples, we might be warned not to act too quickly, not to assume we fully understand, not to be dismayed when the thing we expect does not happen, not to dismiss the suffering, and not to desire retribution on God’s enemies and ours.

Yeshua is a mystery, not least, sometimes, to us, his own disciples. The secret to knowing the meaning of Yeshua is in the act of discipleship, of being in the inner circle, of remaining close, hearing the words of Yeshua again and again to allow them to penetrate, of watching him be Messiah in acts of healing and victory over powers of evil, of forgetting about domination and matching power with power, but being servants to all as he was.

“Love has ever in view the loveliness of that which it beholds.” Yeshua spent himself to make us more lovely. Yeshua sees the whole picture, of the world as it will be, of people as they will be. We who follow him should walk in his footsteps.

Mark 4:21-34 is an important sequence of sayings whose meaning in the context of Mark is often obscured by readers who are more familiar with the sayings from Matthew. That is to say, the order in which we read the gospels sometimes affects our interpretation. How does this happen?

The different synoptic evangelists (Mark, Matthew, Luke) often include the same sayings in different contexts. The context of the saying often influences interpretation. The modern reader might wonder if: (a) the sayings are all given in arbitrary contexts with the evangelists rarely if ever knowing what context they may have been uttered in, (b) if the sayings were often repeated again and again so that they occurred in multiple contexts, (c) if each evangelist had his own literary reasons for including the sayings in the contexts where they show up. I choose (c), which does not mean there are no cases where the context and the saying are matched to “what actually happened.” It is quite possible that sometimes the evangelists give us a saying in the actual context of events in which Yeshua uttered the words. But the gospels as we have them are literary compositions and we can get far more out of them by regarding them as such without inserting historical questions into the details.

Remember that Mark’s gospel is the first to be written down and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. Therefore, it is useful to view the lamp, measure, seed, and mustard weed sayings first as Mark used them. And it turns out the context and the sequence of these sayings in Mark is very meaningful.

How Matthew Influences a Reader’s View of These Sayings

The “lamp under a bushel” saying in Matthew is in the Sermon on the Mount (5:15) and its meaning there is about the disciples shining their “lamp” to reveal God’s glory to the world. As I will argue in Part 2, Mark puts this saying in a different context and the one shining his “lamp” is Yeshua, lifted up on the cross.

The “measure” saying in Matthew is in the Sermon on the Mount (7:2). There it refers to the measure or standard of judgment a person uses for another. God will judge us with the same measure we judge others. In Mark (as also in Luke), the measure saying is about giving (giving love, giving money, giving service).

The “to him who has more will be given” saying in Matthew 13:12 is about having the mystery of revelation of the kingdom. Those who learn the kingdom’s mysteries will be given more. In Mark, it seems that what the disciple has is reward, not revelation (God’s reward for the deeds of service).

The “scatter seed” saying from Mark 4:26 is unique, not found in Matthew or Luke. It is a rare case of material unique to Mark.

The “mustard seed” parable is used in Matthew in a very similar context to Mark’s use of it, but in a different sequence of sayings about the kingdom. Probably both Matthew’s use and Mark’s use of the saying is about the remarkable growth. Still, I will argue in Part 2 that Mark’s context for the “mustard seed,” and also Mark’s unique “scattered seed” parable, is about Yeshua sowing the seed more so than the disciples sowing it.

Readers who are used to the traditional order of the gospels (Matthew first) tend to give priority to Matthew’s setting for the sayings. Thus, when reading Mark 4, many readers have a pre-formed opinion about the “lamp” and the “measure” and the “seed.” It is easy to miss how Mark uses them.

Preview: Multi-Use Sayings

If a saying like the lamp and bushel could possibly, as I will try to demonstrate in Part 2, have two meanings as diverse as “disciples shine your light” and “Yeshua’s light will shine from the cross,” should we conclude that the evangelists had no understanding of the meaning of Yeshua’s words?

