What's all the middle stuff for???

[HeirofSalvation]

Hey... my folks live in Ocala...

I'm not sure that your math is accurate or at least conveys what you want it. For instance, Mark starts the passion week in chpt. 11. So 11-16, 6 of 11 chapters. Wowza! But most of it is on his teaching and kingdom ministry. Only 2 of 11 are on his death and resurrection (not that chapters matter since they weren't there originally). Again, the climax of the narrative in all 4 accounts is the death and resurrection. Taken narrativally, one would not understand the death and resurrection of Jesus were it not for his kingdom mission before it. We bring to the accounts so much theology and baggage that the writers themselves did not mean to display. And so, to understand the accounts as intended by the writers themselves with their proper theological motives, it needs to be read in light of itself before adding on the epistles. After all, they are just continuing Jesus' ministry to make more kingdom disciples. So the accounts direct interpretation for the epistles. Yet it is so often the reverse.

Well, I must confess I was too lazy to look up the chapter count....but as a whole....I think the notion of what I was trying to convey still basically remains. Decidedly, you are correct about the gospel of Mark, but proportionally Mark is weighted towards his earthly ministry more than the rest are....Mark is often understood to have been written with a Roman readership in mind.....hence its focus on Christ as the suffering servant et. al. But, Mark's start of the passion week in ch. 11----of 16, well, that is roughly a third no?

We bring to the accounts so much theology and baggage that the writers themselves did not mean to display.

hmm....I wonder if I agree....the point I was trying to convey is that the Gospels themselves are only intelligible if one relates them back to previous Scripture.....Alternatively, I would use previous Scripture to modify the teachings in the gospel accounts before I would use the gospel accounts to modify previous revelation....Jesus quoted the former Scriptures so much (that's all he had to allude to of course).

And so, to understand the accounts as intended by the writers themselves with their proper theological motives, it needs to be read in light of itself before adding on the epistles. After all, they are just continuing Jesus' ministry to make more kingdom disciples. So the accounts direct interpretation for the epistles. Yet it is so often the reverse.[/

Again, I am not so sure about this...the writers of the epistles so often quote the O.T. and support their points of view from the O.T. that (I could be wrong) but I suppose I see the O.T. as explaining to us what we need to know will occur.....the gospels explaining the history of how it did occur.... and the epistles wrapping the whole thing up in idiot-proof language (which we still don't understand and bicker about :laugh I suppose I do not take my Theology from the gospels as much as I do from the O.T. and the epistles.... To put it this way....I add no more weight to what the Son said "in red" than what the Father said "in black" 3,000 years earlier!!!

Great discussion you started!!!!:thumbsup: