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DESCRIPTION
Do you desire to be more like Jesus? Deep down it is what every Christian wants, but how do you do it?
Basic New Testament Teachings: The Four Gospels presents a review of the teachings of God and Jesus as found in the Gospels. The emphasis is on the commands and principles Christians should embrace for everlasting life. Many verses or groups of verses teach more than one thing, so there is a wealth of information to help you in your daily walk.
Appropriate Bible verses (presented in the NIV version), are gathered under applicable topics, with the verses under each topic introduced by a short commentary (subtopic) stating the idea being illustrated. Topics can have multiple subtopics. Bolding of wording in the verses helps focus the reader on the teaching being presented.
• Topical studies
• Scriptures quoted in full
• Bolding to emphasize ideas
This book lets the verses of the Bible speak for themselves without a lot of commentary. Suitable for layman, Bible teachers, Bible scholars, ministers, preachers, missionaries, or new converts.
A LITTLE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KENNETH McILROY is a longtime student of Scripture. He believes in letting the Bible speak for itself. Experienced as linguist, columnist, and author. Very skilled at presenting ideas concisely. BA and MS degrees, with honors.
EXCERPT PREVIEW
Basic, Simple Teachings of God’s Word: People have a hard enough time trying to obey God’s basic commands, without trying to learn all the complex workings of God’s thoughts. This book attempts to present the simple truths outlined in His Word, as found in the first four books of the New Testament (NT), the four Gospels. Commentary is kept to a minimum in order to let the verses speak for themselves.
If we could only learn and apply the simple teachings of God as revealed through Christ and the Scriptures, we could serve God better and live a more Christian life. With this in mind, this book seeks to present the simple principles taught by Christ, not the complex and difficult theological thoughts of biblical scholars. This reference book is for the person seeking out the building blocks (foundation) for a life embracing God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Both the scholar and the new Christian need to know and remember these basic principles—always! Both will find this book useful.
Belief in God: What is presented here assumes that God is the ruler of the universe. It is also assumed that God’s instructions and commands for us are found in His Word, meaning The Holy Bible. The validity and truth of the Bible are taken for granted.
The Four Gospels: The four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are the particular target of this book. This part of Scripture is where we find the Word of God, as presented by Jesus when he came down to earth to take away our sins and tell us how to live a Christian life as God would have us do.
In these four books we find some of the most concentrated and comprehensive Scriptures given by God. (It is amazing how many things Jesus teaches us in a single verse or just a few of them.) If we could but master these commands and teachings, we would be well on our way to being the kind of person God wants us to be. This would help us to become good stewards of what God has blessed us with: talents, skills, spiritual blessings, and material blessings. Although we can never be the perfect servants of God we would like to be—because we will always fall short and need the grace of God in our sinful lives—we certainly can do better, if we try. And if we follow and obey God, He will bless us.
Blend of Concordance Approach and Commentary: The author has always been impressed with the ease of use provided by concordances in general and Nave’s Topical Bible in particular. A topical approach, such as used in these types of books, allows you to research what is taught in the Scriptures in a very direct fashion. The concordance approach tells you where a word is mentioned in the Bible. A topical Bible goes further and presents actual verses under applicable topics. Both approaches present the material in alphabetical topic order. The present book blends the two approaches—but goes even further as you will see shortly.
The verses in the four Gospels were examined individually for the key ideas presented in them. As mentioned earlier, a verse or group of verses can be the source of more than one simple or basic teaching.
After examining a verse or verses in context, one or more topics can be identified. The applicable verse or verses then become candidates for inclusion under one or more topics. Given that the verse or verses present an idea or ideas, each resultant idea or basic teaching is stated briefly in one or just a few lines—a short commentary (subtopic). The appropriate verse or verses are then assembled in book and verse order under that short commentary. The resultant presentation hierarchy is, high to low: topic, short commentary (subtopic), verses.
The scriptures are presented verbatim as found in the New International Version (NIV). In longer quotes, parts of a verse or verses are sometimes omitted by ellipses or by assembling several subsets of verses together. In the case of multiple subsets for a particular quotation, the applicable verses of each subset are identified.
Next comes the interesting part. This study goes one step further by bolding the words in the scriptural quote that support the idea (subtopic) under which the verse or verses have been organized. This helps the reader identify the key principles highlighted in support of the idea. As a result, in those situations where a verse or group of verses teaches more than one idea, the bolding will be different—depending upon each idea (subtopic) the quotation is repeated under.
Following a quote of Scripture you may find some additional brief commentary telling who the speaker is or something about the context—audience or situation. You might also find a reference to other verses, normally the Old Testament (OT) prophecies quoted in the verses.
Keep in mind that a verse, a group of verses, or a subset of that group of verses can appear under more than one commentary (idea) even within the same topic, as well as under different topics. Different viewpoints (ideas or teachings) are possible for the same quotation within the same topic.
