Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is, in most Bibles, the first of the four biographies of Jesus written by his followers and received by the church as scripture, and the first book in the New Testament. Matthew is attributed to the apostle of that name, a former tax collector called by Jesus.

Matthew places a particular emphasis on Jesus as the Messiah. He frequently references Old Testament to show how some aspect of the life of Jesus is a fulfillment of messianic prophecy.

I find this an interesting point of comparison between Christianity and some later religions that claim some connection to the Jewish or Christian scriptures or historic people from them. Islam and Mormonism, along with some others, claim that the Bible was corrupted over time and had to be replaced or corrected by later texts. The authors of the New Testament, in contrast, accepted, relied on, and appealed to the authority of the existing Jewish Bible.

The book is organized in this fashion:

-Jesus’ ancestry and early life,

-His ministry,

-His miracles,

-His parables, and

-the days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection.

Only Luke pays comparable attention to the nativity and early life of Jesus.  Matthew presents this as evidence that Jesus fulfilled prophecies that the Messiah would be a descendent of David, born of a virgin in Bethlehem, and spend time in Egypt.

Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism by John, himself a fulfillment of prophecy that the Messiah would be announced by a prophet like Elijah. Eventually, Jesus commissions others to carry His message. This section includes the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. The miracles He performed were evidence of His authority from God.

Jesus is known as a teller of parables. Matthew presents several in one section that relate to the Gospel and Kingdom of God. Later, Jesus uses a series of parables to prepare His disciples for the things leading up to His crucifixion.

The death and resurrection of Jesus are not only fulfillments of prophecy, but are also the culmination of His work. On the cross, He bore the punishment for all the sins of man. In his resurrection, He demonstrated the means and hope of eternal life for those who follow Him.

The other Gospels are Mark, Luke and John.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

Exodus
Genesis
Leviticus

Matthew. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Revelation

Revelation is a difficult book to understand. It has much symbolic and apocalyptic language, and I am far removed from the time and culture in which it was written. I’m not going to clear it up in a few hundred words.

Even so, I’d like to offer a perspective on the book. It seems to me that Revelation is a source of a lot of fear and confusion. So much of the Bible is intended to encourage and edify believers that it is clear to me that fear and confusion are not the intent of the Apostle John or God in the writing of Revelation. As a believer wrestling with this part of God’s Word, however you may feel, do not be afraid.

I’ve seen and heard television and radio program focused on Bible prophecy, particularly Revelation. Some seem particularly alarming or sensational, and others seem to shoehorn current events into a particular interpretation of Revelation and Bible eschatology. Rarely have these programs increased my understanding. Eschatology is important; God addressed the end times, and we should do our best to understand what He said. However, we are not all called to be experts on eschatology, though we are all called to be imitators of Christ.

Some parts of Revelation are easy to understand. In the second and third chapters, Jesus Christ delivers through John messages to seven churches in Asia. Though written to those churches, it is still for us.  Christ’s encouragement and criticisms serve as a mirror into which Christians and churches can still can look to see themselves and how they are.

There are a few other things in Revelation that are plain, especially in light of straightforward teaching found elsewhere in the Bible. Jesus Christ will return. He will judge all the people from all of time; as believers we are already assured of God’s mercy and can expect a much different type of judgment that the one facing those who refused God and continued in their sins. We will all be bodily resurrected; God’s people will be resurrected in transformed, incorruptible bodies to live in God’s presence in a purified and remade creation forever.

Even though it is difficult, I encourage you to read Revelation. It is okay if you can’t understand it all. Ask God to help you understand. Read other books of the Bible; you may be surprised by how they can illuminate Revelation.

John also wrote

The Gospel of John

First John

Second John

Third John

Revelation. The Holy Bible. New King James Version.  Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Major Prophets

The major prophets are the longest books in the prophecy section of the Old Testament. These are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel.

These books were written toward the end of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and into the period of captivity to foreign empires. The main themes of the major prophets were: the fall of Israel and Judah to foreign powers, the eventual return of the people after a period of captivity, and the coming of the messiah.

