Most Christians Get These 10 Gospel Questions Wrong

All right, we are back with another exciting Bible quiz. And in our last quiz, we focused on Bible characters. So, if you want to challenge yourself, go check out this video after you watch this one. But today, it's all about the Gospels. And boy, I'm telling you, spoiler alert, we've got a good one in store for you. 10 questions, some easy, some not so easy. And as always, after the answer is revealed, I am going to give you an understanding or breakdown of the answer so that you can understand exactly why you got it right or why you got it wrong. This quiz is really going to help you better understand the culture and times in which the gospels were written. So with all of that out of the way, let's jump in.

But before we do, you know the rules. No cheating, no chatt, no Google, and no judgment. We are all here to learn. And because of that, I want to encourage you to drop your score in the comments below whenever you finish.

Question number one. According to most biblical scholars, which of the four gospels was written first? A, Matthew, B, John, C, Mark, or D, Luke? All right, you've got 10 seconds to lock in your answer. Get your answer now.

All right. If you said A, Matthew, I see why because it's the first gospel in our New Testament. But the answer is C. Mark. Now, most biblical scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel written. And here are the reasons why. So, out of the four gospels, Mark is the shortest gospel. And I want you to notice here, if you go through Mark's gospel, Mark removes the entire Christmas story, no birth narrative, no genealogy. Mark's like, "We ain't got time for all that." He's writing to a different group of people. And he's like, "The people that are reading my gospel don't care about Jesus birth narrative and the people that came to see him when he was a little baby and all the different names in the Jewish lineage." No, they just want to know what Jesus did. And so that's why Mark's gospel was shorter. And so when scholars line up Mark with Matthew and Luke, just about everything in Mark shows up again in Matthew and Luke. Oftent times word for word. For instance, about 90% of Mark reappears in Matthew and about 50% of Mark reappears in Luke. So let me ask you this question. Is it more likely that Mark took Matthew and Luke and deleted huge sections? Or is it more likely that Matthew and Luke used Mark's gospel as a starting point and then added additional information to fit their specific audiences? Well, scholars believe the latter.

Now, the question becomes, where did Matthew and Luke get all of this extra information from? Well, many scholars believe there was a second source or a collection of Jesus's teachings, his miracles, his parables, events from his life, stories, things that he said that scholars have named Q from the German word for source. Now, this source, this Q source document has never been found. So, it's a theory, not a fact. But it's the idea that Matthew and Luke said, "Okay, Mark, we've got the structure from you. We understand what uh the things Jesus did and all that, the structure of his life." Now, we are going to adjust that according to uh or under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew's going to take some things from Q that line up with his audience and leave some other things out. And Luke is going to also grab some things from this uh source cue that specifically will help persuade his audience that Jesus is who he said he was and leave some other things out. And so this is the reason why Matthew and Luke line up so closely where Mark goes silent.

Now, finally, you might ask the question, where did Mark get his information from? Wasn't he one of the twel apostles? Well, no, he wasn't, but Peter was. And an early Christian named Papias tells us that Mark wrote down the preaching of the Apostle Peter. So essentially Mark was Peter's scribe. And so when you are reading the Gospel of Mark, I want you to think of it as you're essentially reading the Gospel according to Peter. As a matter of fact, even Peter refers to Mark as his son. Notice 1 Peter 5:13. "Your sister church here in Babylon sends you greetings and so does my son Mark."

So what's the main point before we move on to question two? The four gospels don't copy one another. They complement one another and are built on shared eyewitness testimony.

All right. So that was just a warm-up, just a tuneup. We're just getting started.

Question number two. Just days before Jesus was crucified, he was at a dinner in Bethany and a woman walked in carrying an alabaster jar of perfume. She broke it open and poured the entire thing out on him. The room was scandalized, not by the act, but by the cost. So, here's the question. How much was that jar of perfume worth? A about a year's wages. B about a month's wages. C about a week's wages. Or D about a day's wages. All right, you've got 10 seconds. Lock it in.

