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This is the fourth and final post in an in-depth study of overarching themes and lessons in the gospel accounts.  For ease of reading, we’ve split this long study into several shorter individual posts, so I recommend starting with the intro/first post, then reading this and the other posts (linked at the end).

If you’re anything like me, you may have sometimes struggled to emotionally connect with the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), or found some of the teachings to be contradictory.  There are many reasons for this (cultural context, writing style, etc.), and I talk about this more in the first post in the series…I won’t belabor the point here.

So this series is focused on how we can “see the forest for the trees” and survey the gospel accounts together in order to find the bigger ideas and consistent themes in Jesus’s direct words and actions.

As a reminder, I’m giving some of the scripture references within each point, though in many cases there were so many that I couldn’t capture them all (it got too repetitive). I encourage you to look up and read each passage referenced as well, and to have these topics in mind to recognize the patterns when they emerge.

So far we’ve examined Jesus’s life and teachings on a few major themes (each with several related sub-topics):

• That God’s calling in this life isn’t easy—and isn’t for everyone—but if we answer His call it DOES come with expectations
• That God is concerned with the state of our “heart” (mind, emotions, motivations)
• That the way we treat and engage with our brethren (and other people) matters
• That we must have our priorities right—we can’t allow our relationship with worldly things to take precedence over our relationship with God
• And that God expects both faith AND action—“you will know them by their fruits”

So now let’s move on to our final few themes…

Theme #6:  It’s important to take care of ourselves as well as looking out for others

In today’s world we have this idea of “self-care”, which has gotten a bit out of hand and is often used as a justification for selfishness and indulgence.

But the underlying principle is sound—namely that it is easier to have your spiritual “house” in order when you are properly caring for your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Figuratively it’s like the airplane rule of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else get theirs on—the point being, you’re of no help to others if you become incapacitated.

Let’s look at a couple areas where Jesus showcased this in His own life.

It is critical to regularly get rest, solitude (for meditation), and one-on-one time with God.

Jesus shows us that we need to take care of ourselves, stay close to God, and not get too worn out while ministering to others.  He fed the crowds when they were hungry and tired.  He knew when the disciples were too amped up and needed to chill out.  One of the biggest ways that He modeled this was to frequently set aside time to get away from the crowds and noise, and to be alone with God.

• After a full day of healing the sick and casting out demons, He went the next morning to a “solitary place” and prayed (Mark 1:32-35)
• Similarly, when the disciples came back from their journeys and were telling Jesus all that they did, He took them to an isolated spot where they could eat and rest (Mark 6:31)
• We’re told the He “often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:16)
• After a crazy day feeding the 5,000, He sent the disciples on ahead and went up on a mountain to pray (Mark. 6:46)

These are just a few examples of many.  Jesus knew that we must learn to turn down and tune out the noise of the world—the distractions and busyness that our daily lives provide.  We have to purposefully set aside time to spend in prayer, study, and meditation with our Father.

You might also like:  A Guide to Biblical Meditation

We must make time to nurture close friendships with our brethren.

Jesus also knew that He needed His friends.  He didn’t hold people at arm’s length or try to bear everything on His own.

Instead, He loved and mourned His friends (John 11).  He asked His closest friends to be with Him, pray for Him, and help comfort Him when He was struggling (Matt. 26:36-41).

He shared more teachings and open conversations privately with His disciples than He did with the crowds (Luke 10:23).  He was vulnerable and relational, telling the disciples that he was “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:32-35).

God and Jesus Christ want their brethren to build strong and lasting friendships.  These are important for mental and emotional health, certainly (as well as physical, Eccl. 4:9-10), but also important for spiritual well-being.

When we develop these intimate relationships, we can have that “iron sharpening iron” effect (Prov. 27:17), where we encourage and exhort each other, and when needed we tell the hard truths.  There has to be a level of love and trust established for any of those things to be effective.

Perspective and balance are important in maintaining our well-being.

We all lose perspective sometimes, or find ourselves off-balance.  Spiritually, this can lead us to ending up in a “ditch” (such as self-righteousness or going off on a doctrinal tangent), or to drifting away from God as we’re pulled in by the cares of this world.