The fall of the kingdoms is attributed to the sin of the people and their leaders. They abandoned God, pursued whatever their lusts desired, oppressed weak and poor people, and relied on alliances with foreign powers. They would be enslaved to foreign empires for 70 years.

Some of these prophets were active during the period of captivity. As much as earlier prophecies were warnings, God’s message in this time was focused on comfort and His plan to restore the people to the land from which they were taken.

Isaiah in particularly provides many messages of the messiah who will restore a true, lasting relationship with God. Christians see evidence in these prophecies for the claims of Jesus Christ, and some New Testament writers point to passages from Isaiah as evidence to believe Him.

If you’re interested in the major prophets, you may also be interested it

Daniel

Ezra

Hebrews

Nehemiah

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man: Or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of School. 1944. New York: HarperOne, 2000.

I didn’t expect of find apologist C. S. Lewis discussing the Tao. He used it as a term to describe natural law or traditional values, which he defended in the three lectures collected in The Abolition of Man.

This is a hard book for me to write about, though it is short. Lewis wrote as a thoughtful and educated man to an audience he assumed could follow him. I don’t find it easy to summarize his arguments and do them justice, though I will try.

Lewis began by criticizing a trend in education that debunks emotion and sentiment in favor of reason. The particular English composition he used as an example rightly showed students how to see through the shallow sentimentality and factual falseness of bad writing, but failed to show the merits of good writing, worthy sentiments, or deeper truth.

The product of such an education is people without hearts. Instead of mastering reason, students were equipped with shallow reasonableness. By inoculating students against one kind of propaganda, the authors of the text made them more vulnerable to other propaganda.

For fruitful education, Lewis offers the Tao, teaching people to recognize and esteem the inherent value of things. As he puts it, “The right defence against false sentiments is just sentiments.”

Those who reject traditional values, even if not entirely conscious of it as may be the case of the textbook authors, are proposing new values. However, the tools they use to cut down the old work just as well on the new. They must either stick to the idea that values are cultural vestiges or conventions that have roots in unwanted sentiment instead of desirable reason, and lay the groundwork for future reasoners and reformers to overthrow the new values, or appeal to inherent, self-evident values. On this latter basis, the Tao has much history and endurance.


These ideas have real social consequence. This book was first published in 1944, so the Nazi regime in Germany was very much on Lewis’ mind, as well as then-rising Communism. Though the pseudoscience that the Nazis used to justify their racist policies has been debunked, and even the Soviet Union has crumbled, the idea that a more scientific and rational governance and policy will perfect, or at least greatly improve, human society is alive an well.

As we master nature, even human nature, we also give people who acquire and control that knowledge and technology mastery over other people. Successive generations of such people will grow in mastery over others and, raised with no heart or inherently true values, they will have nothing by which to govern themselves except their own appetites and desires. George Orwell’s vision would cease to be merely an imaginative projection of the excesses of socialism and become something close to prophecy.

Lewis doesn’t see reason and sentiment as being natural enemies, only that some have tried to position one against the other. His vision would be people educated to have within them both powerful reason and powerful sentiments, especially ethical sentiments.

My own experience makes this an attractive vision to me. As a child, I had experienced strong emotions, especially anger, that threatened to overwhelm me because I lacked maturity and self-control. As I got a little older, though still a child, I clamped down on my emotions and tried to comport myself according to reason a much as possible; Mr. Spock from Star Trek was my model. This became a problem, too, in that my life and relationships lacked fullness as I deprived myself and others of something important in my connections. Now that I am a man, and I am coming to see what the fullness of that can be, I long to have both a powerful mind and strong heart. To have one without the other sets one up for many falls, but to have them together is a synergistic combination that empowers one to have greater appreciation for and effectiveness in life.

C.S. Lewis also wrote:
The Great Divorce

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in:
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
War Against the Weak by Edwin Black