All right. So, the answer is a, a full year's wages. Wrap your mind around that. She poured out an entire year's wages in about 30 seconds. I want you to notice what the Bible says in Mark 14:3. "Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head."

All right, so let's talk about what was in that jar. The perfume was made from nard, sometimes called spike nard. And so nard grew from a plant that grew way up in the mountains of what we call India today specifically in the area of the Himalayas. Now let's think about this. During this time they didn't have planes. They didn't have trucks. They didn't have shipping containers. No uh UPS or ground transportation, air transportation, none of that. And so the oil had to be harvested on the other side of the known world and physically carried thousands of miles by hand and by caravan just to reach this woman. So to say it was rare is an understatement and that's the reason why it was so expensive. Now how expensive you might ask? Well, it says in the text that some who were witnessing this became angry and they said, "Hey, what you doing? You could have sold this for more than 300 dinari." Now, that doesn't mean anything to us today from the Western world. But one dinarius was a single day pay or wage for a working man. So 300 dinari was 300 days of labor almost a full year of working sun up to sun down sitting inside one small jar. Now we don't know this could have been her life savings. It could have been something passed down to her uh from generations. But if we extract that out to today let's just say that the average salary in the United States is $40,000 a year. Let's just say that puts in perspective just how costly her devotion to Jesus was. And yet she doesn't hesitate. She doesn't deliberate. She breaks open this jar and empties it all on Jesus at once. And notice, as I mentioned, some of those at the table were indignant. "Why waste such expensive perfume?" they asked. "It could have been sold for a year's wages and the money given to the poor." So they scolded her harshly. But Jesus replied, "Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me?"

So I want you to notice here the two opposing reactions in the room. One group got angry and called it a waste. And Jesus said, "What she did was beautiful." And that brings me to you and I because there may be some people who don't understand what Jesus has done for us. And they may see our devotion and our sacrifice to him as a waste. A waste of your time. Why you going to church? Why you keep serving? Why you doing all this stuff? A waste of your talent. You could be doing that elsewhere. A waste of your treasure, your money. But Jesus calls it beautiful. Now, related to that, I want you to notice that serving Jesus will cost you something. It blows my mind that this woman was willing to give up a year's wages, possibly her life savings, because she understood exactly what Jesus did for her. And my question for you and my question for myself is what are we willing to sacrifice in response to what Jesus has done for us? This woman didn't hesitate. What about you?

All right, question three. And this is about one of the most famous stories Jesus ever told, the good Samaritan. But the question isn't about the story itself. It's about the man who triggered the story or the parable. Before Jesus tells that parable, a religious expert or a lawyer as the scriptures say comes up to Jesus and asks him, "Jesus, um, who is my neighbor?" So, here's the question. What was that man really doing when he asked it? A, sincerely trying to learn. B, trying to trap Jesus into insulting Samaritans. C, testing whether Jesus actually knew the law. Or D, trying to justify himself. All right, you've got 10 seconds. Cast your answer. I'll see you soon.

All right, the answer is D. He was trying to justify himself. And we don't have to guess at that. Luke comes right out and tells us. Now, if you pick C, uh, testing whether Jesus knew the law, I do want to give you credit. Uh, not full credit. I'm saying I want to give you like, okay, you got close. And here's why. Because just a moment earlier, this same man stood up to test Jesus with a different question. His question earlier was, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" He's like, "Hey, Jesus, I just want to make sure that when I die, I'm going to go to heaven. So, what do I have to do?" So, yes, he was testing Jesus, but that was the other question. The question that we're looking at now is the followup to that. when Jesus said, "Hey, well, you know, the the commandments, you know, love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor." And so he says, "Hey, uh, Jesus, um, on that thought, uh, who is my neighbor?" And Luke tells us exactly what was behind that question. It says here in verse 29, "The man wanted to justify his actions. So he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'"