These additional quick points help round out this larger theme of the need to take good care of ourselves:

• The story of Martha and Mary shows how we can become so focused on physically serving others that we neglect pursuing our spiritual growth (Luke 10:38-42)
• When it comes to our spiritual development and continued conversion, we shouldn’t be *only* focused on getting the “bad” OUT, but also with putting the good IN (Luke 11:24-26)
• Having an attitude of thankfulness toward God for His many blessings can help us maintain an appropriate perspective (Matt. 11:25, John 6:11, John 11:41 & more)

You might also like:  Is Unthankfulness the Root of Most Sins?

Theme #7:  God does not intend for us to be shrinking violets or passive doormats

This theme may be a bit unexpected.  I certainly was a bit surprised as the threads emerged while reading through the gospel accounts.  But there’s no question that it’s there, and is one of those seeming-contradictions that we talked about at the outset of this study.

People tend to focus on Jesus’s teachings to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile when compelled, and forgive your brother as many times as is needed.  And those are absolutely commands from our Savior.  But they also depend on the situation and context.

Jesus also taught and modeled that His followers should be zealous for His way, should not compromise with the truth, and should speak out when we see something that is wrong.  He did not intend for us to allow others to walk all over us, or be taken advantage of as “easy marks”.

And He expects us to study His word and use His holy spirit to develop discernment and character.  Both are required to determine in any given situation what is most loving and appropriate towards the people involved—whether it’s a “telling hard truths in love” sort of moment or a “turn the other cheek”.

So let’s look at some places where we’re showing the bolder side of following Christ.

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This is the third part in an in-depth study of key themes in the gospel accounts.  For ease of reading, we’ve split this long study into several shorter individual posts, so I recommend starting with the intro and theme #1, then reading this and the other posts (linked at the end).

I’ll dive right in this time, since the introduction (linked above) gives context on what led me to write this series on how to understand the gospels.  We’re really focusing on the bigger ideas and consistent themes in Jesus’s words and actions, more of a “30,000-foot view”.

As a reminder, I’m giving some of the scripture references within each point, though in many cases there were so many that I couldn’t capture them all (it got too repetitive). I encourage you to look up and read each passage referenced as well, and to have these topics in mind to recognize the patterns when they emerge.

So far we’ve examined Jesus’s life and teachings on a few major themes (each with several related sub-topics):

• That God’s calling in this life isn’t easy—and isn’t for everyone—but if we answer His call it DOES come with expectations.
• That God is concerned with the state of our “heart” (mind, emotions, motivations—our inner being)
• That the way we treat and engage with our brethren (and with other people) matters

So now let’s move on to themes #4 and 5…

Theme #4:  Priorities!  We can’t allow our relationship with worldly things to take precedence over our relationship with God

A huge focus of Jesus’s teachings was on how we use our resources—time, thoughts, energy, money, and more—during our physical lives.  He frequently cautioned His followers to adopt a healthy attitude toward material possessions and worldly relationships, and wasn’t shy about calling out when someone’s priorities were in the wrong place.

So let’s examine some of the topics He spoke on.  Get ready, this one is a doozy!

Money isn’t *inherently* evil, but the LOVE of it is…we need to develop a healthy relationship with (the pursuit of) wealth.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus had quite a lot to say about what our relationship should be with money, the pursuit of wealth or influence, and other material possessions.

In one of the more well-known passages of the gospels, Jesus says:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).

Jesus goes on to explain that you can’t have two masters—in other words, it is not possible to wholeheartedly serve God, and yet allow money (or the pursuit of it, career ambition, a desire for security, etc.) to control you (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13).

We see this illustrated in the “rich young ruler”, where the man asked Jesus what he needed to do to for eternal life.  Jesus could see inside his heart and told him to sell all he had and give the money to the poor.

The man went away sorrowful because he was very rich, and Jesus remarked, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18-27, Matt. 19:16-26, Mark 10:17-27).

Again, this is not because wealth is inherently bad, but rather because it tends to warp our perspectives and priorities, and tether us to this world.  In the parable of the sower, Jesus calls this “the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches”, which choke out the faith that was trying to take root, just like weeds choke out good produce (Matt. 13:22).

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This is the second part in an in-depth study of key themes in the gospel accounts.  For ease of reading, we’ve split this long study into several shorter individual posts, so I recommend starting with the intro and theme #1, then reading this and the other posts (linked at the end).

