Ep 29: Jesus' Earthly Ministry Bible Reading Plan

This Bible reading calendar covers the earthly ministry of Jesus between when He called His twelve disciples and Palm Sunday/Passion Week.

In this episode, Amy and I (Becky) cover some of Jesus' miracles, His teachings, His parables, His "I am" statements, and Jesus' purpose for coming to earth.

Of course, we aren't including every story from the Gospels. If you want that, we'd highly encourage you to read the Gospels for yourself. :) The shortest Gospel is Mark, but the Gospel most people say to begin with is John. It's your pick!

When Jesus walked the earth, He was a wonderful example of how we should live, but we don't stop there. Jesus is MUCH MORE than a good teacher or prophet. Jesus was {and still is} FULLY God and FULLY man. He is alive and seated at the Father's right hand.

Jesus came to do the will of the Father. He came to preach the Good News. He came to fulfill the Law and the prophets. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to give His life as a ransom for you and I.

We're picking up where we left off in Episode 25 in the storyline of the Bible. If you're new to our podcast, it may be helpful to listen to the previous episodes where we go through the storyline of the Bible.

The links to our Old Testament Reading Plans are below:

1. The Beginnings Bible Reading Plan
2. Moses Bible Reading Plan
3. The Promised Land Bible Reading Plan
4. Israel's United Kingdom Bible Reading Plan
5. Israel's Divided Kingdom Bible Reading Plan
6. Israel's Captivity & Return Bible Reading Plan

The link to our first New Testament Reading Plan is below:

1. Jesus's Early Life & Ministry Bible Reading Plan

This Bible reading plan is loosely based on these books:

• A Harmony of the Gospels by A.T. Robertson 
• One Perfect Life by John MacArthur

Let's Connect!

• Read, Do, & Tell Podcast
• My Website: Raising Rooted Disciples
• Instagram: @raisingrooteddisciples
• Email: becky@raisingrooteddisciples.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Becky. I'm Amy. Thank you all for joining us again. We have the Podcast Plus membership, which was created to help all of those who desire to teach the next generation about the truth of God's Word, how to study it, how to live it out. Through Bible reading plans that are created every month, the transcripts are available to you. You have charts and different visuals to help you walk through the lessons that we teach in every podcast, as well as the guided notes to help keep your notes in order so you can look back and know what you were trying to learn and remember. Orderly notes are good. They're good, they're very good. The podcast plus membership is only $5 a month. So we hope that you will partner with us in helping the next generation know God's word.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Amen. In episode 25, we walked you through our first New Testament timeline or Bible reading plan. And this is kind of uh crazy. I have my reading glasses on, so I can't see the slides. Okay. Now I can see them. Which was Jesus' early life and ministry. That was episode again, 25. Today we want to walk you through Jesus' ministry. Now, this is the time between his early life and then what we would call Palm Sunday. So these are this was a huge section of his life in Scripture, probably the hardest Bible reading plan to put together to date. It took me quite a while. But in it, you're going to find the parables, teachings, miracles, purpose of Christ. Some of these his very words. So these are all found in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

We ended our Bible reading plan last time on the calling of the disciples, which you found in Matthew 4 and Luke 5. It is where they are casting their nets into the sea or mending their nets, and Jesus calls out to them and he tells them to follow him, that he would make them fishers of men, so they immediately drop their nets to follow him. If you go to Luke 6, 12 through 16, you'll actually read the moment where Jesus chooses the twelve disciples. It says that he goes to the mountain to pray. Day comes, he calls his disciples, and of those disciples, he chooses from them twelve. And all twelve are named in that verse.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

In this reading plan, we walk you through the teachings of Jesus. Now there's a lot there. We have the Beatitudes, which are the blessed are the peacemakers, the people who mourn, different ones. That's found in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, there's lots of other teachings, wonderful teachings, obviously. This is Jesus we're talking about here. He teaches about the kingdom of God. A lot of times he'll say the kingdom of God is like, and he'll he might tell a parable or something like that. And then he he does, I don't have it on the slide, but he also talks a lot about the Old Testament law, the difference between the Old Testament law and God's commands versus man's commands. Really, the Pharisees had made up their own rules that they lived by, believing that made them righteous. And so he spoke a lot about the difference between God's rules and man's rules and also true repentance. Because again, these people, these religious leaders, often did not believe they needed to repent. They believed their following their own rules is what made them holy and acceptable to God.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

