Introduction
M any people have questions about Jesus. Most people don’t know much about him. They might only know what they have heard from others. But some want to find out more. They wonder if what Christians say about him is true. Can he really bring them peace? Can he bring them closer to God? Jesus Christ was born in a small Jewish village 2,000 years ago. He was a carpenter until he was about 30 years old. Then he became a preacher and healer. He traveled less than 100 miles from his home. And his mission lasted no more than three years. He preached about God’s love and performed many miracles. He attracted a large group of followers . But the religious leaders were afraid of him. So they arrested him and nailed him to a cross. His followers claimed that he came back to life and returned to heaven. They believed in Jesus, even though many were put in jail or killed for following him. They became known as “Christians.” And they spread his message throughout the world.
Why is Jesus so important?
Jesus Christ has affected history more than any other person. What he did changed the world forever. His followers are members of the world’s largest religion. There are now almost two billion Christians around the world. Jesus had a very important message. He talked about God and about life after death. He made some amazing claims about himself. Jesus said that he is “the one who came from heaven.” He said, “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son…. He sent his Son to save the world through him…. Then everyone who believes in him can live with God forever.” Many people have believed in Jesus. They have found his promises to be true. He has brought faith, hope and purpose to millions of people. Some people don’t believe in Jesus Christ or try to live by his teachings. But they may call themselves Christians anyway. Millions of others say that they have come to know Jesus as a real friend. And he has changed their lives. Jesus preached the good news about God’s love for everyone. Yet some people did not believe his message. Jesus warned them. He said , “The words that you hear me say are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me…. There is a judge for anyone who does not accept me and my words. The very words I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”
How do we know about Jesus?
Accounts of Jesus’ life were written not long after he died. They are called the “gospels.” (Gospel comes from an old word that means good news.) These gospel accounts became part of the Christian Bible that we have today.
Some other Jewish and Roman writers also mention Jesus. Most history scholars of today agree that Jesus really did live 2,000 years ago. There are four gospel accounts in the Bible. These are the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The gospel accounts came from reports by Jesus’ followers and by others who knew him. Jesus chose 12 of his many followers to travel with him. He called that small group his disciples.
The disciples gave personal reports about the things that Jesus said and did. Matthew was one of the disciples. He collected taxes for the Romans before he met Jesus. Matthew’s gospel was meant for Jewish people. It explains how the Jewish Scriptures told about who Jesus really is. This gospel connects the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Mark was a young man who followed Jesus. The first Christians met in his mother’s house for prayer. Mark was not one of the disciples. But he helped Simon Peter, who was one of the disciples closest to Jesus. Mark’s gospel is a short history of the life and message of Jesus. Luke was a doctor who knew the disciples. Luke may have learned from Jesus’ mother many of the things he wrote. Luke said that he had “carefully looked into everything from the beginning.”
Then he wrote “an orderly report of exactly what happened.” Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which describes how the Christian church began. John was another of the disciples. He was a fisherman before he met Jesus.
Like Matthew, John traveled with Jesus and saw the things that Jesus did. John’s gospel is about who Jesus really is and why he came. It explains that Jesus is God himself, who became a human being to show us what God is like and to die for our sins. Bible scholars think that Mark’s gospel was the earliest of the four, written in about A.D. 70. Matthew and Luke used most of Mark’s gospel in their own gospels. They also used other writings that scholars believe came from a common source.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are similar. But John’s gospel is different from the others. It was written last, in about A.D. 95. It contains many details about Jesus that are not found in the other gospels. Before the four gospels were written, the stories about Jesus were handed down by word of mouth. Most people were not able to read at the time of Jesus.
So they remembered the sermons of well-known preachers and passed them on. The reports of what Jesus said and did were told over and over again. These reports were included in the gospels. Luke wrote, “Reports of these things were handed down to us. There were people who saw these things from the beginning and then passed the word on.” Many of those people were still alive when the gospels were written. The gospels were collected with other writings of the early church. This collection became known as the New Testament.
The New Testament is all about the life and message of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament contains the Scriptures of the Jewish Bible. The Christian Church carefully copied and saved the New Testament. We have more copies of the New Testament sources than of any other writings from that time in history. Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, the language of the Jewish people. But the gospel writers wrote in Greek, which was a common language of the Roman Empire.
The first English translation of the Greek New Testament was printed in the 16th century. The translation was brought up to date when older copies of the New Testament were found. There are now many different translations of the Bible. Some are word-for-word translations. Others are more like a thought-for-thought translation. Some Bibles use elegant, old-fashioned language. Other Bibles use modern, everyday language. The most popular modern English translation of the Bible today is the New International Version ® (NIV).
What is All About Jesus?
This book combines the four gospels into a single story. All About Jesus makes it easy to read a complete account of the life and message of Jesus Christ. None of the four gospels alone gives a complete picture of Jesus’ life. Each gospel writer chose to highlight different things. This book brings together all the details from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in one place. The story uses the New International Reader’s Version ® (NIrV) of the Bible.
This is an easy-to-read version of the popular NIV. The NIrV is meant for people who are reading the Bible for the first time. The idea of putting the four gospel accounts into one is not new. A book like this was written as early as the second century. Many similar books have been written since. But this is the first to use the easy-to-read language of the NIrV.
This book uses only the text of the NIrV as much as possible. The story is woven together from the sentences of the gospels. This book doesn’t use the common chapter and verse divisions of the Bible. Scholars added these divisions to the Bible long after it was written. It is not easy to fit the gospels together into a single story. The gospel writers had good reasons for their differences.
These differences are lost in a single account. Many decisions were needed to put the story together. Each gospel writer recorded different details. The point of the story was more important than the details of how, where and when it happened. The gospel writers sometimes told about similar things happening at a different time or place. We don’t always know whether these were different events or not. Jesus may have given the same message on more than one occasion. Several similar events are not repeated in this book.
Sometimes, when details in the gospels differ, the text found in two or more gospels was chosen. Otherwise, the gospel was chosen that helps you read the story better. There is a list of Bible references at the end of this book. Events in the life of Jesus are listed in the same order as they appear in each chapter. You can use this list to find and compare each of the gospel accounts. Some background details are given to help readers who are new to the Bible. These details are found in the chapter notes. The small numbers in the text mark these notes. Jesus and the gospel writers often quoted from the Jewish Scriptures. The chapter notes include the Bible references for these quotations. All About Jesus should not be used to replace the Bible.
This book was written to bring the story of Jesus to those who otherwise might not read it.
The purpose is to encourage people to read the Bible for themselves. This book is meant for those who would like to find out more about Jesus. It is ideal for someone who is new to the Bible, but readers who already know the Bible may find that it helps them learn more about the life and message of Jesus.