As I mentioned in the introduction to this series on how to understand the gospels, I’ve always struggled to emotionally connect with the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in their entirety.  I get lost sometimes in the cultural context, the somewhat sterile ancient writing style, and can overly focus on seeming-contradictions.

So this series is focused on how we can “see the forest for the trees” and survey the gospel accounts together to find the bigger ideas and consistent themes in Jesus’s direct words and actions. 

As a reminder, I’m giving some of the scripture references within each point, though in many cases there were so many that I couldn’t capture them all (it got too repetitive). I encourage you to look up and read each passage in the bible yourself as well and have these topics in mind to recognize the patterns when they emerge.

The first theme we looked at (in the previous post), was that God’s calling in this life isn’t easy—and isn’t for everyone—but if we answer His call it DOES come with expectations.  And now we’ll dive right into the second theme…

Theme #2:  God is concerned with the state of our “heart” (mind, emotions, motivations)

Jesus was constantly probing the underlying thoughts, motivations, and intentions of the people He encountered, and always called out hypocrisy, legalism, and self-righteousness—especially when it came at the expense of showing love and honor to God or other people.

Here are some of the principles He taught and modeled along those lines.

We can think we are doing all the right things and that we’re “right with God”, but be completely off-base.  

MANY of Jesus’s teachings expanded on this theme with slight variations.  And while His words clearly had implications for the Jews of that day—they saw themselves as God’s only chosen people and their rules for HOW to follow Him as elevated above God’s own instructions—Jesus’s warning should ring just as clearly for God’s elect today.

Jesus cautions that just calling upon His name (“I’m a Christian!”) or doing lots of works (“I tithe, I volunteer, I go to church every sabbath!”) does not “qualify” us for eternal life (Matt. 7:21-23).  The meaning of Matthew 7:21 is that we can’t EARN it.

Here are some other aspects of this topic we should take away from His teaching:

• We should not be comparing ourselves to other people, but rather to God’s standards. God despises self-righteousness and loves a humble heart (the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector, Luke 18:9-14).
• “Unless your righteousness [justification] exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20). His audience would have understood this as a way of saying that it was impossible to “out-righteous” the Pharisees at their own game of legalistic rule adherence (which went far beyond God’s actual commands).  Perfect law-following alone cannot gain us access to the kingdom.
• We don’t get credit for just showing up unprepared (the guest without a wedding garment, Matt 22). The “garment” God expects His people to be clothed with is made of righteous character and actions resulting from following His way (Rev. 19:8).
• In a similar vein, “checking the box” (a.k.a. doing only the bare minimum or “what was our duty to do”) makes us an unprofitable servant (Luke 17:10).
• We cannot be complacent—we must be vigilant. Multiple times Jesus spoke of seeing the signs that the time is near (Matt 24).  These are spoken to God’s chosen people, and the implication is clearly that if we are not prepared and watching, we can miss out—our victory is not assured.
• The parable of the ten virgins (picturing God’s people) gets quite specific here. We’re told that ALL fell asleep, but only half of them had enough oil (God’s spirit) left when Christ returned…and the others didn’t get another chance to rectify their lack of vigilance (Matt. 25:1-13).
• The parable of the tares makes it clear that God allows the good and the bad to hang out together within the body of Christ for a while, until it’s time for the harvest (Matt. 13:24-30). So we can’t assume that just because we’re showing up, going to church, and doing all the things that outwardly look right, that we’re “good” with God.

Our actions definitely matter, but not if they’re coming from the wrong motivations or thoughts.  

Building on the previous point, let’s go back to that part in Matthew where Jesus had just told them that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” or does great works will enter the kingdom.

He sums up that teaching by saying, “Then I will declare to them, ‘Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness [workers of iniquity]’” (Matt. 7:23).

What’s interesting is that He doesn’t deny that they had been obeying God’s commands or doing great works.  This indicates that something else was going on here.  We don’t know exactly what it was, but I submit that the root cause was that their hearts were not right with God.  That they were not in a state of repentance…thus their sins separated them from God despite carrying out the correct actions.

And how often do we fall into the same trap??