Not at all. First, it is more than likely that Yeshua himself used the same or similar sayings not only in different contexts, but with different meanings at times for the key terms. Second, many of Yeshua’s sayings are images with multiple layers of meaning. It is possible that multiple traditions of interpretation of a saying like the “lamp under a bushel” developed by the time the gospels were written. Is Matthew right and Mark wrong? They truly could both be right.

Next part: Interpreting Mark 4:21-34 in context.

But here is an even simpler test and if you don’t know the answer, then you have the common disease of Gospel Attention Deficit Disorder. This disease often occurs in religious communities where favorite passages are read and sermonized irregularly and without attention to context, comparisons with parallel passages, and so on. It results from a lack of two things: (1) consistent, habitual reading of the Bible and especially the gospels and (2) taking the time to check the parallels when you read a gospel story.

Here is the test:

How did Peter first meet Yeshua?

I will give the wrong answer in the comments and the right answer in the comments, so see below.

Thanks for posting the quiz, it was challenging and enlightening. It’s unfortunate that I probably only scored as well as I did because I read skeptic websites from time to time and have discussed the difficulties of inerrancy with my brother, who is a NT scholar. My church background (or devotional reading) alone wouldn’t have prepared me for it.

Take the test as a closed book exam. No open Bibles. This is a test of your retention of gospel stories and sayings (not a test of your ability to look things up!!).

The test has fifty questions. I recommend either printing it out or pasting it into a text document. To get the answers, email me at yeshuaincontext at gmail. And I’d love a follow up email with your score (take off 2 points for every wrong answer and deduct from 100). Hope you all make at least an 80! Here is the test…

1. Which gospel has a birth story that starts in Nazareth, moves to Bethlehem, then to Jerusalem, and back to Nazareth?

2. Which gospel has a birth story that begins in Bethlehem, moves to Egypt, and then to Nazareth?

3. Which two gospels begin with the story of John the Baptist (after a brief prologue)?

4. Which gospel tells the only childhood story about Yeshua we know of (post-infancy)?

5. Which gospel says Yeshua’s first miracle was at a wedding in Cana?

6. At what city in Galilee did Yeshua stay in Simon and Andrew’s home (and this city became his base of operation)?

7. Which of the four gospels is least like the others?

8. How do people get the idea that Yeshua’s career was about three years?

9. If we had only Matthew, Mark, and Luke to go on, how long would we guess Yeshua’s career was?

10. T or F: Yeshua healed only Israelites.

11. T or F: Yeshua always touched people that he healed.

12. What is the name of the blind man Yeshua healed (there were several, but we know the name of only one)?

13. T or F: Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

14. T or F: Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed.

15. T or F: Yeshua’s work was supported financially by wealthy women.

16. Which female disciple was married to a steward in Herod’s house?

17. T or F: Yeshua expected his disciples to give alms to the poor.

18. T or F: In casting out demons, Yeshua was following the example of the Israelite prophets.

19. What two figures from the Hebrew Bible appeared with Yeshua at the Transfiguration?

20. T or F: We know which mountains were the places of the Sermon on the Mount and the Transfiguration.

21. T or F: The gospels always agree on details such as the number of people or the place names.

22. T or F: The gospels give us one relatively clear order and outline of events in Yeshua’s life.

23. Which gospel says the least about the kingdom?

24. Which gospel says the most about eternal life?

25. Which story about Yeshua is the most famous example of a scene that was not in the original manuscripts but was added later?

26. How is the story of the first disciples different in John?

27. What are some ways the Beatitudes are different in Luke than in Matthew?

28. How is Yeshua’s big “sermon” different in Luke than in Matthew?

29. What is the biggest difference in Johns version of the Temple cleansing (protest) story?

30. T or F: Yeshua said the law made accommodations to human weakness but that his disciples should follow the highest laws in Torah always.

