Anchor My Faith

Title: The Beginning of a Great Study

With this lesson we begin our verse-by-verse study of a harmonized text of the four Gospels. I searched the Internet to see what others had done and after hours of searching and consideration, the option that fit my desire was work done by Jerry Peyton and copyrighted in 2015 by Jerry Peyton and Biblical Studies Press L.L.C. Many years of work, on his part, resulted in a single text story form of the four gospels in as close to a timeline as possible. To review that work, follow this link to “The NET Bible Synthetic Harmony of the Gospels – Study Edition”.

For my own personal study and to fully benefit from the work Mr. Peyton has done I am reproducing his single text story in the ESV. Because of copyright, I will not be making this available. I will use this ESV narrative as my verse source and verse order for our Bible studies. From the link above you can obtain your own PDF copy of his harmonization in the NET version.

If you turn to the first verse of each of the four gospels you find different starting points. For example, Matthew begins with: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Mark begins with: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Luke begins with: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us,” and John begins with: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In a harmonization, where does one start? What comes first?

John goes way back to the beginning, so is that a good place to start? Looking at Luke, we find there is no time element, just a simple introduction, which is a good place to start. In our next lesson we will look at Luke’s introduction, which covers the following four verses: “^{Lk 1:1} Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, ² just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, ³ it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1 – 4 ESV).

Prayer

Father, I pray that these studies will result in a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ and that the word covered will result in spiritual growth for those who read and apply what they learn to their lives. Father, I pray for the mind of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit as I write these studies, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will draw readers to them and use them in touching the lives of many. I look forward in seeing what God will do through these studies over the next few years. I pray for the health and endurance needed to take on a project of this magnitude.