Luke 9:18-36
Good morning, RTB’ers!
It struck me this morning how much we RTB’ers have been gaining the past few years by reading the Bible chronologically. It was especially noticeable in reading Peter’s “confession”: And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” (v. 20) In my head I automatically read further Jesus’ reply to Peter’s answer as recorded by Matthew. Here is that entire incident:
He said to them, “But who do you yourselves say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Then He gave the disciples strict orders that they were to tell no one that He was the Christ.
Matthew 16:15-20
(NOTE: This incident is also recorded in Mark 8:27-38.) When we only read Luke’s account, we don’t have Jesus’ lifting up Peter as the head of His church on earth. The Chronological Study Bible has all three accounts together, so we could see what’s included and what’s left out in one version or the other.
A word on this… Matthew, Mark and Luke together are known as the Synoptic Gospels – “syn”, meaning together, and “optic”, meaning view or sight (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/synoptic). Many events in Jesus’ life are recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels. These events recorded together are commonly known as “triple tradition”. If John’s gospel also records the same incident, as was the case yesterday in Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000, then we speak of “quadruple tradition”. If you have a Study Bible, your notes will typically refer to other writers’ accounts of the same event. And, since we have shorter readings this year, it’s good to read all the accounts where the event is reported.
So, beyond all that, what I saw in today’s reading were the references to Jesus’ future on Earth: First, Jesus speaking, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised on the third day.” (v. 22); and “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory…” (v. 26a); and then Moses and Elijah … were speaking of His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (vv. 30b-31). One of my favorite phrases these days is “That was then, this is now”. Think on that, folks – Jesus’ past is our present and our future! Glory!!
Blessings!
It has always been curious to me why John’s gospel does not contain the transfiguration when he was there personally. This was such an incredible event that you would think he would’ve included it.
Your curiosity on this point arises from the assumption that the Apostle John wrote the Gospel of John. Naturally, that is a fair assumption, with 2,000 years of tradition behind it. But what if John is not the author? I’d like to suggest that Lazarus might be the real author. See my comments here and here. Mind you, the notion of Lazarus as the author of John’s Gospel is just speculation on my part, so I will not be dogmatic about it, but it does provide food for thought. Otherwise, we are left with significant curiosities like why John would not include the Transfiguration.
John, I guess I was remembering my NIV study Bible preface to the gospel of John. The first line in the author paragraph is
“The author is the apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved”.
Other translations are not quite as definitive.
Yes, that is the standard notion of authorship for the Gospel of John. It is quite clear from the text itself that the author is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. What is not so clear from the text (since it never ever says so) is whether John is that disciple. The idea that the author is John goes way back to ancient times, so who am I to argue with Irenaeus? I just mention the idea as food for thought and as an example of how, sometimes, we bring assumptions, ideas, biases, and opinions into the text that are not in the text itself — and we need to be careful about that.