So what does this mean? He wanted to justify himself. Well, a moment earlier, Jesus had told him, "If you want to inherit eternal life, it's simple. Got to do two things, my man. You got to love God and you got to love your neighbor as yourself." And so, as soon as the man heard love your neighbor, he got nervous because deep down he knew he didn't love everybody the same. And he certainly didn't love everyone the way he would love himself. So he's like, "Let me see if I can find a loophole and make sure I know exactly who my neighbors are and who my neighbors aren't. So that way I'll know who I'm responsible to love and who I'm able to exclude." So he asks a question, who is my neighbor? Hoping that Jesus would give him a list of the people that he needed to love and the others he could exclude and then he would be justified or right with God. But instead, Jesus tells this famous parable about a Jewish man who was robbed on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. And the two people you would expect to show aid to him would be a Levi and a priest, both Jewish people. And so in doing so towards the end of the parable if you notice that Jesus actually flipped the question back on him and says this. "Now young brother which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked. The man replied "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said "Yes. Now go and do the same."

So Jesus was like, "Who was a neighbor to this man?" In other words, it's, bro, it's not about figuring out who is your neighbor and who isn't your neighbor. It's about being a neighbor to those who are in need, whoever they may be. And notice who the hero of the show was. A Samaritan, which to a Jew is a slap in the face. And we are going to get to that question a little bit later on in this quiz.

Now, what was the point here? Sometimes we can be guilty of looking to do the bare minimum when it comes to our service to God and to others. Often times we can be guilty of asking, "Well, God, what do I need to do to make sure I'm right with you? I just need to know, give me give me the bare minimum that I need to do to make sure that whenever I go to heaven, I'm still going to get there and you're you're I'm going to be right with you, but also do what I want to be able to do on the outside, right? So, it's funny. Whenever I was single, I used to ask this question all the time. How close to the line of sin can I get, God? I mean, if this is sin, how close can I get to it and still be okay? And the real question is, how far away from the line should I be looking to stay? And in regards to others, this Samaritan went above and beyond in his service to this dying man. I mean, put him on his donkey, took him to a hotel, poured some wine on him, bandaged his wounds, and said to the hotel man, "Hey, here's some money. Take care of this guy, and if you need some more, holler at me. I'll give you some more." He went above and beyond. And once again, why a Samaritan landed like a slap in the face in that moment to a Jewish reader. And why these two groups, Jews and Samaritans, hated one another so deeply is a whole another question we're going to come back to a little bit later on in this quiz.

All right, here's a really good one. Question number four. Approximately how much of Jesus's earthly ministry do the synoptic gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, actually cover? A nearly all of it about 3 years. B about one year, C about 2 years, or D only the final few months. Lock your question in now.

All right, the answer is B. About one year. Now, you may be thinking, "Hold on a second, brother Parr. Didn't Jesus minister for three and a half years?" Yes. But what most people don't know is that Jesus's entire 3 and 1/2year ministry does not come from Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It comes almost entirely from the gospel of John. But before we dig into that, it may be helpful to know what we mean by the word synoptic. So the word synoptic is a compound word made up of the prefix sin and the word optic. Now sin is the prefix for together and optic obviously means to see. So the word synoptic means when you put them together, no pun intended, it means to see together. And that is the idea that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see these three gospels as being together because they essentially have the same structure from start to finish. You have the introduction which includes, you know, the birth narrative and uh his baptism and things like that. And then they all three move into Jesus's Galilean ministry, which I'll talk about in just a moment if you don't know what that means. And then they proceed to uh chronicle the journey from Galilee down to Jerusalem where he would ultimately be crucified. And then uh we have the Jerusalem time when Jesus was there, specifically the passion week or the final week of his life. Uh and then followed by the resurrection. That's the basic structure of the synoptic gospels. But John is completely different. And this is where the answer to the question lies. And so the way in which scholars measure how long Jesus's ministry lasted is by counting the Passovers. Passover was a big Jewish festival that came once a year, every spring, and like clockwork. So people would come from all over uh the distant lands to celebrate this festival. So in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we count only one Passover. This is the Passover during the final week of Jesus's earthly life. So you would conclude that Matthew, Mark, and Luke only cover a little bit over a year of Jesus's earthly ministry. But in John, we count at least three Passovers. Notice the first John 2:1:13. "It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. So Jesus went to Jerusalem." Passover number one. Then the second Passover is mentioned in John 6:4. "It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover." That's two Passovers. Then finally, John 11:55. "It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began." So there you have it, three Passovers. And many scholars believe there's a fourth one tucked into John 5. So at least three Passovers, maybe four Passovers puts us at that famous 3 and 1/2 year estimate of Jesus earthly ministry.

