 Okay. So we're going to start on the New Testament survey before we begin. Can somebody open us in prayer, please? Can I pray, Sister? Yes, please. Thank you. Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for this time that You have given us to learn on Your Word, my Master. I pray that You will transform us through this Word in our spirit and in our soul and body, my Master. That everyone who is going together to learn Your Word will align to Your teaching, my Master, yes. And also pray for the sister that You will inspire to give us the right Word, my Master, today. In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray, Amen. Amen. Thank you. So we'll, again, do a review of what we covered in the last class and then continue from there. So we were looking at the inter-testamental period, right? I think, did we cover this in the last class? I think we did. We ended with the people groups, right? So the last two groups of people were the publicans and the zealots, right? We did that in the last class. Okay. So these were the two people groups that are mentioned in the New Testament. The publicans being tax collectors who were employed by the Roman government. So the Romans had taken over from the Maccabees. Maccabees were Jews who had been reigning over the Palestine region. And then the Romans came in and they established their control over Jerusalem and over that region. And then they had people who were reporting to them. So they had tax collectors who would collect taxes from the Jews and paid to the Roman government. So the tax collectors were not favored among the Jewish people. And then there were the zealots who were on the other side who were completely against the Roman government. And these were people who would later revolt against the Roman rule in AD 66. They revolted against the Roman rule, but the Romans re-established their control over that region. And at this time in AD 70 is when the temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was destroyed. So during Jesus's ministry is when the Romans are in power and post that in AD 70 is where the Jerusalem temple is destroyed. So we looked at the Jewish synagogue that was established during the time of the Persian rule. When the Israelites went into captivity under the Babylonians, they started to emphasize the teaching of the law and the passing of Hebrew scriptures helping people know their scriptures, know their identity as Jews. And then when they came back under the Persian rule, they returned to Jerusalem and to other parts of the Palestine region and started to live there. Synagogues were set up for people to continue learning the Torah. And this is how scribes came to start leading in the synagogues and to pass on the teachings of the Torah to help people know the Hebrew scriptures. So why are the synagogues important? Because this is where Jesus as he was traveling would go and preach to people. And this is where the disciples post Jesus' resurrection. They went and shared about Jesus in the synagogues. So the synagogues became key places for the spreading of the gospel. And they also became kind of a model for how the church started to function after Jesus' resurrection, so after the church was established. So some of the sacred writings we looked at, we looked at the Hebrew Bible. So the Hebrew Bible is the same as our Old Testament scriptures. But there's a difference in the number of books because they have certain books that are clubbed together. So we'll just look at that. Yeah, some of their books are clubbed together like the Minor Prophets. We have individual books for all the Minor Prophets, but they have it all in a single book. They also have Kings as a single book, Samuel as a single book, whereas we have Samuel 1 and 2, Kings 1 and 2. So the content is the same just the number of books is different and the arrangement of the books. We have our books arranged in a slightly different order than the Hebrew scriptures. Another important sacred writing is the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. But the Septuagint also has some additional books that are not included in the Hebrew canon. So the Septuagint, why it is important is because it was translated from the Hebrew to the Greek. And it made the Hebrew scriptures available to all of the Jews who were not familiar with Hebrew anymore. Under the Greek rule, they had all started speaking Greek and so Hebrew was not as familiar to them. So to have the scriptures in the language that was popular at the time. And then in the New Testament, most of the Old Testament quotations are actually from this Greek translation. Rather than the original Hebrew version of the Old Testament, a lot of the Old Testament quotations come from the Greek version. We started looking at the gospel. So gospel means good news. And so the coming of Jesus was viewed as good news because of the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Hopes of the people of Israel for a deliverer, for a messiah to come. And saved the people of Israel from bondage under different rulers who had ruled over them for so many hundreds of years. We looked a little bit at the genre of the gospels. So they are historical in that they are reliable records of what actually took place. They are narrative because they tell a story. It's not an imaginary story, but it's based on history and it uses people and places and different settings to communicate what happened in Jesus's time. They are theological. Each of them has an important message that they want to communicate to the people of that time, their audience. There was a specific message they want to communicate. So there is theology in the gospels and they are biographies in that they tell about the life of Jesus, but they're not just biographies. So when you look at ancient biographies, they were always written to kind of make the person that they're writing about like a superhero. With no imperfections. So it would be very, they would take away any stories that would highlight the weakness of the person or highlight anything that the person did that wouldn't be viewed as acceptable in that time. But we see here in the gospels that they were very real. They talked about the weaknesses of the disciples. They talked about the crucifixion of Jesus. They didn't try