Context for Commentary: The ideas and concepts presented in this book are the author’s viewpoints that seem rather obvious from (1) the verses themselves, (2) the context of the verses
within a book, and (3) the context of what is taught in the whole Bible. The author firmly believes that any verse or verses should be interpreted in the context of the immediate situation—like Jesus teaching his disciples or responding to Jewish leaders—as well as what is found in the rest of the whole Bible.
Sometimes Jesus used hyperbole to get a point across, but the simple truths and basic commands of God should always be analyzed in the context of God’s entire Word. Any commentary found in this book attempts to do just that—although references outside the listed verses are seldom mentioned, except for some prophecies where the fact of the quote in the verse being a fulfilled prophecy is a key point. Where the prophetic nature of the quote in the verse is not the point of emphasis, the reference to other verses, like in the Old Testament, is not given. The approach of this book is to use topical word lookup as the cross-referencing tool, not verse cross-references.
If you wish to pursue references to other verses, a good study Bible will provide such cross-references. A concordance is also a good reference tool for this purpose. Keep in mind that this book centers on the verses in the four Gospels, not the whole Bible.
GOALS OF BOOK: The overriding inspiration for writing this book was the desire to uncover what a Christian should believe. So, the goal of this book is to provide a way to help others search out the basics of what God would like us to know and practice. We need to learn how to be a better Christian if we are already one. If not already a Christian, the book is designed to help a person start down the path toward learning God’s will and how to become and remain a Christian. Regardless of whether or not the reader is a Christian at the present time, becoming a strong Christian is a worthwhile lifelong project—the most important endeavor of anyone’s life. Heaven or hell is the end result of your life’s thoughts and actions. Judgment Day is coming, whether we like it or not. The lack of any repentance for sins seals our fate.
TARGETED AUDIENCE: The targeted readers of this book are several: (1) anyone wanting to learn about God and Christ, (2) new converts to Christianity, (3) practicing Christians, (4) Christians who have fallen away, (5) teachers of the Gospel, (6) preachers, (7) professors of first principles, and (8) researchers into Christ’s teachings and his life on earth. Said another way, the present book is directed at anyone wanting to learn or get a refresher in the basics found in the four Gospels. Even long-time students of the Bible might get a new perspective on some verses. How many times have you heard a preacher say something like, “I never thought about it in that way before”? It is amazing how many things we ignore for years in God’s Word before the light suddenly dawns. The Bible is rich in thought and principles. No one ever learns it all!
HOW TO USE BOOK
| Overview: | |
| Topic --> Commentary Group (Subtopic) --> Scripture Quotation(s) and/or | |
| Topic --> Cross-referenced Topic | |
Topics: The starting point for using the book is initially to search for a topic just as you would in a concordance. A concise listing (index) of topics is given in a following section, before the main part of the book. Once a desired topic is found, you just go into the main part of the book and find it alphabetically.
Cross-references: The book uses two types of cross-references next to a topic’s name. The first type (“See”) is for those instances where the applicable verses can be found under a differently named topic or topics. A referenced topic can be synonymous or simply a related topic. When this type of reference is used, there are no verses under the present topic. You must go elsewhere to pursue your research into the indicated topic. The second type of cross-reference (“See also”) has verses and commentary under the present topic, but also directs you to related or similar topics. Verses already found under the present topic might be found again under the referenced topic, but from a different viewpoint: commentary and bolding.
Topical Word Use: Returning to the topic you happen to be reading under, you will find verses using the word(s) or some variation of the word(s) highlighted by the topic’s name. You might also find other verses listed that embrace the same idea or one very closely related, but which do not include the actual word(s) of the topic. Keep in mind that the topical words used here have primarily an NIV orientation. So look for synonyms if you have problems looking up a particular word you are focusing on. Use of a thesaurus might help in certain situations.
Commentary Group (Subtopic): Before getting to the actual verses, you will find a very short, condensed commentary that indicates the idea found in the scriptures listed under the line(s) of commentary. The more involved or far-ranging a topic is, the more likely there will be numerous “commentary” groupings of verses under that topic.
Supporting Verses: Once you find the commentary that interests you, your next step is to read the verses that support or attempt to prove the idea reflected in the commentary. The verses are presented in normal book/verse order. Within the verses, the words that support or prove the idea of the commentary are bolded. So pay particular attention to the bolding in order to help understand the idea presented.
Notes: Occasionally you will find a “Note:” either directly under the topical name or mixed in with the verses under a commentary. In all cases, the note stands alone under the topic name or in a commentary group. A “Note:” is simply some additional information the reader might want to keep in mind.
Other Related Lines of Thought: It is strongly recommended that you use the cross-referenced topics to pursue other related lines of thought. You may run across some of the same verses again, but you will typically get an expanded perspective for a related but different train of thought.
Commentary, in General: Commentary has been included where deemed helpful to reinforce or get a point across. The author’s comments are easily distinguished by their being shown in italics: (1) commentary lines used to group quoted scriptures, (2) additional information at the end of a quotation, and (3) notes (“Note:”). The commentary lines (subtopics) used to group applicable quotations are also bolded.