But it's not just about time, but also space. Let me explain. The synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke spend most of their time describing Jesus's ministry in a region called Galilee. You can see that on the map that's on the screen. Galilee is primarily in the northern part of Israel and that was Jesus's home turf. Uh it chronicles uh ministry that Jesus did around the Sea of Galilee, towns like Capernaum and Nazareth. And then towards the end of their gospels, they make one big trip south to Jerusalem for the final week of Jesus's life where he would ultimately be crucified. Now, John does almost the opposite. John keeps taking Jesus down south up to Jerusalem again and again for festival after festival. And you can see all of that in the map that's on the screen. And here's one more layer the synoptics quietly leave out. Listen to how Mark opens Jesus's public ministry. Notice this. The Bible says in Mark 1:14, "Later on after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee." There's that word again, "where he preached God's good news." Notice that Mark starts the action in Jesus's life after John the Baptist gets arrested. But notice, John's gospel records a whole season of Jesus's ministry that happened before John is arrested and beheaded. And he even explains that in John 3:24. Notice he says "this was before John was thrown into prison." So the synoptics don't just compress the timeline of Jesus's earthly ministry. They skip the opening chapter of Jesus ministry. altogether and it is John who is the one who preserves it. This is why we see Jesus's first miracle turning water into wine only in John or his meeting with uh a Pharisee named Nicodemus or his meeting with the woman at the well. These are only in John because these are events from Jesus's early ministry within his first year and a half or two years or so. And only John covers those while the synoptics skip them.

Now, why is this important? Because some people will claim that the gospels contradict one another. And nothing could be further from the truth. Because when you put all four gospels together, they complement one another, not contradict one another. They fill in the gaps where the others leave them out.

Now, this leads into question number five, and this is the one that I've been promising you. So, back in the story of the good Samaritan, I told you we come back to why these two groups, Jews and Samaritans, despised each other deeply. So, let's finally answer it. So, here is the question. Why was there so much hatred between Jews and Samaritans? Is it A after Assyria conquered Israel, intermarriage with foreign settlers made the Jews see the Samaritans as racial and religious half breeds? B. The Samaritans refused to help rebuild the Jerusalem temple after the exile. C. The Samaritans worshiped completely different gods. Or D, a territorial war was fought over the city of Samaria. 10 seconds. Cast your vote.

All right, the answer is a. Now, to really get it, we need some context. We need to rewind about 700 years before Jesus was ever born on the earth. So, stay with me because this history is going to make the entire thing click. All right, so here's the backstory. After King Solomon died, the nation of Israel was split into two nations. The 10 northern tribes became one kingdom called Israel with its territory in a region that came to be known as Samaria. So think of Samaria, think of Israel as the northern 10 tribes. The southern tribes became a separate kingdom called Judah. Tribes of Judah and Benjamin with Jerusalem as its capital. So now you have not one nation but two nations, north and south. Now, in 7:22 BC, the empire of Assyria, which was the world superpower of that day, invaded the northern kingdom because of all of their sin and neglect and ignoring all of the warnings of the prophets and things like that. God allowed this wicked nation of Assyria to come in and invade the northern kingdom of Israel. And essentially what they did was they deported a huge portion of the population of people living in Israel. And then they took other people from the other nations they had conquered and imported them into the land to live alongside the Israelites who were left behind. Notice the scripture says this in 2 Kings 17:24. "It says the king of Assyria transported groups of people from Babylon, Houtha, Ava, Hamoth, and Safarvim and resettled them in the towns of Samaria, replacing the people of Israel. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns."