31. T or F: Yeshua said ritual purity and tithes did not matter.

32. What was the major thing Yeshua agreed with the Pharisees about over against the Sadducees (in a public debate)?

33. Which gospel makes the most out of Jewish holiday themes?

34. Which gospel makes the most of Yeshua’s love for the poor and sinners?

35. When asked by the high priest during the trial if he was the Messiah, do all the gospels agree that Yeshua said, “I am”?

36. T or F: Yeshua said he would destroy the Temple.

37. Which gospel has the centurion at the cross say, “Surely this man was innocent!”?

38. In which gospel does Yeshua speak to his mother, Mary, from the cross?

39. Which gospel says that some people came out of the grave when Yeshua died?

40. In which gospel does Yeshua tell the thief that he will be in paradise?

41. How do the gospels disagree about what happened at the sixth hour on the day Yeshua died?

42. How do the gospels disagree about which day Yeshua died on?

43. T or F: The gospels disagree about how many angels were at the empty tomb.

44. T or F: The gospel of John has two endings.

45. Which gospel shows Yeshua ascending to heaven?

46. T or F: The gospels say that Levi is the same person as Matthew and that Levi is one of the Twelve.

47. T or F: In one gospel scene, Mary the mother of Yeshua disbelieves in her son.

48. What are the two famous “nature miracles” of Yeshua (hint: not the fig tree)?

49. T or F: The purpose of parables is to help the uneducated understand the gospel.

50. T or F: Yeshua directly called himself Messiah and Son of God.

John 14:30-31 (RSV)
I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.

Did you notice anything? Most people don’t without first being tipped off that there is something unusual to notice.

What happens after John 14:31? We get three more chapters of Yeshua talking to his disciples (chapters 15-17).

Now does something seem odd?

Now look at John 18:1 (RSV):
When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

Hmm, seems like chapters 15-17 are sort of out of place or something. Yeshua says, “Rise, let us go hence,” but then goes on for a long time with more talking and a prayer so that the rising and going hence doesn’t happen until 18:1. How do we account for this?

Many scholars think — and I know many readers are resistant to such a suggestion — that chapters 15-17 are a later addition. I don’t mean (and neither do they) that chapters 15-17 are a late addition that should not be part of John. I mean that John may have been written in layers.

There are plenty of other evidences that John is written in layers (two editions of John is one of the leading theories — the earlier short version and the later full version with the following additions: 1:1-18, chapters 6, 15-17, and 21 added — see Paul Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, 32-33).

I’ll give just one more example for the unconvinced. John 20:30-31 (RSV):
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Sounds like the end of the book, doesn’t it? But then we have chapter 21.

The Joy of Hearing
by Brian Richie

After perusing through Rabbi Leman’s blog “The Joy of Reading” the other day I found myself once again breaking the 10th commandment. Will God be angered by my coveting of another man’s study time? Joking aside, I have found that hearing God’s word via audio can be an excellent supplement for those of us who work “9-5‘s” on a regular basis. Many employers will allow their workers to play music at a low volume as long as it’s not a distraction to others. Along with your music, why not “bump” a little Jeremiah the Prophet?

Disclaimer: I readily admit that this is not a solution for all. Some cannot work unless they have complete silence. Other’s who try this could become distracted and fall behind on there jobs. This obviously then is not the solution for you. However, for those of you who can get work done while playing audio in the background why not? Imagine being able to go through Torah and The Gospels everyday. It would be almost impossible with most of our schedules. However, via audio bible, I was able to enjoy the ENTIRE Gospel of Mark today.

I work as an accountant, so Math has always been a favorite subject of mine. If I listen to the book of Mark five times a work week, and multiply that by approximately four weeks in a month, then that gives me the opportunity to go through Mark twenty times in one month! There is no way this would be possible for me without the use of Audio Bible. If you believe this may be a great study supplement for you as well I want to recommend a couple of my favorite resources:

The first is the “Jewish Audio Bible” posted by Dr. David Rudolph. These audio postings afford the hearer the opportunity to go through the entire Jewish Bible in two years by listening only 14 minutes a day. Dr. Rudolph utilizes Dr. Stern’s “Complete Jewish Bible” for his readings. To go to the Jewish Audio Bible, click here.

