Gospel

This is a distillation and indexing of everything Jesus himself said — the kingdom announced, the parables told, the commands given, the warnings sounded, the promises made, the prayers prayed — drawn from the four Gospels and from the words of the risen Christ in Acts and Revelation. Distilled, so the sayings can be read whole and in his own voice; indexed, so that everything he said about the Father, the kingdom, money, prayer, forgiveness, judgment, or following him can be found in one place.

The discipline of the study is to read without bringing in Pauline interpretations. This is no verdict against Paul; it is a matter of order. A voice this central deserves to be heard first in its own words — and when the letters are read back into the Gospels too early, the Teacher is flattened into the system built around him. Here, Jesus speaks first, and the harmonizing waits.

Following the older custom of the scribes — and the newer custom of the red-letter Bible — the words of Jesus are set throughout these pages in rubric red.