Dr. Robertson wrote: “The purpose of a harmony is not to teach theology, but to make available for men of any faith the facts in the Gospels concerning Jesus of Nazareth.” And that’s exactly what this book does.
It is one of the more interesting ways I have ever read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When I followed the outline in Robertson’s book, instead of reading each gospel straight through, I read them in chronological order. For instance, in reading about John’s message announcing the soon-arrival of Jesus, I was reading Mark 1:7-8, Matthew 3:11-12, and Luke 3:15-18.
In other words, you will be reading the four gospels in chronological order as the events unfolded in Christ’s ministry. Right alongside each section of study are Dr. Robertson’s fascinating and insightful notes. Reading the gospels this way really brought out details that you may have missed when just reading through the gospels in a more traditional manner.
You don’t have to be a scholar to use this book, you just need to be desirous to learn more about Jesus.
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“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” —Jesus Christ, in Matthew 12:36
The King James Version uses the phrase idle words, which is a rather apt description. The root Greek word is the picture of a worker, but the prefix “a” with it means that the worker is either lazy or unemployed. Not only that but he couldn’t care less (“careless”) about his unemployed, unproductive state.
It’s lazy to use whatever word comes to mind, especially if it’s not the right word.
It takes hard work to say the right word at the right time.
It requires great care to leave the wrong word unspoken.
Just prior to the above quote from Jesus, His critics had just thrown out the line, “He casts out demons through the power of the devil.” They didn’t think about what they were saying, so Jesus said, “If you had thought that through before you said it, you would have realized that it makes no sense. That was an idle, unproductive, lazy thing to say.” In the meantime, who knows how many people heard that throw-away line and then turned away from Jesus (see Matthew 12:22-37).
Words have consequences. Idle, careless words may have eternal consequences. I’ll have to stand before God to explain my careless words some day.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We have become a numbed culture: we try to soften every blow, water down each negative report, ask only surface questions in the hopes that no one will really tell us how much they’re hurting, and then medicate away every symptom. But these symptoms are screaming to be noticed!
Dr. Paul Brand the renown hand surgeon and missionary to leprosy patients in India, wrote:
“Pain contributes daily to a normal person’s quality of life…. Every normal person limps occasionally. Sadly, leprosy patients do not limp. Their injured legs never get the rest needed for healing…. This inability to ‘hear’ pain can cause permanent damage because the body’s careful responses to danger will break down. … A body only possesses unity to the degree that it possesses pain…. We must develop a lower threshold of pain by listening, truly listening, to those who suffer. … The body protects poorly what it does not feel.” —Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey, In His Image
The Gospels often talk of the compassion of Jesus. His compassion led Him to teach the confused, feed the hungry, and heal the sick. The phrase usually used in the NKJV is descriptive: Jesus was moved with compassion. In other words His feelings moved Him to action.
The Old English way of describing compassion was to say someone was “moved in his bowels.” This is because when someone else is suffering it should be like a kick in my gut too.
Jesus gravitated toward the hurting, but in one story He told, Jesus related something different about His Father’s compassion. It’s the story we now call the story of the prodigal son. In this story Jesus said His Father watched the horizons every day to see if His wayward child would return. When He saw this child coming into view, God saw his slumped shoulders, He could detect his heavy heart and worn-out body. Then Jesus says something amazing, “The Father was moved with compassion and He RAN TO HIS SON!”
If our Heavenly Father runs TO another’s pain, what right do we have to ever run AWAY from it?
If we are to be God-honoring in our interaction with others, we need to—as Dr. Brand says—lower our threshold of pain. We need to feel what others feel, to feel it like a kick in our own gut, and then move toward the pain with help and healing and restoration.
Christians—if we are truly Christ-like—should be known as the most compassionate people of anyone.
So we need to always be asking: What am I doing to let this compassion be seen in my life?
Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Togetherby clicking here.
I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. (3 John 9)
The King James Versions says that Diotrephes loveth to have the preeminence. He loved his title, his position of authority, and having everything in the church flow through him.
He wanted not only to approve who spoke in the church, but even with whom church people could socialize outside of church. He wielded his positional authority like a sword and cut off people from the fellowship of the church if they didn’t join lockstep with him.
He used fear and intimidation to demand people follow him, and wouldn’t receive a loving letter from the Apostle John. To counteract any who would question him, Diotrephes engaged in gossip and character assassination of any he perceived to be a threat to his position as pastor.