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It’s often been said that even if we only focused on reading and doing the “red letter” parts of the bible (Jesus’s words), we’d all be much better people…and certainly better Christians.

But I have a confession:  I’ve always struggled to emotionally connect with the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  Of course I read them, I think about them, I hone in on specific verses that feel really meaningful.  But even though it’s full of direct words from my Savior, I haven’t always gravitated toward them holistically.

And I could be wrong, but I suspect I may not be alone in that…

For some people, the seeming-inconsistencies across the three narratives are frustrating.  For others (myself included), the sparse writing style feels a bit clinical and I know that I’m missing cultural nuances that would make the words come to life better.  It kind of makes me feel like a failure at times.

While the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life are not quite as convoluted as some of Paul’s writings (which even Peter called hard to understand, II Pet. 3:16), they still can be somewhat challenging to really grasp onto and internalize.  And there are a number of reasons for that.

Why are the gospels confusing at times?

Some of the difficulty in reading the gospels is unavoidable, and common to any historical text.  The actual way it was written down—from the words used, to the dialogue style—feels stilted and foreign to a modern reader’s brain.

The things Jesus (and other biblical writers) said often included a massive amount of cultural context, using phrases and examples that contemporary listeners would have immediately connected the dots on, but seem super random to us today.

Then some of the confusion was, I believe, purposeful on Jesus’s part.  His words can be interpreted in different ways because He wasn’t always crystal-clear, and His sayings often had double meanings.  He even stated outright that He was intentionally making the parables hard to understand because those people weren’t being called at that time (Matt. 13:11-17).

Another reason is that many of His teachings showcased how we follow God in a situational context rather than black-and-white “rules”, so we run into paradoxes with how the same principle was applied differently at different times—creating what feels like contradictions.

And honestly, some of it is SO specific, that to our modern ears we hear something like “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed” and we’re like, ”Neat…sooo what do we do with this??”  As a result, we tend to cherry-pick very specific verses, often pulled out of context, and ignore other ones that might contradict.

A different approach for how to read the gospels

After years of reading through the gospels but struggling to truly feel connected to and inspired by the entirety of the writings, I recently decided to try a different approach.  Rather than getting bogged down in the verse-by-verse details, my goal was to pull back to more of a 30,000-foot view to see what we can and should glean in broader strokes.

This way of reading the gospels still is focusing on specific and actionable takeaways for my life, but it helped me be able to filter through some of the super granular and seemingly-contradictory statements to find the bigger ideas and consistent themes in Jesus’s direct words or His actions.

Rather than parsing every word (including things that feel contradictory), my goal is to glean some of the key things we should take away as Jesus’s focus, His actions, His commands—and thereby what things we need to be concentrating on in our own lives.

A few notes to orient you before we dive in:

• The topics below are focused more on the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), solely because Jesus’s teachings in John’s gospel are more directed toward Himself and His relationship with the Father. I’ve also included a couple references to the red-letter parts of Revelation where relevant.
• As I studied through the books, I found that the various topics grouped themselves into a handful of very broad buckets, but acknowledge that there’s definitely some overlap between them.
• I’ll give some of the scripture references within each point, though in many cases there were so many that I couldn’t capture them all (it got repetitive, especially across the three books). I encourage you to look up and read each passage in the bible yourself as well and have these topics in mind to recognize the patterns when they emerge.

And lastly, this study is a LOT.  There is so much content here, that I’ve split it into multiple posts.  This is part one of what will likely be between three and five posts.

While you *could* read through it all in one sitting, you could also take a topic or two each day as your daily bible study and spend time meditating and studying, to really get the most out of it.  Think of this as more of a reference book or study companion.

Principles, truths, and key commands in the Gospels

Theme #1:  God’s calling in this life isn’t easy, and isn’t for everyone.  But if we answer the call, it DOES come with expectations.

Anyone who subscribes to the “just as I am” belief, thinking that God doesn’t set standards by which we must live, should go back and read Jesus’s words throughout the gospels.

One of the biggest themes that Jesus emphasizes is what it looks like to follow Him.  He focuses on action, not simply “believing” as an abstract emotional idea…and He’s also clear that following God’s way is not the easy path.

Now don’t get me wrong…God calls us just as we are.  He just expects that we won’t stay that way.  Let’s look at some examples.

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