Does Jesus pray for his disciples just before he is arrested?

Must every Christian believe that Thomas actually touched the wounds of Jesus? The gospel of John is a story about the powerful reality of the risen Christ, which has been experienced within the early church of the author. That is the truth, and this story is presented as verification of that truth. 

Where does Jesus announce "good news for the poor"?

In the gospel of Luke (4:14-30) the ministry of Jesus begins when he comes home after being in the wilderness for forty days and on the sabbath in the synagogue reads from Isaiah 61:1-2. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to announce pardon for prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed, [and] to proclaim the year of the Lord's amnesty." (Lk. 4:18-19) In the gospel of Luke this reading becomes an occasion for reminding the reader that Jesus was rejected by his own people, and in Acts of the Apostles the author of the gospel of Luke describes how the church grew from a small band of Galilean disciples to a network of churches throughout the Roman Empire. This story, therefore, sets the stage for the entire two-volume saga of the saving life of Jesus and missionary success of the apostles.

The three other gospels in the New Testament, however, do not begin this way, and surely that is significant. This story in the fourth chapter of the gospel of Luke is not a part of the Jesus legend that must be included, as are the stories of John the Baptist and the feeding of the five thousand, for these other accounts are in all four gospels. The story of Jesus reading from Isaiah 61 in his home synagogue is only in the gospel of Luke, and the author of the third gospel clearly uses this tale to foreshadow all that follows. 

The account of Jesus reading from Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy. The hope of the people of Israel, we are told, is fulfilled in him. Jesus is the messiah, which means "the anointed one," because he has been "anointed" by God (or specially chosen) to preach good news to the poor. In the gospel of Matthew we read (in the "beatitudes") that the "poor in spirit" are blessed and will receive the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 5:3), but in the gospel of Luke the good news brought by Jesus is proclaimed for "the poor." And what is this good news? Not that the poor will become rich, or that the poor will go to heaven after they die, or that the poor will avenge the suffering inflicted upon them. Their good news is that prisoners will be pardoned, the blind will see, and the oppressed will be freed, because the year of God's amnesty has arrived. Some translations call this year of amnesty "the acceptable year of the Lord" or "the year of God's favor." Understanding what these phrases mean is the key to understanding the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

Chapters 40-66 of Isaiah were probably written just before the Persians seized Babylon in 539 BCE and allowed the Israelite leaders from Jerusalem, who had been exiled to Babylon by the Babylonian conquerors, to return home. Isaiah was writing to encourage his exiled countrymen, and so "the year of the Lord's favor" and the release of captives held in bondage meant for many Israelites the end of their exile and captivity and, at last, a return to Jerusalem.

In the gospel of Luke, however, when Jesus says these words from Isaiah have been fulfilled in him, the meaning has nothing to do with returning to Jerusalem from captivity. The author of Luke and Acts is writing from within the Greek-speaking church, and he knows that the ministry of Jesus has somehow led Gentiles and Greek-speaking Jews to form new communities of faith throughout the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the author of Luke and Acts also knows that these communities of faith include poor as well as rich members, and he sees this as the true fulfillment of the faith in God proclaimed by Isaiah and the other prophets of ancient Israel. In the church that remembers Jesus as the Christ (the Greek word for Messiah) somehow Jew and Gentile as well as rich and poor have been united by faith. The author of Luke and Acts sees the church, which Paul calls the "body of Christ," as evidence that the "acceptable year of the Lord" has come.

In which gospel does Jesus proclaim: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; therefore, repent and have faith in the gospel"?

In the gospel of Mark (1:14-15).  This is the proclamation that opens the ministry of Jesus. It announces that what was awaited has begun, for the kingdom of God is now open to all who have the faith to turn to God and embrace this good news. The proclamation serves as a bridge between the hope of ancient Israel that was preserved in the scriptures of the Jews and the ministry of the church to both Jews and Gentiles, in urban congregations throughout the Roman Empire. The old hope is being understood in a new way, and thus its fulfillment requires a new story. The gospel of Mark presents the story of Jesus as the good news that Jews and God-fearing Gentiles have been awaiting, but the author knows that many Jews have not accepted Jesus as fulfilling Israelite prophecy.