to make everything. They didn't try to make Jesus seem all powerful in that he never experienced any suffering. He never experienced any times of weakness. So we read about Jesus crying out and praying for the cup of suffering to be taken from him. So they also talk about the weaknesses, the sufferings, the weaknesses of the disciples, their shortcomings. So they are not, they're not just highlighting all of the good things that happened. They're talking very realistically about what happened. So yeah, the finally we concluded the gospels are historical narrative motivated by theological concerns. And through this, they talk about the good news of Jesus Christ calling people to believe in him. So we'll now go into just an introduction to the synoptic gospels. So the synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark and Luke. And why they're called the synoptic gospels is because a lot of the content in these three books is actually very similar. There's a lot of overlap between these three books. So we see over 90% of Mark is found in Matthew and Luke, especially Matthew uses a lot of the same content. So some people think that they all use the same source document. Some people think that Matthew and Luke just used Mark as a basis for then writing their own books. Okay, so that's why there's so much of an overlap between these three books. So the synoptic wide views that word is because sin means the first part of that word. SYN means common and optic means view. So these three gospels give us a common view of who Jesus was, what he was doing. And there's quite a vast array of things that they talk about Jesus, right? What Jesus was saying, what Jesus was doing about his life, all of those things. But Matthew, Mark and Luke kind of have the same stories that they all talk about, whereas John is quite different from these three gospels. So why do we have four gospel accounts? Any thoughts on that? Why do we have four gospel accounts? Is it necessary or could we just have had Mark and that would have been enough? Ma'am, all the four view the different angles on Jesus Christ. Their views in different angles. Yeah, so each of them present Jesus from a different perspective or different light, right? Why did they do that? Because each of them experienced Jesus's ministry in different ways. Each of them was writing to a different audience. And so their goals as writers were different from each other. So we see Matthew talks about Jesus as the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah. So we'll see a lot in Matthew about how Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled. Jesus did this, Jesus said this or this is what happened and this was a fulfillment of this Old Testament scripture. Matthew will do a lot of that. So he's talking about how Jesus fulfilled all of these Old Testament prophecies. So his highlight is Jesus as the Messiah to the Jews, the Messiah that they had been waiting for, the deliverer that they had been waiting for. Mark looks, focuses more on Jesus as the one who suffered, who offered himself as a sacrifice. So the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That was his focus on the suffering servant, the suffering Messiah. Luke, his focus is more on the Gentiles on Jesus as the Savior for the whole world. Whereas Matthew is focusing on the Jews. He also does definitely address Gentiles. But his, his general message is to the Jews. Luke on the other hand is the Savior for all nations, the Savior for all people. So that is the difference in perspective. And John talks about Jesus as that eternal word who became flesh, right? So the one who was before all creation coming down and becoming one of us. And then him revealing the Father to us. So each of them just brings that difference in perspective. And they also help us to get a full, a more full picture of who Jesus is. Giving us all of these different angles for him and what he did on this earth. So there have been attempts to reduce these four gospels to a single gospel. So there were people who tried to put all the gospel accounts together and make a single book. But what happens is that we lose out on each of those messages. Each of them tells the same story in different ways. How do you put all of those differences into one single story? All of those things became a challenge. And so the church realized that because each book was so unique, it was important to keep each book as it was. In your textbook, we won't go through this in class because there's a comparison between all the four gospels and everything that is talked about in each gospel, which book it comes in. So say for example, the birth of Jesus, which all gospels is the birth of Jesus talked about in. Or if it talks about Simeon at the temple, which all gospels actually mentioned Simeon at the temple. So each story is listed there and it's a few pages long. So pages 15 to 23 in your textbook cover that comparison between the four gospels. We won't go over it in class. But if you're interested in just looking at what stories were there, what stories were excluded in each of the gospels, it's all available in your textbook. So the other question is why are there only four gospel accounts? And we talked about this a little bit in class last week. There are other gospels that have been found, other manuscripts that have been found, ancient manuscripts. Why were those not included as part of the gospels? So two examples that we have in our textbook is the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter. There is another gospel called the Gospel of James. These are all known as infancy gospels. So they talk a lot about Jesus in as a child and Jesus's early years, which these Matthew, Mark, Luke, John don't talk about. So they talk a lot about that, but there are some challenges with these gospels. So we look at what were the reasons some gospels were kept in the New Testament scriptures and why were some gospels rejected? Part of it is historical reliability. So how do we know that what was written was reliable? One is when was it written? If something is closer to the life of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus, it's considered as more reliable because there were still eyewitnesses alive. Who could challenge what was being written? Who could