The second resource is the online audio bible through bible gateway. My personal favorite at this site is the ESV version readings with Max Mclean. To check out his readings click here.

Hopefully, these resources prove as valuable a study tool for you as they have become for me.

Peace and Blessings.

Bio: Originally from Ohio, Brian now resides in Southern California with his wife Geraldine. He enjoys working out, taking his two dogs to the beach, watching Laker basketball games, and of course all things Yeshua.

I had an experience last night that gave me an idea for this podcast. I’ve been closely reading the gospels and books on the gospels and books on the historical inquiry into the life and message of Yeshua for several years now. It’s like swimming in a sea of information at times.

But sometimes a surprise breaks through. Actually, it happens more often than sometimes. Last night I got one of those surprises reading Paul Anderson’s The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus. It reminded me of the joys of reading, especially the joys of reading the life and message of Yeshua.

I’m fortunate to have the time to do all this reading. Many people might have only half an hour a day to spare. But the joys of reading can come to you in a half hour a day.

I’m fortunate to have a background in biblical studies that makes it easier for me to read book after book of history and commentary. But the joys of reading can come from simply reading the gospels themselves or in combining them a little at a time with other reading.

I have a good friend in our congregation who makes more time for study than most people, but he is also a very busy person. Sometime more than a year ago, when I mentioned to people they might benefit from reading a Harmony of the Gospels, he asked me which one to buy. Then he came back time and time again, and still does occasionally, excited about parallels he has found or observations he has made that are only possible because he now reads more closely.

I have another good friend in our congregation. She is devout and loves to study. She told me just recently that taking Torah Club Volume 4 with Daniel Lancaster’s teaching on the life of Yeshua has been so rich and meaningful.

I get emails from several people who read my commentary on the gospels every day and notice the finer points of close reading and see something in the message of the gospels that inspires them, challenges them, keeps them focused on the meaning of life.

The joys of reading, and especially reading in conversation with friends, are many. There are the surprises. There are the community experiences of togetherness. There are the frequent reminders to re-order my priorities and my way of viewing people, the world, evil, righteousness, and hope.

The secret of reading is not short bursts of intense energy. The secret is regular, a little at a time, over a long period of time.

It all started for me with a reading of N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God followed by Jesus and the Victory of God. Before that, I didn’t know historical Jesus studies or gospel research could be so rewarding.

There have been many aha moments for me along the way. One was when Vine of David published Paul Philip Levertoff’s Love in the Messianic Age. I read the epilogue called “Love in the Fourth Gospel” and my outlook on many things was changed.

Levertoff opened me up to the mystical in the life and sayings of Yeshua. By mystical I mean the idea that we can experience on earth foretastes of the Age to Come, of the Presence of God, of Life from Above, of the Mystery of Union with God.

Messiah, he says, is the personification of Divine Love. The visible manifestation of this love is the death of Christ. The love of God is concentrated in Messiah. The world is perishing for want of True Light and Communion with him. He gives to them his Fullness. Jesus, by his love, expects to awaken in men love for God and each other. The mystical oneness of the believers, this perfect achdut or unity, is founded on the oneness of Jesus with the Father. As Jesus cannot work without God, so his followers cannot work without Jesus. The conception of love is not merely humanitarian, it is an Israelitish covenant love. God in his Spirit makes the heart of the believer his habitation, and thus the highest expectation of the Messianic Age is fully realized.

I followed up this reading soon after with Raymond Brown’s commentary on the Fourth Gospel. There is so much to learn.

And gospel reading, like Torah study in classical Jewish thought, is not about learning something once and moving on. It is about constant forgetting and remembering.

A rabbi and mentor taught me a midrash on the story from Exodus in which the people of Israel cannot endure the voice of God. They ask Moses to listen to God and relay the words. If Israel had not done this, if they had persisted through their fear to hear the words from God directly, then Torah learning for Jews today would not be so hard. No mitzvah or bit of Torah learning would ever be forgotten. Each generation of Israel could read Torah once and know it their whole lives. But because that generation of Israel asked Moses to relay the words, they brought upon us forgetfulness, so that Torah must be learned daily and its points forgotten and recalled over and over again through repetition.