The gospel of Mark was written after the letters of Paul, and we see from Paul's letters how differently the apostles understand the good news. In the second chapter of Galatians Paul relates his argument with Peter about enforcing Jewish laws in churches, and clearly the gospel of Matthew presents a view of Jewish law that is not the same as Paul's. These differences of opinion within the early church are written back into the gospels, and the gospel of Mark presents a story written more for Gentile readers than the gospel of Matthew, which is concerned with interpreting Jesus for a primarily Jewish audience. But Paul and all the gospels agree that the key to salvation is Jesus. Thus, they all support this proclamation in the gospel of Mark that in Jesus Christ the hopes of the past are fulfilled for both Jews and Gentiles, even if they differ in their understanding of how this is so.

In which gospel does Jesus say, "I am the bread of life"?

In the gospel of John (6:35). This well-known passage from scripture is unique to the gospel of John and comes in the middle of an argument between Jesus and those that the gospel of John names only as "the Jews." They refer to Jesus as "rabbi," thus designating him as a Jewish teacher of the Law of Moses, and they ask him questions, as they would ask any rabbi. Jesus says he will give them the bread of heaven, like the manna that God gave their ancestors to eat when they were starving in the wilderness. "The Jews" ask for this bread, but when Jesus says he is the bread of life and invites them to eat his flesh and blood, they are repelled. In verse 66 we read, "After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him."

To understand what is happening here, we need to recall that the gospel of John (like all the gospels in the New Testament) is addressing issues of concern to its readers, who are living a generation or two after the time of Jesus.  Christian Jews are pushing for changes in the synagogues that other Jews are opposing. The argument that Jesus is having with "the Jews" that causes even some of his disciples to draw back from him is not actually a disagreement among the disciples of Jesus, but an argument within the synagogue of the author. There is a split in the synagogue, and the position of those being rejected by the synagogue is presented by the gospel author as the words of Jesus. 

This reminds us that the church began in the synagogues of the Roman Empire with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. The latter were contributors to the synagogues and participated in many synagogue activities. As followers of Jesus (like Paul) began to urge that the commandments of the Law of Moses be set aside, which was an attractive change for Gentile participants in the life of the synagogues, other Jews resisted this change by arguing for adherence to at least some commandments of the Jewish law.

The conflict in the gospel of John is between Christian Jews and other Jews, not between Christians and Jews. It reflects a split among Jews who have been drawn to the teachings of Jesus, but who have different interpretations of what these teachings mean for the life of the community of faith. The words attributed to Jesus in this argument, which are not reported in any other gospel of the New Testament, should be understood as the position of the Christian Jews of this particular community of faith. The harsh denunciations of "the Jews" in the gospel of John are not the words of Jesus and are certainly not the word of God. 

Who is Hosea?

Hosea is a prophet writing in the middle of the eighth century BCE in the northern kingdom of Israel, when it is at war with Assyria. Hosea marries Gomer, a prostitute, and she bears him three children before leaving him. But he brings her back into his home and proclaims that God will have compassion on Israel in much the same way. Hosea says that Israel has been like a prostitute, because she has gone after other gods. But the LORD will be faithful to her, nonetheless, if she will return. The people of Israel are sacrificing animals to local gods, but Hosea says God does not require sacrifice and burnt offerings. Rather, the LORD wants only that Israel be faithful to the covenant.