All right, so there it is. Tells you exactly what they did. So, as you can imagine, you have foreigners living next to Israelites. And over time, the two intermarried and the children of those marriages and their children after them became a new blended people group called the Samaritans. Now, while this was all going on in the north, the Jews in the south prided themselves on keeping their bloodline and their faith pure. And so to them, their northern neighbors were now contaminated. They were half breeds. They were ha they were sellouts. They were they were a mixed race uh mixed up religion because in their eyes, you guys sold out our lineage. You're not fully God's people anymore. And that contempt didn't just fade over time. No, it got worse and worse. Centuries of mutual disgust hardened for years and years, hundreds of years. And what is worse, notice it says in verse 33, "And though they worshiped the Lord, they continued to follow their own gods according to the religious customs of the nations from which they came." So they got mixed up in the worship of these other nations. So yeah, they worshiped Yahweh, but they also mixed it in with some worship of other gods from the nations that lived among them. But it gets even worse. Three other things happened. One, the Samaritans built their own temple on a mountain called Mount Garazim. They were like, "Okay, if if if we not welcome to go down and and worship uh and offer sacrifices down in Jerusalem, y'all not going to accept it? Okay, no problem. We're going to build our own temple here in Mount Garazim, which should tell you the woman at the well, she said, "Hey, I heard that, you know, you Jews say it's okay to worship down here and we we Samaritans worship up here." This is where it all happened, right? So, they built their own temple up in Mount Garazim. And they said that was the true place to worship God, not Jerusalem. Now, think of this from a Jewish perspective. This was an outrage. From a Jewish perspective, there was only one temple in one city. Period. You can't just go around and just build a temple. All right. Now, the second thing, the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Bible. That's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. What we call the penetuk. They threw everything else out. The Psalms, the prophets, all of it. So to the Jews, they didn't even have the whole word of God. And three, around 128 BC, this is 128 years or so before the time of Christ, a Jewish ruler marched an army up to Mount Garazim and destroyed the Samaritan temple to the ground. So all of this just intensified the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans leading to Samaritans attacking Jewish travelers on their way from Jerusalem to Jericho, sneaking into the Jerusalem temple to defile it and all sorts of other things. So by the time you open up the Gospels, this is a wound that has been festering for seven centuries. And that's why when John tells the story of the woman at the well, he stops and adds one little explanation for his readers. He says in verse 9, "The woman was surprised for Jews refused to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, 'You, wait, you're a Jew and I am a Samaritan. Why are you asking me for a drink?'" That one sentence is carrying 700 years of baggage, 700 years of festered wounds of history.

Now, why does this matter for you and I? Because once you understand how deep that hatred ran, look at what Jesus does with it. He doesn't avoid the Samaritans. He makes a Samaritan the hero of his most famous story that we just looked at, the parable of the good Samaritan. He sits down and talks with a Samaritan woman at a well. Later, when 10 lepers are healed and only one comes back to say thank you, Jesus points him out that that one grateful man was a Samaritan. Over and over, Jesus deliberately walks across the very line of hatred and hostility that everyone else refused to cross.

Now, by the way, if you want to learn how to study the Bible on a deep level, and I want I mean, you want to uncover all of the different cultural backgrounds and nuances and all the things that I'm breaking down in this particular video. You want to study it on a seminary level, I've got an entire seminary level course called the Bible Accelerator. It's over four hours long. It's over 50 videos. It has lessons. It comes with a workbook, a curriculum. Uh it's got a community that you can join with other people who are also in the program and it'll teach you literally everything and I mean everything that I learned in my first semester of seminary uh hermeneutics course on how to study the Bible. I'll put a link in the description box below if you want to check that out.

Question six. Each of the four gospel writers had a specific audience in mind, a particular group he was writing to. So here's the question. Who was the Gospel of Luke primarily written for? A Jewish believers, B. Roman officials, C Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish or Greekeaking readers, or D the church in Jerusalem. 10 seconds. Lock your vote.