The joy of reading the gospels regularly, daily if possible, and over and over again, is just this. There is frequently a fresh revelation or a sweet reminder of something once learned and all but forgotten.

In Paul Anderson’s book on the Fourth Gospel last night, certain impressions I had developed over the years from following the standard course of historical thought about Yeshua, were suddenly challenged. I read a remarkable list he has in his book. It is a list of parallels in memorable sayings of Yeshua between Mark and the Fourth Gospel.

In historical Jesus research the Fourth Gospel is discounted. In gospel scholarship, the Fourth Gospel is often regarded as the least historical. And it is an axiom that John did not use Mark. Anderson gives a more complex theory, one I am not taking time to fully explain here, about interdependence of the traditions in the formative or oral tradition years. And he gives a remarkable list of forty-four parallels in memorable sayings from Mark to John.

It was another surprise, another aha moment. And its full effect on me can only be explained by the fact that I have become immersed in the world of the gospels. And I have found, as you will too and as many others have, that they are a deep well. Like the Torah, the gospels are a regular source of forgetting and remembering that can occupy a lifetime.

And perhaps the most important practice of reading is simply reading the gospels themselves. There is the importance of reading each gospel individually and then there is the importance of comparing, contrasting, and finding patterns, similarities, and differences.

When you become familiar you will think about things like, were there two anointings of Yeshua by a woman or only one? Did she anoint his head or his feet? You will think about things like, why are some minor characters named and others not? It will occur to you to compare the Sermon of the Mount with the parallels in Luke. You will want to get a Harmony of the Gospels, but you will find yourself disagreeing with it in places. And you will also realize that the parallels are not always in parallel stories. Often the same sayings of Yeshua, sometimes in varied form, show up in different settings and stories.

If you haven’t started, you should. There are many ways to go about it. The first and simplest is just to use a bookmark and a Bible. Read a little every day. Write observations sometimes. Compare things. You can find a free harmony of the gospels on the Study Tools page at BlueLetterBible.com or you can buy a Harmony such as the one by Thomas Gundry.

You can start adding some commentary. Consider taking Torah Club Volume 4, the “Chronicles of Messiah,” from FFOZ. Use my YeshuaInContext website. I could gladly recommend various commentaries to you on the gospels. There is joy in the reading and an endless supply of surprises and revelations.

C. Myers (Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, 1988) calls the baptism event one of three “pillar stories” around which Mark organizes his gospel. The other two are the transfiguration (9:2-8) and crucifixion (15:33-41). What do these stories have in common and how to they organize Mark’s gospel?

At the baptism the heavens split and a dove descends. At the transfiguration Yeshua’s garment turns white and a cloud descends. At the crucifixion the veil is rent and darkness spreads. The voice from heaven calls out about Yeshua’s sonship at the baptism and transfiguration, but at the crucifixion there is only Yeshua’s anguished shout. The voice from heaven calls Yeshua Son in the first two, but a centurion affirms that he is the Son at the crucifixion. All three incidents mention Elijah as well.

The story of the good confession and Yeshua’s warning to be secret about it is instructive. Why, when Peter confesses accurately who Yeshua is, must Yeshua follow the revelation with a warning? What the disciples encountered in personal involvement with Yeshua is analogous to what we as readers of the gospels encounter. The warning is the same. What do we learn from this story about the danger of messianic misunderstanding?

The story of Peter’s confession of faith in Mark 8:27-30; Matthew 16:13-20; and Luke 9:18-21 is followed by the story of Peter’s rebuke in Mark 8:31-37; Matthew 16:21-26; and Luke 9:22-25.

Just at the moment of understanding who Yeshua is we risk his rebuke for misunderstanding.