Because we think of the New Testament books as scripture, it is hard to imagine the author of the gospel of Matthew altering the gospel of Mark, as he creates his own narrative account of the life of Jesus and his disciples. Perhaps, however, he did not think the gospel of Mark was history, but realized that it was a story created within the life of the church to witness to faith in Christ. If that is what the author of the gospel of Matthew was thinking, as he wrote his narrative in order to strengthen the faith of his community, then he might have put sandals on the feet of the disciples to make them a little less poor, so his sophisticated Greek-speaking readers could identify more fully with them. The main point of the story, of course, is that Jesus sent out his disciples, and both gospels attest to this development in the ministry of Jesus. After the death of Jesus, it is these disciples who spread the faith that becomes the church.

Which gospels relate the parable of the sower?

The parable of the sower is related in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In the gospels of Mark and Luke the disciples ask about the meaning of the parable, as if they did not understand. (Mk. 4:10, Lk. 8:9) In the gospel of Matthew (13:1-23), however, the disciples ask Jesus why he speaks in parables. They seem to understand the parable, and Jesus responds as though they do. In all three gospels, Jesus explains that he teaches in parables because the meaning of his teaching is a secret that is being made known to the disciples but not to the other people. In the gospel of Matthew, however, the author has Jesus explain his reason for this by quoting from Isaiah 6:9-10, a passage that says the people do not understand because they have become inattentive to the Lord.

If the gospel of Mark was written earlier than the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and if the authors of the latter two gospels had a copy of the gospel of Mark as they wrote their own gospels, which seems to be the best explanation for the similarities and differences among these three gospels, then the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke each changed the version of this story in the gospel of Mark in a different way. The author of the gospel of Matthew added the reference to Isaiah, but also indicated that the disciples understood the teaching before Jesus explained it. The explanation in the gospel of Matthew, therefore, is for the reader and not for the disciples. The gospel of Luke follows the account in the gospel of Mark more closely by simply relating the parable, the question by the disciples for an explanation of its meaning, and the explanation given by Jesus. These differences suggest that the gospels of Mark and Luke present the disciples as more obtuse than they are in the gospel of Matthew, and that the gospel of Matthew is written for a more Jewish audience than the gospels of Mark and Luke.

What is the argument in the early church about food?

In Romans 14:13-19 Paul argues that Christians do not have to keep the kosher rules of the Law of Moses. As these rules are the concern of Jews, clearly the members of the church in Rome are primarily Jews, as were most of the first Christians. Paul's position is that "nothing is unclean in itself," which rejects entirely the dietary restrictions accepted by Jews as the commandments of God. But Paul argues that Christians should consider the views of others in the community of faith, and if there are members who believe in keeping the kosher rules others should follow these rules so as not to cause offense. Peace within the community of faith, Paul affirms, is the highest priority.

The author of the gospel of Mark agrees with Paul that Christians need not keep kosher, for he includes in his gospel account the comment that Jesus "declared all foods clean." (Mk. 7:19) This cannot be true, however, because if Jesus had renounced the dietary restrictions of Jewish law then Paul would simply appeal to Jesus to argue for his position. The gospel of Matthew deletes this comment from the gospel of Mark, when it presents the same material in its narrative (Mt. 15:10-11), and has Jesus say that every item of the law is to be kept until the end comes (Mt. 5:17-18). The author of Luke and Acts addresses this issue primarily in Acts 15, where an agreement between Paul and the leaders of the church in Jerusalem requires that Gentiles "abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled." (Acts 15:29) This compromise implies that Jewish members of the church are to keep the kosher laws in their entirety, whereas Gentile members only need observe these particular restrictions.

It seems clear, therefore, that among the early churches in the first century there were differences of opinion about enforcing Jewish kosher laws within the life of the church. Almost certainly Jesus kept these laws and did not say anything about applying these dietary rules to Gentiles in the community that would keep alive his memory and teachings after his death, because his ministry was only to Jews. This issue only arose in the life of the church in the middle and later part of the first century, when God-fearing Gentiles in synagogues were drawn to the preaching of Paul and other apostles active in the cities of the Roman Empire.