question if something was written that was untrue? They could address that. And also the closets written to an event, we can trust that people have remembered what actually happened and have written, have documented it correctly. So 20 years later, if people are still talking about it and recording it, it's more likely that they've recorded the correct events than 100 years later. So we look at how close was it to the life and ministry of Jesus. The other thing is who wrote it? Was it written by someone who was an eyewitness or someone who was close to the eyewitnesses, was able to get accounts of eyewitnesses? So we see some of these gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of James. The Gospel of Thomas, I think, and I'll go back and just recheck that, is where it's actually believed that it was not written by the Apostle. It was written by somebody else, but they claim, not the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, was not actually written by Peter. It was written by somebody else who claimed to be Peter. So that is another thing. Who actually wrote the book? Was it really one of the disciples or one of the eyewitnesses or someone who was close to the eyewitnesses who could get reliable accounts of Jesus's ministry? The other thing is, is it in agreement with other historical records that we have? So when they're talking about Jesus as an infant and they're talking about miracles that he did when he was a child, are there other records of that? Do we know that other people were talking about this? If so, then it can be proved to be true. But if there are no other records and it's not from a reliable source, then we have to question whether it's actually something that can be trusted. So these were some of the questions that were asked of the gospels, especially. The other criteria that was taken is, does it have spiritual power and authority coming from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? So is this truly inspired by the Holy Spirit? Does it carry that spiritual power and authority? And then the third thing is orthodoxy. So this was a big thing that was important to the church. They were trying to preserve the doctrine of the church. So whatever is being said has to be in line with scriptural teaching. There was a lot of heresies that were going around, a lot of wrong teaching. We see that right in the letters of Paul and Peter, where they are addressing wrong teaching that was going around in the church. So there were also books that were being written by these other groups of people, like for example the Gnostics. So the Gnostics were a group of people who claimed that there was special spiritual revelation that they had received that gave them knowledge about things that were outside of what is in the Bible. So they had certain books that were written in the Gnostic gospels. There's a Gospel of Mary, there's a secret book of James. So there are different books like that that were written by Gnostics, which didn't get included in these gospels and didn't get included in the New Testament books because their teaching or their doctrine didn't agree with the church's doctrine. So to protect right teaching within the church, there were certain books that were rejected. So these are some of the criteria that went into choosing which books came in, especially now we're looking at the gospels, which were the four gospels that were actually included and the gospels that were excluded. So is there a single gospel or are there different gospels? So there's a difference in how we use that word. If we look at the scriptures Galatians 1-6, if someone can read that for us. I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. Thank you. So here we see that emphasis on there is a single gospel. There aren't multiple gospels. There aren't multiple messages of salvation that can be accepted. There's one single gospel and that gospel had to do with the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus that in that was the salvation of all people. So why we say gospels is more in reference to those four books. It's not about the message. The message is a single message, which is the gospel, the good news of Jesus. But the four gospels are four accounts of that good news. So there are different ways in which the good news is described. It's called the gospel of grace to talk about we are saved by grace and not by works. So to differentiate between the new covenant and the old covenant. So the gospel of grace, the gospel of Christ is Jesus, the good news of Jesus being the salvation for all people. The gospel of the kingdom, which is the good news of being invited to be part of God's kingdom. The gospel of salvation and the gospel of peace. The gospel of the good news of salvation and the good news of peace with God. So when Jesus' birth is announced, they say good news to all people. Peace on earth, good will to men. So the coming of God's peace to people. So as being able to enter into the peace of God into that shalom of God. So those are different ways in which the same one gospel is described based on what the gospel writer is trying to focus on. So with that we've finished our introduction to the gospels. We look at the gospel according to Matthew. We now start to look at the different books in the New Testament beginning with Matthew and then going into the rest of the New Testament. So we obviously don't have time to go into full detail into each book. So we'll do kind of like an introductory or an overall picture of the book, understand its background, understand what was its main message and some of the things that the writer was trying to communicate or what was being taught through that specific book in the New Testament. So Matthew, the background, we see in the Old Testament, the Old Testament was constantly pointing to somebody who would come as a deliverer for the people of Israel. And what the Old Testament said about that deliverer, about that Messiah was that he would be from the line of David and that he would bring restoration to the people. So the people had obviously fallen from that place of divine blessing that they had. They had entered into the Promised Land, they had then been captured, they had gone into exile and throughout all of that there is a promise of restoration in the