My fellow pastor, having the title of pastor doesn’t mean I’m the smartest person in the room, or that I have all the answers. I am one member of the Body of Christ. Each member of the Body needs all the other members of the Body. I should humbly serve, never demanding allegiance to me or blind obedience to my wishes. I should never try to hide behind my title, but be the most transparent, the most willing to admit my mistakes, and the first to forgive and to ask forgiveness.
Lord, guard my heart against the spirit of Diotrephes!!
UPDATE: This is one of the seed thoughts that went into my book Shepherd Leadership.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Our Father
Think for one minute, have you behaved today as though God were your Father or have you to hang your head in absolute shame before Him for the miserable, mean, unworthy thoughts you have had about your life?
It all springs from one thing, you have lost hold of the idea that God is your Father. Some of us are such fussy, busy people, refusing to look up and realize the tremendous revelation in Jesus Christ’s words—“Your heavenly Father knows what you need….”
From He Shall Glorify Me
What an amazing thought that when Jesus taught us to pray, He said we could address Almighty God with the affectionate title of “Our Father.” In his book Who Do You Think You Are?, Mark Driscoll points out:
“In the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, God is referred to only as Father roughly fourteen times—and each time it’s impersonally, in reference to the nation of Israel, not to individuals. Everything radically changed with Jesus. He spoke of God as Father more than sixty times in the New Testament.”
Your heavenly Father loves you more than you can possibly imagine! Let that truth sink in. Don’t give in to the thoughts that your life is not very valuable, or even that God doesn’t like you very much.
God loves you as if you were the only person on earth to love!And He sent Jesus to earth to make it possible for you to be adopted into His family, to call Him Father. Even more than that, to call Him “Daddy God” (see Romans 8:15-17).
We are taking a practical look at the incredible definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. We’re doing this in the context of learning how to love the “unloveable”—or maybe I should say, loving those who are the most resistant to real love. If we can show them love, how much more will the love of Jesus be seen!
All of these verbs are present tense verbs. That means they aren’t exhausted in the past, and they aren’t waiting for future conditions to improve—they are in operation NOW.
Far too many people know Christians more by what we’re against than by what we’re for. So where the biblical text say “love does not” or “love isn’t,” I’ve changed it into the positive “love is.”
You can read about the first five attributes love love by clicking here.
The next five attributes are:
Love is graceful
The root word means something that should be covered up, or something we’re ashamed of. Because our words and actions are graceful, they are things we wouldn’t have to defend, or explain, or apologize for later. They are words and actions that wouldn’t embarrass us.
“Agape will do nothing that misbecomes it.” —Matthew Henry
Love knows our relationship > my rights
True love “does not demand its own way” (New Living Translation) nor does it “insist on its own rights” (Amplified Bible). Instead it always seeks ways that the relationship can be repaired or enhanced, even if that means giving up something I consider to be “my right.”
NOTE: I’m not saying that you become a doormat. This is not a license for someone to abuse you, but it is a call for us to balance our responses. Romans 12:18 says as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
The Amplified Bible says it well: love isnot touchy or fretful or resentful.
This Greek word means not getting stirred up or exasperated. So we need to lighten up!
There are some places where we’ve become too sensitive, too touchy, too short-fused. The fire of hurt has replaced the fire of love. So Matthew Henry advises us: “Where the fire of love is kept in, the flames of wrath will not easily kindle, nor long keep burning.”
Love is forgiving
The New International Version says lovekeeps no record of wrongs.
This Greek phrase speaks of an accountant tallying up the hurts (where there is an overdrawn account), seeing there is a debt to be paid back, and then appointing himself as the bill collector. True love cancels those IOUs.
We don’t forgive others because they deserve forgiveness, but we forgive others because we received forgiveness from God that we did not deserve!
For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matthew 6:14 AMP)
Love is God-honoring
Agape loves what God loves and hates what God hates.
Agape loves when people find God’s truth, and hates anything that blocks that pursuit.
Agape loves the sinner and hates the sin.
“The sins of others are the grief of an agape spirit [not] its sport or delight; they will touch it to the quick….” —Matthew Henry
Here’s where the real test comes in: How will you apply these attributes of love to someone in your life? More specifically: to someone you think is “unloveable”?
I know you have someone in your life that you think is unloveable. With that person’s face clearly in mind, how will you fill in the blanks:
I can be graceful in…
I can give up my right to…
I need to lighten up in this area…
I must forgive them for…
I need to pray for a breakthrough in…
If you would like a downloadable PDF of this worksheet, click here –> Love is… worksheet 2
Have you ever been persecuted for your faith in Jesus Christ? The dictionary defines it this way—
(1) To pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religion, race, or beliefs; harass persistently; (2) To annoy or trouble persistently.
