Chris Marshall Resources

In John 13, Jesus offers His disciples one of the most powerful examples of what it means to be a servant leader, by washing their feet after they eat their last meal together before He is arrested, tried, convicted, beaten and crucified.  Jesus sets forth a new commandment that they must love one another as He has loved them.  In John 14, Jesus tells of His impending return to heaven, but that ultimately that would mean His return to take them to be with Him.  While the disciples weren’t sure where Jesus was going or how to get there, Jesus told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  He also told the disciples they would do greater works than He, because He was going to the Father.  In John 15, Jesus provides the amazing metaphor of Him being the “vine,” and we His followers, being the “branches.”  So long as we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit.  Jesus tells us again of the importance of His new command to love one another as He first loved us.

In John 10, Jesus tells us He is the “Door” to the sheepfold, and the Good Shepherd.  Jesus distinguishes between the devil’s work, which is to kill, steal and destroy, and His work, which is to bring us life in all of its abundance.  In John 11, we read the powerful account of Jesus’ friend Lazarus dying.  Even though Lazarus’ sisters: Mary and Martha, had sent for Jesus to let Him know Lazarus was sick, Jesus waited until Lazarus had been dead for four days, before going to visit the family.  In Jesus’ poignant interaction with Martha, Jesus proclaims, “I am the Resurrection and the Life!”  Then he proves it by raising Lazarus from the dead.  This amazes all but the religious leaders. They see this as one more evidence that Jesus will be the ultimate reason for the Romans to come and destroy them.  They begin to plot in earnest to have Jesus killed.  John 12 records Jesus being anointed by Mary, which was a preparation for His death.  The religious leaders develop a plot to kill Lazarus, because he was evidence of Jesus’ power.  Jesus marches triumphantly into Jerusalem, but this only causes more division as people must choose whether they are going to side with Jesus being the Messiah, or an impostor.

In John 7-9, John shows us Jesus is God.  That’s a powerful statement, but we see it time and time again.  In John 7, Jesus tells the people He is the source of rivers of living water.  In John 8, Jesus calls Himself the Light of the World.  In John 9, Jesus heals a man who was born blind, and tells the man He healed He is the Messiah.  None of this happens without conflict.  The religious leaders argue and debate with Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t back down.  He knows they are out to put an end not only to His ministry, but to His life.  Nevertheless, Jesus continues to proclaim who He is: The Son of God.  

As we return to John 4-6, we’re reminded of how Jesus often helped one person at a time.  In John 4, Jesus transformed the life of an entire Samaritan village, but it started with a long conversation with a Samaritan woman.  In John 5, Jesus healed a paralyzed man who had been waiting by the Pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years.  In John 6, just for good measure, Jesus feeds 5,000 men (along with the women and children)!

As we come again to the Gospel of John, remember John’s gospel is the “different” one.  It is not “synoptic.”  By the time John wrote his gospel, all three of the other gospels had been written and circulated.  John wrote not so much to tell the chronology of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, as to demonstrate Jesus is the Son of God.  He tells us as much in John 20.  John 1-3 covers the theological expression of Jesus’ equality with God (John 1); Jesus’ first miracle: turning water into wine (John 2); and tell Nicodemus we must be born again (John 3).

Luke 21-24 records the last few days of Jesus’ life, His arrest, trial, conviction, death and resurrection. One of the aspects of Jesus’ resurrection included by Luke, but by none of the other gospel writers, was Jesus’ conversation with two “disciples” on the road to Emmaus.  The account is so powerful, because the two, one of whom was named Cleopas, were walking home because Jesus is dead, and their hope is gone.  Suddenly, a “stranger” appears with them on the road and begins to ask them why they are upset.  They ask if He is the only one who has been to Jerusalem who hasn’t heard of what went on there over the past three days.  Jesus then took them through the Scriptures (which would be our Old Testament) and told them the Messiah must suffer and then rise again.  At the end of the trip, when the men made it home, Jesus acted as if He would continue on, so they invited Him to have dinner with them.  As Jesus was breaking bread with them, they realized it was Jesus.  At that moment He disappeared from their sight.  Even though it had to be getting dark, even though they had no means of lighting their way back to Jerusalem, they ran back to town, and told the other disciples they had seen Jesus.  What a powerful aspect of Jesus’ resurrection interaction with His followers!  Our Lord and Savior is no martyr, because He rose from the dead.  That’s what sets Him apart from every other great person, or religious figure who ever lived. 