Old Testament. Then after the Old Testament and before the New Testament there is a renewed anticipation. So we talked about this in those 400 years from Malachi to Matthew that there were different rulers who came in who were ruling over that region in which the people of Israel were living. And so in this time there is more an increased desire for somebody to come to save them from the oppression that they were facing under all of these different rulers. So they viewed the Messiah as someone who would deliver them from their oppressors who would defeat their enemies, who would establish his throne in Jerusalem and from Jerusalem reign over the whole earth. Who would conquer the temple and who in doing all of that would they would see signs and wonders accompanying that person's work there whatever they were coming to do to deliver the people. But was viewed very much as a political saviour like someone who would save them politically and who would reign over them as a king, as a physical ruler in Jerusalem. So obviously Jesus didn't come in the way they expected, right? While they were waiting for someone who would come and save them from the government Jesus came in a very different way showing them that the slavery they were experiencing, the oppression they were experiencing in the physical realm was just almost like a picture of what actually was happening spiritually that they were actually under, they needed deliverance spiritually and that's what Jesus came to give as the Messiah. So in Matthew, Matthew is presenting that Jesus to us. Jesus as the fulfillment but also Jesus as someone who came in a way that they didn't expect that the Jews didn't expect. So some of the characteristics of the book of Matthew is that it's very concise in comparison to Mark. So if you look at the same story in Mark and then the same story in Matthew you'll see that Mark adds a lot more detail, a lot more description to the story, a lot more conversation whereas Matthew will just give you the main points. So it's a shortened version just focusing on certain things that he thought was important. It may be for this reason that Matthew was used the most as the early church was raising up disciples as they were making records of the scriptures. Matthew was actually the most circulated book in the early church and was also used for liturgy within the church. So we see Matthew focusing on Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures and Old Testament prophecies. We see also within Matthew a focus on the Jews but also broadening that to the Gentiles. So some of the ways we see the focus on the Jews is he quotes a lot of things from the Jewish scriptures. So in Matthew 5.18 he talks about the jot or tittle which is something very specific to the Jewish teaching on scriptures that not even one small thing should be changed in the scriptures. When the scribes were copying scriptures their attention had to be so focused that not even one small mistake could be made, no small change could be made in the scriptures. That's what Matthew 5.18 talks about. Matthew 23.2 talks about the seat of Moses. So these were all things that were very familiar to the Jews. So someone from an outside the Jewish faith would not know about these things. So that's why we see that Matthew was specifically talking to the Jews presenting Jesus as the Messiah to the Jews. Matthew 15.24 talks about the lost sheep of Israel. And then even in the genealogy the way Matthew writes the genealogy is in a rabbinic style. But while Matthew is focusing on the Jews he doesn't forget the Gentiles. He still does focus on the Gentiles because we look more at what would be the purpose of talking to the Gentiles because the church was comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. So when Matthew is writing he is writing to a church that is mixed between Jews and Gentiles. However his audience is primarily Jewish and so his focus is primarily on the Jews but he will definitely include the Gentiles in his message. So he talks about in Matthew 2.2 about the wise men coming in. So the wise men were from the Magi were from a Gentile background. So he includes Gentiles in the birth narrative of Jesus. He also talks about Jesus going to Egypt as a child. So that's in Matthew 2.13 talking about going to a Gentile land. And then Matthew 28.19 the commission for the Gospel to be taken to all nations not only to the Jews so taking it even to the Gentiles. Matthew's focus also is much more on the church than we see in the other Gospels. Only Matthew uses this word ecclesia and we see that Matthew 16.18 and 18.17. So and then he talks about it a little more Matthew 18.20 he talks about two or three gathered in the name of Christ Matthew 28.19 he talks about teaching and baptizing new disciples. So he is concerned about the church. We see that focus in Matthew. A lot of people have questioned whether if you see Matthew 16.18 let's just open that up Matthew 16.18. Yes Gertrude you have questions? Sister I have a question. Now Jesus called his disciples when he was 30 years old. So about the birth and his childhood and all those the disciples were not present with him. So how accurate is that all that incidents that are written in the Bible? Yeah so all of those things are because they interacted so closely with Jesus they interacted with Jesus's family so they had access directly to Mary through Jesus. So their accounts come from that first hand interaction with Jesus. So with Jesus with Mary those would be the sources for their writing. In terms of accuracy they are the ones who could get closest to Jesus. For anyone else it would have been a second hand thing where they were not interacting with the first hand witnesses. So they were asking for they were getting information from other people and then writing about it. Now obviously we don't know that they actually went to Mary and asked her questions but we know that because of their interaction with Jesus because they were living and ministering with Jesus they had access to information first hand. Okay sister thank you. Thank you. Was there any other questions? Okay so let's continue from there. We were looking at Matthew 16 18 and I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of AIDS shall not prevail against it. Thank you. So