I think we in the west don’t truly understand persecution, but certainly there have been times when people are harassing us or troubling us because of our faith in God.
Check out these passages from the apostle Peter and from Jesus, and then take a look at the flowchart below—
But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong! (1 Peter 3:14-17)
God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are My followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in Heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way. (Jesus in Matthew 5:11-12)
(Click the picture for a larger view.)
Whether you are being persecuted or not, rejoice! and remember to pray for your fellow brothers and sister in Christ who are also being persecuted (Hebrews 13:3).
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
While I was reading From Azusa To Africa To The Nations, I came across a fascinating statement from William Seymour, the pastor who led his congregation into that early 20th-century revival that shook the world. Pastor Seymour was so hungry for God’s presence in his life that he set aside five hours each day to seek God’s deeper touch. He prayed liked this for over 3 years. At this point He read about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, and something stirred in him to pray for this same outpouring on himself and on his congregation. He then increased his prayer time to seven hours a day, and continued to pray in this fashion for another two years before the answer came and the revival broke out.
I did the math. That means he prayed 11,500 hours!
How many of us get tired after praying just one hour?
Would it be easier for you to tenaciously pursue God in prayer if you knew He was also tenaciously pursuing you? Mark Batterson points out in The Circle Maker that the verb in Psalm 23:6 is poorly translated in English as shall follow me. He reminds us that it’s really a hunting term, used for a hunter in hot pursuit of his quarry. God’s love and mercy are in hot pursuit of you!
The Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for Him! (Isaiah 30:18)
Want to see a great story about this in the life of Jesus? Matthew tells us about a get-away that Jesus and His disciples took. While they were relaxing, a woman barged in, imploring Jesus to heal her daughter. She would not be denied. She tenaciously implored Jesus to minister to her daughter. At last Jesus cried out, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”
It may sound like this woman was pursuing Jesus. But Jesus put Himself in a place for her to find Him. He pursued her first.
As a Canaanite (a non-Jew), it was unsafe for her to travel to southern Israel.
As a woman, it was unacceptable for her to go talk to a man.
As a mother with a sick child at home, it was unwise for her to leave home.
So Jesus traveled to a region He has never been to before, and would never go back to again. He pursued this mother-in-need so that she could find Him in prayer!
God is in hot pursuit of you, too. He hears every prayer, so keep on tenaciously praying. Don’t settle, don’t give up, don’t stop! Pray as long as it takes for God to say to you, “You have great faith! Your request is granted.”
To check out the others messages in this series on prayer called Praying Circles, please click here.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Don’t Let Others Stumble Because Of Me
There is a difference between “offense” and “stumbling.” And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said unto them, “A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country…” (Matthew 13:57). But Jesus knowing in Himself that His disciples murmured at this, said unto them, “Does this cause you to stumble?” (John 6:61; see also Matthew 5:29; 11:6; 13:41; 16:23; 17:27; 18:6-7). Offense means going contrary to someone’s private opinion, and it is sometimes our moral duty to give offense.
…Stumbling is different from offense. For example, someone who does not know God as well as you do, loves you and continually does what you do because he loves you, and as you watch him you begin to discern that he is degenerating spiritually, and to your amazement you find he is doing what you are doing. No offense is being given, but he is stumbling, distinctly stumbling.
In 1 Corinthians 8 and 9 Paul talks about not causing someone else to stumble because of what we do. It’s a fine line sometimes between offense and stumbling, but it’s a distinct line that the Holy Spirit can help us discern.
Jesus often offended people because their mindset was so rigid, and He didn’t act in a way that fit their rigid religious stereotypes. But Jesus was very cautious about making sure He never caused someone to stumble. As Matthew points out, Jesus fulfilled the prophesy of Isaiah: He will not quarrel or cry out…. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out… (Matthew 12:19-20; Isaiah 42:1-4).
My prayer: Lord Jesus, please don’t let others stumble because of me! Let me have the discernment of the Holy Spirit to know when to offend, but to never cross the line to cause others to stumble. May I have Your same gentle spirit to not quarrel, and to treat the “bruised reeds” with utmost care.
For anyone who wants to read the four New Testament gospels with greater insight, I highly recommend A Harmony Of The Gospels For Students Of The Life Of Christ by A.T. Robertson.
Craig T. Owens 