Spotlight on: The GOSPELs

Gospels cover for newsletter

The Gospels are familiar to most of us, right? Let’s see… there are miracles, parables, and sermons on mounts, plains, cities, and sea. Then there are the disciples, the Pharisees, John the Baptist, and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That pretty much covers the important points, don’t you think? But do we know the theme of the Gospels (what ties all these different events, teachings, and characters together)? Hmmmm… maybe we don’t know this section of the Bible as well as we think…

The truth is that we probably only know different parts taken from the whole. It’s kind of like saying you know the history of the United States, yet you are only able to name a few of the presidents and a few of the main events—plus, you don’t know how any of them fit together. (Wasn’t there a declaration of some sort at the beginning? And I seem to remember something about a tall hat… or was that a tall man? What about that horse named Paul riding near a felled cherry tree? And didn’t most of it happen four-score and seven years ago?)

Though our fictitious jumble of American history is meant to be amusing, it is sadly true that we do the very same thing with the events of Jesus’ life—mixing in portions of Sunday School stories, Sunday morning sermons, and annual Christmas pageants to complete our own muddled mess of Jesus’ Own three year ministry here on earth.

Sometimes we need to back out of the parking space to which we have grown accustomed. In this case, we need to lay down our “Trivial Pursuit” Gospel story mentality and actually listen to what God has written down for us—word after word—in its entirety.

In order to help you, WORD Center Ministries has some awesome resources available for you—Observation Bible Study Guides and Expository Audio Teachings. Both are free and downloadable.

Observation Bible Study Guides help you to observe the Word better by asking inductive questions about each and every verse in all four Gospels. Check out our four volume study series on the Gospels: Matthew—The GospelMark—The GospelLuke—The Gospel, and John—The Gospel.

Our Expository Audio Teachings walk you verse by verse through all four books: Matthew—The GospelMark—The GospelLuke—The Gospel, and John—The Gospel. These audios really pull things together because the level of observation is just deep enough to help you learn new things, but not too deep to let you lose sight of the context a chapter or two away! You will be listening at a pace which is slow enough to hear many of the Gospels’ great doctrinal truths, but fast enough to actually see how each and every event fits together with its neighbors.

Context is not only nonnegotiable in the Gospels, but absolutely fascinating—Jesus’ teachings are either the direct precursor to an event or the result of it. In fact, keeping a larger context at hand while moving through the book fairly quickly actually shines light on verses that are sometimes missed during regular study.

Observe the Gospels for yourself by using the study guides and listening to the audio teachings…You will definitely hear the Gospels… and it just might feel like the very first time…

Magnifying the WORD of GOD… One Book at a Time… Verse after Verse… Word by Word by Word…

WORD Center Ministries

© Sharon Jensen 1999-2017