NEW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE WEST

Winter 2016, Canvas Church, Irvine, CA

Tell Me the Stories of Jesus: The Four Gospels
Jeff H. McCrory Jr.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The Gospels are the stories of Jesus, the preaching of
the first witnesses to God come in the flesh to dwell among us. If we want to
understand the Christian faith, we need to understand and meet Jesus. In this class
we will learn (1) the Old Testament background for the preaching and teaching of
Jesus, (2) the literary features of each Gospel writer (3) how each Gospel writer
told the story of Jesus a bit differently (4) and how we can encounter Jesus through
praying the Gospel texts in our communities of faith.

COURSE FORMAT:
This class meets every Monday evening beginning January 11, 6:45pm-9:15pm,
for 10 weeks.

REQUIRED READING
Bauckham, Richard, ed. The Gospels for All Christians. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998.
Burridge, Richard. Four Gospels, One Jesus? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Hays, Richard. Reading Backwards. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

We want to encourage students to enter into the learning and teaching the Bible at
any level they desire. So, a student may take the course through two pathways:
1. Audit: this means coming to the class sessions and participating
2. 2 Units Credit: this means coming to the classes, reading the assigned
texts, and completing the following assignments:
A. Completion of book reports in preparation for class (30%)
B. 10 page paper on one Gospel and how the Old Testament shapes both
the ministry of Jesus and also the writing of that Gospel [2500 words]
(35%)
C. Three experience papers using Lectio Divina and Gospel texts (35%)

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