All right, the answer is C. Luke wrote primarily for Gentiles or non-Jewish readers out in the wider Greekeaking world. Now, if you're not familiar with the term Gentile, it's just simply refers to anyone who's not Jewish. All right? So Luke is writing to the outsiders, people who didn't grow up with the Hebrew scriptures, people who were not familiar with the Jewish custom. They were not under the covenant of the Old Testament Mosaic uh covenant. They they weren't uh um, you know, welcome and and didn't spend much time in the temple and things like that. Now, how do we know this? Well, he left us several clues. First, he addresses the whole thing to a man named Theophilos. Notice it says here in verse three, "Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilles." So, Theophilles is a Greek name meaning lover of God. Now, second, through his gospel, whenever a Jewish custom or a Jewish location comes up, Luke stops and explains it the way you would for someone who's never been there. You wouldn't explain these things to Jewish readers. You only spell them out for outsiders. Now, the clue that opens up everything is the family tree. Matthew wrote his gospel primarily for a Jewish audience and traces Jesus's lineage back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation. But Luke pushes back even further. The Bible says in Luke 3:38 that Jesus's family line runs all the way back to Adam, who was the son of God. So notice that Luke doesn't just trace Jesus's lineage back to Abraham, the father of the Jews. No, he traces it all the way back to Adam, the father of the entire human race. Essentially, Luke is trying to say Jesus is not just the savior of the Jewish people. He is the savior of everyone. Now to illustrate this further, what he does is that Luke includes several stories in his gospel that highlight Jesus love for these outside marginalized groups, such as the story of the sinful woman in Luke 7 who washed Jesus's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. only found in Luke and where people rejected this woman because she was a sinner, Jesus welcomed her and forgave her. What about the parable of the prodal son only found in Luke? What about the story of how Jesus welcomed the hated tax collector named Zakius? Only found in Luke's gospel. What about the story of the criminal who died next to Jesus on the cross to whom Jesus said, "Yeah, bro. today you'll be with me in paradise." These stories are only found in Luke. What about the story of the 10 lepers who were cleansed by Jesus according to Jewish law. You weren't supposed to touch a leper. They were outsiders. They were outcasts. But yet Jesus not only touched them but cleansed them and also highlighted the fact that the one who returned and gave thanks was a hated Samaritan. Why are all these stories in Luke and left out of Matthew, Mark, and John? It's to highlight Luke's intentionality to express the truth that Jesus didn't just come for Jewish people. He came to be the savior for all people, outcasts, uh, those who are socially marginalized. He came for everyone.

Question seven. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus kept saying, "You have heard it said, but I say to you, don't murder, but don't even be angry. Don't commit adultery, but don't even look with lust. So, here's the question. When Jesus said that, was he overturning the Old Testament? A, yes, he was replacing the old law with a brand new one. B, yes, he was correcting mistakes Moses had made. C, no, he only meant the ceremonial laws. or D. No, he was exposing the deeper heart level meaning that the religious leaders had watered down. 10 seconds. Cast your vote.

All right. The answer is D. So in Matthew 5:17, Jesus says this, "Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." Notice Jesus said, "I didn't come to do away with or abolish the law." So, what exactly is he doing? Well, it turns out that the Pharisees, who were the religious experts of the day, had essentially turned the law of God into an external checklist, a list of boxes to check. So, if you didn't murder anyone or if you didn't physically commit adultery, you could check those boxes off and feel justified, feel righteous, and you can go about your day feeling good about yourself because after all, you didn't violate the law. Even though your heart may be a sewer of hatred and lust, as long as your hands stayed clean, that was the entire key. So what was Jesus trying to do? He was trying to get the people to return to the very heart of what the entire law was all about, which was about keeping your heart clean, not just your hands. So when he says that if you've been angry, you've already committed a murder in your heart. Or if you've lusted, you've already committed adultery in your heart. He's forcing the people to look introspectively into their hearts. And in doing that, it's much more difficult to check off the box at the end of the day and say, "You didn't violate that." Think about that. It's easy for you to go to sleep at night and say, "Well, I didn't kill anybody. I didn't sleep with anybody else's wife or husband. Okay, I'm good. But now you have to check, wait, did I lust today? Let me check my heart. Was I angry at somebody? Did I did I have any hostility or any bitterness or anything like that? So what he's doing is he's forcing the people to deal with the root rather than just the fruit. Because the root of murder is anger. Before you ever get to murder somebody, you have to be angry. And the root of adultery is lust. He says, deal with the root first, not just the fruit.

