Thursday, May 21, 2009

All That Jesus Did

The last verse of John's Gospel states: There are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Turn the page in your Bible. The very next verse, the beginning of Acts, states: The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach ...

John says there's no way to record everything Jesus did. Luke says he wrote to Theophilus "all" that Jesus began to do and teach. Some might think this is a contradiction.

But IF "all" that Jesus did and taught was intertwined with His suffering and death for the salvation of sinners, then Luke did tell it all. He might not have included every single detail. As John says, there are plenty of other stories that were not told in his gospel. But that doesn't mean the story wasn't all told.

If all of Scripture is about Christ, and about God's love and mercy poured out to us, and how He saved us, then both John and Luke are right about the level of "completeness" to their gospel accounts. But if it's all about mere history and/or tales, then one of those guys is wrong.

No comments:

Post a Comment