Luke 13-16 includes a good deal of material found only in Luke’s gospel, and nearly all of it is Jesus teaching.  The content exclusive to Luke is all of Luke 15, and the first part of Luke 16.  Luke 15 is another of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, because we read about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.  Each is eventually “found,” and each shows us how much God loves the lost.  My sense of urgency to see lost people come to know Jesus has always been fueled by Luke 15.  The incredible story of the Prodigal Son, as well, as the story of the elder brother show us the amazing love of our gracious God and Father.  Any time, I think about how much God loves us, the “Father” in the parable of the Prodigal Son comes to mind.

Luke 9 is one of the longest chapters in the book.  Luke included thirteen different events in the chapter, ranging from Jesus sending out the twelve on their first mission, to the feeding of the five thousand, to Peter confessing Jesus as the Christ, to the Transfiguration, to Jesus being rejected by a Samaritan village.  That these events happened is confirmed in the other synoptic gospels, but once again Luke’s order differs.  He told us in Luke 1, he had undertaken to write an orderly account that all had happened in Jesus’ life.  In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy or seventy-two of His followers on a mission.  Their return brings rejoicing.  The rest of the chapter is devoted to two events found only in Luke: The Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the account of Martha and Mary.  Luke 11 also has a number of events squeezed into a chapter, starting with the Lord’s Prayer and some additional teaching on prayer, and concluding with Jesus pronouncing woes against the religious leaders.  The overall theme of Luke 12 is readiness, although we find the Parable of the Rich Fool in the chapter.  We’re moving to the point in the book, where the focus is going to shift to Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem, but not before an extended section of teaching in the next six and a half chapters.

As we return to Luke 5-8, let’s make an overall point about the “synoptic” gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  These three are called “synoptic,” which means “seen together,” because they present most of the same material about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  The order varies as we see when we read the three, but the content is parallel.  It is possible to create a parallel of these three gospels where we can read the same events in Jesus life from each side-by-side.  When we do this, we find an amazing consistency among the accounts that are included in all three or in two of the three.  The accounts seldom have precisely the same details, but they are quite similar.  Some have noted the “stories,” must be just that–stories, because they aren’t exactly the same.  Yet, we know from daily life, when two or more people witness the same event, they don’t offer their account of the event with exactly the same words.  In fact, when I was growing up, my Mom always knew when Kenn and I had created a story about something wrong we had done, when the words lined up perfectly. (That wasn’t too often, because we were usually too busy trying to convince Mom the other one had done it!) Anyway, as you read Luke 5-8 again, you’ll see many parallels to Matthew and/or Mark.  You might even want to read the accounts side-by-side to see the similarities and differences in them. 

Today marks the beginning of our third time through Luke’s gospel.  We won’t offer a great deal of detail here, because you can go back to days 147-194, if you want in depth comments on each chapter, but we’ll look at “chunks” of Luke each day, to see how they connect, or to select highlights of the chapters.  Luke 1-4 offers us the explanation of how the births of John the Baptist and Jesus were foretold and happened.  They also offer us the beginning of John’s ministry and Jesus’ ministry.  Luke offers us a brief glimpse of a moment from Jesus’ pre-teen years.  He also offers a genealogy of Jesus, which traces all the way back to Adam!  Luke 4 offers us the account of Jesus’ 40-day temptation in the wilderness after His baptism, that led to Jesus’ initial victory over Satan.