Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we are starting into the 27 books of the New Testament, beginning with the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew’s Gospel appears first in the New Testament, not because it was written first, but rather because it was the most popular Gospel in the Early Church. In fact, the earliest book of the New Testament is not a Gospel at all. The earliest book is Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. At first, all the stories about Jesus circulated orally. It wasn’t until the first eyewitnesses began to die off that the Early Church thought about writing down more detailed accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, his death, and resurrection. Another thing to keep in mind is that none of the Gospels originally had titles. The titles came later. So, you might reasonably ask, where did the titles come from, these titles that suggest Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the authors of the four Gospels we have in our Bibles? Eusebius was in many ways
There is great power in a face. When we have not seen a loved one for a long time, and suddenly we see them once again, perhaps at our front door, or in the middle of a crowded airport, just the sight of their face can move us to tears. The disciples had not been parted from Jesus for very long, but the parting was devastating nonetheless, because the disciples were certain it was the end, that they would never see Jesus’ face again. Then suddenly, they did see his face, and the sight of that one face changed everything, for all eternity. Listen for God’s word to you from John 20:1-18… Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, b