Short Stories of the Bible

The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments: Chapter two: The Gospels

These combined series of lectures seem to deal with the development of the church’s defense of the end of times which is alluded to in the old testament and the continuation of times after the resurrection of Jesus. The church had to find a way to change the definition of ending times and morph it from an actual end of civilization into change in connectivity with the Holy Spirit. In order to provide justification for this critically reviewed change of course, the Old Testament profits must be sited as proclaiming this for the coming of Jesus effecting weight and validity to the claims of the new church.

A final reckoning was layered into the later gospels to account for the lapse between immediate rapture with the resurrection and the delayed rapture that would become apparently necessary. In order for this layering to be substantiated, early Jewish writings would be utilized and referenced for the New Testament book.

Additionally, another employed strategy was to change the entire focus of the event from actual decimation and reckoning to one of an inner peace reward for the resurrection of Christ. The price of the sin becoming the completing function instead of the ultimate judgment, as in the death of Christ is the point at which history becomes fully real , exhibiting no mere shadows, but “the very image of realities”. Early Christians acknowledged the need to continue to move the ball forward and to ensure that the kerygma was kept alive by choosing to focus on the good works and mild humbling manner of Christ instead of the conquering destructive reckoning judgment of God.

As this reckoning versus grace ideology continued to evolve, the books of the bible became a balancing act between destruction; as evidenced in the book of Revelations, grace and restoration as evidenced in the gospels. While this was on the surface perhaps contradictory, it allowed...