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INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

THE CONCEPT OF SYNOPTIC GOSPELS:
Although this is a course in the Gospel of Matthew, and although The Gospel of Matthew can stand alone as an independent witness to Jesus, it is helpful to our understanding of Matthew's Gospel to see it in relation to the other Gospels, especially, Mark and Luke.

We will learn in another lesson that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as The Synoptic Gospels because they are so similar and see the story of Jesus "through the same eyes"!  The Gospel of John is not considered one of the Synoptic Gospels.  John tells the story of Jesus, but through other eyes, or in other words.  John has an independent view or approach to the gospel story.

We begin this study by paying attention to some matters relating to the Synoptic Gospels as a whole, and then focus on The Gospel of Matthew.

In doing this we will briefly study Introductions to the Gospels of Mark and Luke in order to form a context in which to study the Gospel of Matthew and its unique contribution to our knowledge of Jesus.

BIBLE TRANSLATIONS: 
In this study the teacher will be working out of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible and the Nestle-Aland Greek text.
The student is encouraged to work out of the Bible translation with which he/she is most comfortable.  We do, however, recommend any one of the following: The King James Version, the New King James Version, the American Standard Version, the New American Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New Revised Standard version.

THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE:
This course will be built on the fundamental principle that the Bible is the Inspired Word of God. 
By this we mean that the individual writers of the Biblical texts were empowered by God through His Holy Spirit to record their message faithfully to the purposes of God.
This view of Scripture does not imply that the Holy Spirit over powered the individual style and vocabulary of the writer.  It means that the individual writer was empowered by the Holy Spirit to use his individual giftedness to record faithfully to the purpose of God.
In telling the story of Jesus and his significance for saving faith, each of our Gospel writers adopted a different form or literary style, vocabulary, and theological purpose.

In this study we will pay attention to the individual style of each of the writers of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).  We will, however, focus on Matthew's literary and theological style as we seek to identify what it is that Matthew is saying about Jesus and his significance for discipleship.