Now, I want you to notice something that a lot of people miss. Notice that the law always focused on the heart. Bible says you must not covet. That's a heart issue. That's one of the ten commandments. Leviticus 19:17. "Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you would not be held guilty for their sin." That's a hard issue. Then the greatest commandment. Deuteronomy 6:5. "And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength." Another heart issue. The heart was always the center of the law. But by the time of Christ, the Pharisees had made the entire law into something external, and Jesus had to correct it.

Question eight. In the final week before his crucifixion, Jesus walked into the temple in Jerusalem, flipped over tables, and drove people out with a whip. So, here's the question. What was the main reason he did it? A, to protest Roman taxation. B, they had turned God's house of prayer into a corrupt marketplace that was exploiting worshippers. C, because animal sacrifice was no longer necessary. or D to fulfill a prophecy about the temple being destroyed. This is a good one. 10 seconds.

The answer is B. And the scriptures explain exactly why. Notice Mark 11:15-17. "When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. And he stopped everyone from using the temple as a marketplace. He said to them, 'The scriptures declare, "My temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves."'"

So let's explore what was really going on here because once we understand that it makes total sense what Jesus did. So this happened during the week of the Passover which we talked about a little bit earlier. And during this time people from all over the land were coming into Jerusalem to celebrate. Now part of that celebration involved offering sacrifices to God. But two things were happening at the same time. First, you had to pay what was called temple tax. But you couldn't use normal Roman coins to pay it because these Roman coins had the emperor's face on them, which was considered idolatrous. So, you had to exchange your money for special temple currency. And the men running those exchange tables charged you a hefty fee to do it. They knew you had no other choice but to exchange your money. So they hiked up the exchange rate. Now second, you had the animal sellers. Every worshipper needed an animal to offer a sacrifice to God. And since it was the Passover, the city's population was exploding. Think of it like if the Olympics came to your city. People from all over the world would be in that city and it would be uh uh unnaturally overpop populated, if you will. And so the people selling animals knew that it would be extremely inconvenient for most people to travel with animals to make a sacrifice for a variety of reasons. One of which is that you risk that animal being injured along the way. And if an animal was blemished or defective in any way, it couldn't be offered as a sacrifice to God. So these animal sellers knew that people had to purchase their animals in Jerusalem. And once again, they were like, "Oo, we see this as an opportunity to exploit these desperate people." And once again, they hiked up the price. You know how it is when you go to a movie theater and they charge you $5, $6, $7 for junior mints or $5 for some water. It's the same principle. Here was the one place people were supposed to come and meet with God, worship God, and they turned it into a trap to squeeze money out of people at their most vulnerable, most worshipful moment.

But there's a second layer here that many people completely miss and it's hiding in one phrase Jesus quoted. I want to see if you caught this. Jesus said, "My temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations." for all nations. Now, why does this matter? Because all of this buying and selling and money changing was set up in one specific area of the temple, a section called the court of the Gentiles, that was the one place non-Jewish people, outsiders, foreigners, the very Gentiles we talked about back in the previous question, they were allowed to come and pray in this portion of the temple. It was their space. It was the one spot where an outsider could draw near to the God of Israel. And the religious establishment had turned that exact place into a noisy, crowded, cheating marketplace. So, I want you to picture this. Here you are, a gentile. You've traveled a long way. You're hungry for God. Finally, he reaches the one court where he's allowed to pray. and he can't even hear himself think over the haggling and the livestock and the clinking coins. The one place built to welcome the outsider had been turned into the one place that pushed him out. So when Jesus cleared that court, he wasn't just throwing out crooks. He was reclaiming the space for the people it was meant to welcome. He was making room with his own hands for the outsider to come home to God. And this act is one of the things that got him killed. He walked into the most powerful religious institution in the nation in front of everyone and exposed it as a den of thieves. And the leaders he embarrassed that day started actively plotting his death right after. The road from this moment leads straight to the cross.

