What do you think of when you hear the word “harmony?” Like most people, my mind immediately goes to musical harmony. The different voices coming together to make a beautiful sound that complement each other and bless those who are in hearing distance of the singers. In many dictionaries you will find what I just described to be the primary definition, but if you look just below that you will find another definition. You will see that harmony is also a word used to describe the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The harmonization of these four books is called the Harmony of the Gospels. The same blessings of the musical harmony apply to this harmony as well.
A Harmony of the Gospels is a tool that sequentially puts passages from the gospels in chronological order and then shows a more complete and fuller picture of what the ministry and life of Jesus was like. We still don’t have accounts of every single miracle, action, or word that Jesus spoke, but the Harmony of the Gospels gives us the fullest picture of what Jesus’ ministry was like. It is a beautiful thing to see the complete account of the life of Jesus is one sequential place instead of spread across four different books. I think this goes back to my reference to a biblical harmony having similar beauty to a musical harmony.
This Sunday we will begin a sermon series entitled: What Did Jesus Do? You may be familiar with the question: What would Jesus do? To better understand what Jesus would do in any given situation, you must first understand what He has already done, what his value system is and what He hopes for those who follow Him. We will begin looking at the Harmony of the Gospels and walking through all the events and ministry of Jesus so that we can better understand the heart that Jesus had and how we can model our lives after His.
There are some things I would recommend you do to prepare. First, consider purchasing a Harmony of the Gospels study book. I personally use the Harmony of the Gospel CSB by Holman and A Harmony of the Gospels NASB by Thomas and Gundry to study. These tools will help you better follow along and will assist in helping you remember where we have been and what we have studied already and what is coming up next. Second, bring an empty notebook with you as you can create your own commentary based off of the sermons we preach to help remind you of what was taught on different passages from the gospels.
This will not be a short series, so please don’t think we are going to cover this quickly. We will take breaks along the way to cover certain topics and celebrate holidays and other church events. We are excited to help bring the emphasis of Jesus’ ministry to live from our pulpit and we hope you will come along for the ride.
-Pastor Paul