we see here that Jesus himself is using the word church right? So many people have questioned could Jesus have actually used that word because there was no church in existence at that time. The church only came into existence after Jesus' resurrection when the disciples started going out with the Gospel is when they started to gather and worship God and then the church came into existence. But we see in the Septuagint that there was a Hebrew word kahl which means congregation. So that was used to describe Israel as a congregation gathering and then we also see the practice of the synagogue which was a gathering of the local believers meeting in one place. So that concept of the church was definitely in existence. So Ecclesia is a Greek word that comes from this Hebrew concept. We also see this word Ecclesia being used in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So in the Dead Sea Scrolls it was used to refer to God's community and in Greek culture it was used to talk about assemblies. So usually it would be if citizens were assembling in a city that Ecclesia was used. So that was not at all used in culture or among the Jews before that. So it's very possible that Jesus himself used that word here. And so when Matthew uses it, we can see that already that practice or that idea of the gathering of believers was being created at this time. Okay, so in Matthew we also see a greater focus on the end times as compared to the other Gospels. So we see in chapters 24 and 25 where there is an extended teaching that Jesus gives on the end times. And then Matthew 13, 36 if we can just open to that and read that verse. Matthew 13, 36. He just sent the multitude away and went into the house and his disciples came to him saying explain to us the parable of the tears of the field. Okay, thank you. So if we go on, if you can read verse 39 onwards please brother. The enemy who showed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age and the sheepers are the angels. Therefore as the pairs are gathered and burned in the fire so it will be at the end of this age. The son of man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing, gnashing of teeth then the righteous will shine forth as the son in the kingdom of the father. He who has years to hear let him hear. Thank you. So we see here a parable that is pointing to the end of the age. Right? So talking about judgment about the final destiny of every human being a post judgment where will the soul of a person be? So talking about all of that we see Matthew focusing on it much more. We see also the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. We see the parable of the talents also in Matthew 25 talking about those end times that isn't as much in focus in the other gospels. So with that we just come we come to the end of some of the sorry the unique features of Matthew's gospel we'll just quickly look at authorship and then we can close. Sorry I'm just going to get a sip of water. Can you just review once again? Just review that isn't it? Yeah. Okay. So we see this word Ecclesia being used this is the first time it's used in the New Testament Matthew 1618 and Matthew 1817 and in Matthew we didn't actually read Matthew 1817. Let me just open that up of someone has it open. Matthew 1817 and if he refuses to hear them tell it to the church but if he refuses even to hear the church let him be like you sorry let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Okay thank you. So here in Matthew 18 is where it's more from how does the how do we respond to somebody who doesn't receive your witness right and this was also something that was attributed to Jesus that Jesus said this and Matthew 1618 as well Jesus said it so the question is how could Jesus have used the word Ecclesia use the word church when there was no church at this time right the church only came into existence after Jesus' resurrection so we look at the word itself being used in that cultural context. Was it a word that was known was it being used and if so how was it being used so we see there is another Greek word kahl which is a congregation and then there is also a synagogue which was a gathering so that idea of the gathering of believers was already in existence the Greek word kahl is actually used in the which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament so the idea of believers gathering together existed already we also see in the Dead Sea Scrolls that the word Ecclesia that word was used to refer to the community of God's people so this word was being used in among people it was also being used in Greek culture so when there was an assembly of people so citizens were coming together in the city that assembly so being called Ecclesia so it's not that this word was used for the first time only after believers started worshipping Jesus and came together that they started using the word church we are looking at historically this word was already being used in other places so it is very possible that Jesus used the word Ecclesia in like how it is recorded in Matthew 16 18 and Matthew 18 17 okay sister thank you no problem thank you so much okay so we've come to the end of class for today I'll see you on Thursday I actually will be traveling this week so Thursday I'll take the class online I won't be here in person but I'll take the class online so we'll get that set up for all of you who are joining in person okay thank you okay sorry Sanjay you have a question no pastor I just wanted to share a thought a short thought like so there's this person called Jay Warner Wallace who is a highly respected homicide detective and forensic expert so when he studied the synoptic gospels and he actually became a believer in fact he wrote a very popular book called cold case Christianity and so it only goes to show that God willfully had the synoptic gospels in the Bible for a reason and so when this gentleman who was a highly respected detective and forensic expert studied the gospels from the lens of a detective and forensic expert he became a believer so it only goes to show that you know God doesn't on our cost things for no reason I'll just probably share a link to this at the bottom thank you so much you can share it on google classroom I'll do that thank you have a good week everyone thank you thank you sister