God’s plan is not based on the same priorities as human kingdoms. Our distorted understanding of true goodness is bound to interfere with the right unfolding of the messianic age. If people were put in charge of bringing the kingdom, it would be a sad substitution for the infinitely wise outworking of pure love God has in mind.

The problems with human understanding, problems which lead Yeshua to command secrecy from his disciples, are twofold:

(1) Our vision of the messianic kingdom is corrupted by our violent nature, by the idea of conquest as a shortcut to the greater victory of redemption.

(2) Our vision of the messianic kingdom is limited by our lack of understanding the depths of love.

In simple terms, the error the disciples would have been prone to was simply looking for a human revolution. A corresponding error for modern disciples would be looking to the messianic mission of Yeshua as simply a means of personal gratification (my salvation, my afterlife, my blessing).

The identity of Messiah in fact is much more and much different than that of man-made messiahs. The depth of the problem is more than we realize. The means of solution is counter-intuitive. The commitment of God to the solution is firmer than we would guess.

Yeshua’s messianic identity is far greater than a conquering king. The cross would never be our guess. Neither is the cross logically necessary. God can conquer and even save any way he chooses. He chooses to do so in a manner that we will forever seek to understand.

George MacDonald said, “Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more.”

In the Fourth Gospel, Yeshua says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9). The way of Yeshua’s messianic mission is hidden in the mystery of something larger, a love that predates creation, that is the essence of our nature but is veiled by corruption. The way Yeshua loves us comes from the Father, from God in his Direct Being, the Infinite One and his ways.

It is no wonder, then, that mere disciples were in danger of misunderstanding and needed to be warned, “Tell no one that I am Messiah.” It is no wonder that we face the danger of misunderstanding the messianic mission.

So, as readers of the gospels, we, like the disciples, need to assume that our understanding is not yet deep enough. Like the disciples, we might be warned not to act too quickly, not to assume we fully understand, not to be dismayed when the thing we expect does not happen, not to dismiss the suffering, and not to desire retribution on God’s enemies and ours.

Yeshua’s many statements about his identity call us to a deeper understanding. Who is this divine man we are following? He is always more than we think.

1) The foreshadowing of the Great Coming Resurrection in Yeshua’s resurrection.
Resurrection (the bodily raising of the dead at the end of the age) is an idea only referred to in later passages in the Hebrew Bible, but the idea became a staple of classical Jewish faith (not just Christian faith). Pinchas Lapide’s famous book (The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective) concludes that Yeshua truly rose but then reinterprets this in a way that denies he is Messiah. Lapide, in my opinion, overlooks what occurred to Paul on the road to Damascus (where Paul came to understand that if Yeshua was raised, the age to come had already dawned in a way). Far more than a resuscitation, the raising of Yeshua signified the dawning of the new age. With Yeshua the age to come had broken through. See N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God for a more thorough examination. This is no legend and it is not so easily dismissed.

2) The foreshadowing of the final healing and redemption of the world.
The healing stories in the gospels, read them with fresh eyes, are not about a wonder worker or Galilean Hasid (a Galilean Holy Man, as Yeshua is portrayed in Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew). The healing stories of the gospels make the point that wherever Yeshua was, the kingdom was. Isaiah 35 and 61 are very much in mind (see Matt 11:5).

3) The vindication of Yeshua.
Executed as a messianic pretender, he was vindicated by the resurrection and ascension. Lapide’s theory suffers terribly here. If his theory is true (God raised Yeshua because his death was unjust and he was supremely righteous, but he was not Messiah and he died again later), what was God thinking? Why would God raise a pretender?

4) Yeshua’s unconventional messianic aims.
No one, wanting Jews and gentiles in ancient Rome to believe in Yeshua, would invent the many problematic sayings and deeds of Yeshua. He was not the typical messiah-figure and he contradicted many ideas of popular messianism. Various messiah-figures of the first and second centuries have come and gone, but Yeshua the enigmatic one remains.