The parables of Jesus is also reviewed in this Bible reading plan. Um, what is a parable, you may ask? A parable is something that is cast alongside something else. And so Jesus' parables were stories that were cast alongside a truth to illustrate the to illustrate. Yes. To illustrate a truth. So these were known as teaching aids. I've heard earthly stories with a heavenly meaning. I thought that was pretty cool. In Matthew 13, 10, the disciples asked Jesus why he teaches in parables, and his answer is basically saying that he's revealing truth to those who want to know it. He's concealing from those who are indifferent to what he's teaching. Jesus uses many parables to teach. Some of the most famous ones are the sower in the seed. So, for example, the sower in the seed is about the soil that the seed is planted in, the seed being the gospel, the soil being the response to the gospel. Then you have the lost son. This is also known as the prodigal son, which is showing God's love for the lost. Then you have the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is where you see a scribe or someone who is an expert of the law answer Jesus' questions, showing that he understands what the law says. Through this parable, Jesus asks him a question, and the man is able to say, the neighbor is the one who shows mercy. So this is where Jesus is telling them and us that it is not what we know. We can know all that Scripture says, it is that we actually do what it's telling us to do. And this is the same as in the sower in seed, where you know the believer by their fruit.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yes, you will. I love that the good Samaritan, the hero of that story, is a Gentile. It's interesting because when he asks them back, um, who was the neighbor who with the question he asked, they're like the one that showed mercy. They're not gonna even say that it was a Samaritan. That was it's just fascinating. Yeah, he ruffled some feathers, to say the least. But they needed to be ruffled. Yes, okay. Then we have the miracles of Jesus. You'll find several of those in the reading plan, such as the blind seeing, the lame leaping, nature obeying Jesus, whereas he stops the wind and the waves, he walks on water, feeding the multitudes. You'll see where he feeds the 5,000. There's another place where he feeds 4,000. And then we have raising of the dead, is not just Lazarus. When we think of about raising of the dead, we think about Lazarus, but there were other people. I think it's fascinating to think about why did Jesus you what did he use miracles for? And we don't have to just speculate. Jesus tells us in John 10 that his miracles are a witness to his identity, that he is the Messiah. In John 20, 31, John reminds us these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you will have life in his name. Thank you, seeds, family worship. That's where I remember that verse from. And then in Luke 7, we see John the Baptist when he's in prison, and he sends his disciples to Jesus to say, Are you the one we've been waiting on? And Jesus basically quotes several verses from Isaiah in particular, and he says, Do the blind, do the blind see, do the lame walk? We have skin diseases being healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. So this was an he's fulfilling Old Testament prophecy to point to again the fact that he is the Messiah. Reynolds Schauers had a very interesting perspective. And I was able to print off the articles, and I was trying to find them, and they're they're behind a paywall now, so it's you can't get to them. But IsraelmyGlory.org, he had some really a series of interesting articles about how Christ chose his miracles carefully. Um, I know that's a weird way of saying it, but essentially Jesus didn't just go, oh, I think I'll do this. Oh, I think I'll, oh, oh, I should do this. It was not an accident as to what he did. And he says that his miracles not only pointed to the the prophecies and and who Jesus would be and his identity as the Messiah, but that Christ doing the miracles he did also points to the future kingdom of God. That in the future, in the kingdom, the messianic kingdom, there are certain things that the mess that Christ will be able to do. And he was showing them I'm not only a fulfillment of what has been, I'm a fulfillment of what is going to come. And it's just a fascinating perspective on that.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Then we have the I am statements of Jesus. These are found only in the Gospel of John. Um, they are the bread, the light, the door, the shepherd, resurrection and life. And then before Abraham, I am. There you go. So in the Old Testament, God says that he is, I am who I am. So when Jesus speaks and says, I am, those are his statements confirming that Jesus is God. You have the bread. The bread of life is the statement that he makes. I am the bread after he feeds the 5,000 in the wilderness. And what's really cool about this one is that he refers to Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness. And he references the bread that came from heaven, which is the manna, and he himself came from heaven. So he is the bread from heaven. But the difference is that that bread didn't save their life. It says in John, he says, yet they still died after eating that bread. Yet Jesus says, I am the bread of life, and if you have him as your bread, you have eternal life. Then you have the light. This happens as he heals the man who was born blind. In John 8 12, Jesus says, Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Then you have the door. God provides the way into salvation through Jesus. He is the door. In John 10 9, um, he says, I am the door. Anyone who enters by me will be saved. And in the analogy that's given here, Jesus is the gate of the sheepfold. He is that door. And so he says that his sheep will enter through that door. Then you have the good shepherd. Um in Psalm 23, one, it says, The Lord is my shepherd. This is a title for God. In John 10.11, he says, I am the good shepherd. He is the one who lays down his life for his sheep. You have the resurrection and the life. Jesus says this before he raises Lazarus from the dead. He says that he is the resurrection and the life. In Revelation 118, he says, I hold the keys to death and the grave. So in John, you see him not only say who he is, but he proves it. And then you have the famous statement that he makes before Abraham, I am. So it's an eternal statement.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Amen. And you know, you'll have people say Jesus never made the statement, I am God, but in all of these, he is clearly stating, and they knew it, I am God. Then we have the purpose of Jesus. You'll find this in several days of the reading plan. But ultimately, these are Jesus' words here. He said he came to do the will, the will of the Father. I was gonna say Wheel of the Father, but that sounds very country. He came to do the will of the Father. You'll find that in John 6.38. He came to preach the good news. He this is where he's in the temple and he unhe unrolls the scroll and he reads from Isaiah 61. Um, he came to preach the good news to the poor. He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. We see this in Matthew 5, 17. Now, this is a passage, this is a word fulfill, I think can be a tricky word, but he fills them up. He completes them. He fulfilled these requirements of the law perfectly. He had perfect obedience to God's law. He completed the prophecies of his first coming. He completed all of them. There are more to come. So he fulfilled them. He I think about a cup, and you're filling it up with whatever you want to fill it up with, coffee, probably my favorite bread.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Wine?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I don't know. Maybe he didn't have bread and wine. What you been drinking? It's in our cup right now, girl. So then he came to seek and save the lost. Mark 2, 17 says he came to call sinners. Luke 19, 10 said he, this is where he says, I came to seek and save the lost. We quote John 3.16 a lot, but we don't really, many of us probably don't even know John 3.17. It says, For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. He came to give his life. He came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's Mark 10.45. But he also came so that we may have abundant life. John 10 10. Jesus came also to give an example of how we are to live, but you don't stop there. Many people will say, well, Jesus was just a good, that's the that's your key word. Jesus was just a good example, but he was much more than that. Fully God, fully man. These again are Jesus' words of his purpose of coming to earth. But if there are many reasons that Jesus came, they can be found in the gospels as well as other scripture passages. So the whole Bible is a witness of his life, his death, and his resurrection. So let's be determined as Ezra to read, do, and tell the word of the Lord. Amen.