5) The reliability of the gospels.
So many have said things like this and have been vulnerable because they assumed claims for the gospels that are impossible to defend. I mean by reliability the soundness of oral tradition, the apparent use of eyewitness testimony as detailed in Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and their inclusion of the embarrassing for the Yeshua movement and even for Yeshua himself. The differences and discrepancies which blew apart, apparently, the faith of Bart Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted), are only a problem for people who accept a simplistic formula (infallibility or falsehood).

6) The complexity of Yeshua’s understanding.
The concept of God, of Wisdom descending from heaven to earth, of the absolute transcendence of the Direct Being of God and the immanence of the Presence in the world, is awfully advanced for a collection of supposed legends by a church seeking to manufacture a savior. Yeshua’s “you must be born from above” way of thinking foreshadows much mysticism to come. That the early Christian movement did not understand what Yeshua was talking about is evident in the controversies of the first few Church Councils. How did early Christianity invent texts it did not understand?

7) The realism of Yeshua’s death.
He was weak. He thirsted. He shouted loudly at the moment of death (and not, as in many poorly thought-out sermons, a shout of victory, but of despair). He spoke of abandonment (embarrassing to his followers afterwards who had to explain this). If the messiahship and resurrection of Yeshua are invented legends, the inventors were extraordinarily sophisticated.

…Reading methodically, regularly, as a discipline.
The best method is reading through the gospels, from start to finish, in order, a little each day. The practice in Judaism of reading the books of the Torah daily is a good point of comparison (Yeshua-followers could add acts to the gospels, making five books which correspond in a reading cycle to the five books of Torah).

…Question assumptions while reading.
Many readers find a word such as “saved” or “life” or “kingdom” and gloss over these as terms already understood and defined. Frequently the theologies which people bring into their reading are not well thought out. A holy uncertainty about such terms while reading is not a bad idea. And assumptions about motivations and unstated conclusions should also be questioned. We should not assume we will understand the depths of Yeshua’s teaching without finding our assumptions challenged.

…Don’t ignore gaps.
Yeshua doesn’t exactly answer the questions Nicodemus poses in John 3. Matthew 7:13-14 speak of few finding the way of life but 8:11 speaks of many. Matthew 11:30 says Yeshua’s yoke is easy, but 10:34-39 makes is sound hard. Notice the problems, the mysteries, the things that don’t seem to add up. Note them and come back to them. The gap itself often turns out to hold the clues to deeper insight.

…Seek the references.
Some are obvious, such as when Matthew cites a verse and says Yeshua has filled it up (often rendered “fulfilled”). Others are less so, such as Yeshua speaking of a house which may be built on his words in Matthew 7:24-27 (see Proverbs 9:1 and following and 24:3 and following).

…Learn theological arcs from the Hebrew Bible.
Related to the last method, we should assume that Yeshua uses themes from the Hebrew Bible in ways that call for a deep knowledge, not surface reading. Thus, Yeshua as the giver of wisdom in Matthew 7:24-27 may be a deeper clue to his identity, if you understand the theme of wisdom personified in Proverbs and its relation to later Jewish thought about God and creation.

…Read both in the context of each gospel and in harmony with parallels.
It matters both how Matthew or Mark cast a story or saying and how they compare or differ in different accounts. Mark may not use a story or saying in the same context as Luke. In studying Mark’s theology, the near context matters. In studying Yeshua’s life, the comparisons and differences matter.

Avoid all false assumptions of Jewish vs. Christian antagonism.

Look for a both-and reading instead of either-or.

Avoid anachronisms (assuming rabbinic literature describes Yeshua’s time, etc.).

Have a rich and thematically rich understanding of the Hebrew Bible.

Assume a positive view of Law and tradition.

Learn or at least reserve for further study words and concepts that may have had Jewish background.

Know social realities of the time and the groups involved.

Understand the symbols and hopes of Israel in Yeshua’s time.

Look for relation of gospel narratives and sayings to Jewish theological arcs.

Understand that Yeshua’s culture valued concrete images over abstractions.