And that leads us into question number nine. We've crossed into the final night of Jesus's life, the hours between his arrest and the cross. And what happened in those hours is one of the most rushed, rigged, exhausting stretches in all of scripture. So here's the question. Between his arrest late that night and his crucifixion the next morning, how many separate trials did Jesus face? A six, B 2, C 3, or D one? 10 seconds. Cast your answer.

All right, the answer is a six. Six separate trials in roughly 12 hours. Most of them in the dead of night. Now, I think most people picture one dramatic courtroom scene. Jesus standing before Pilate. That's the one that we kind of know of. And the crowd is shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" But that was only the end of it. Before he ever reached that moment with Pilate, he'd already been hauled from one hearing to the next all night long. Let me walk you through it because this is going to uncover some things. These six trials came in two waves. three religious trials, then three government trials. The religious trials came first. Now, trial one, they took Jesus first to a man named Annis, who was the former high priest. He was kind of the power broker behind the scenes. Even though he was not the high priest anymore, he kind of held a lot of power. Now the second religious trial, they took him from there to a man named Kyifus who was the current high priest where the council had already gathered in the middle of the night. Then the third religious trial at daybreak, the full Jewish ruling council, think of this as the Jewish Supreme Court called the Sanhedrin, met to make it official. So you already have three hearings before the religious authorities and they had one goal. We are going to stop at nothing to declare Jesus guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death. But here's their problem. Under Roman occupation because they were Jews living in a Roman uh Roman uh uh owned land. The Jewish leaders weren't permitted or allowed by law to execute anyone. Only Rome could hand down a death sentence. So they had to take Jesus to the Roman government so that the Romans would execute them. And that kicks off the second wave of his uh of his trials. So trial four, they drag him to Pilate. Now, who is Pilate? Think of Pilate as the Roman governor who oversaw uh the southern portion of Israel, the place where Jesus would be crucified. But Pilate questions Jesus and he finds nothing wrong with him. Matter of fact, he says plainly, "I find no fault in this man." Pilate doesn't want this case. He's like, there's nothing wrong with him. So, he's like, you know, what do you want me to do? Now, notice when he hears Jesus is from Galilee, HE SAYS, OH, this is how I'm going to get out of this. I'm going to send him to the governor of Galilee, whose name is Herod, who's from the family of Herod, because Herod oversees the Galilean region. I'll send him to Herod and I'll let Herod deal with him because I I find no fault in the man. So Pilate thinking that he's going to wipe his hands of it sends him to Herod. And now Jesus has tried for the fifth time before Herod who governed Galilee and happened to be in town for the Passover. Now what does Herod do? Herod mocks him, dresses him up in a robe, gets bored with Jesus when Jesus refuses to perform a miracle, and sends him right back to Pilate. Now six, he's before Pilate a second time. And this is where Pilate caves, washes his hands, hands Jesus over to be crucified. Six trials. And I want you to notice something staggering about these verdicts. In the three religious trials, he was found guilty every single time. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. But in these three government trials, Pilate not guilty. Herod not guilty. Pilate again not guilty. The only authorities with the actual power to assess the legal charge declared him innocent three times. and he was crucified anyway. Did you ever catch that? The most thoroughly tried man in history shuffled through six courtrooms in one night was pronounced innocent by every judge with the authority to convict him on the charge and they killed him regardless. And none of this was happening by accident. Listen to what Peter said about it weeks later. "But God knew what would happen. and his pre-arranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed with the help of lawless Gentiles. You Jewish people nailed him to a cross and killed him." Notice those two truths sitting right next to each other. Lawless people did this. The rigged trials, the false witnesses, the cowardly governor, all of it was genuinely human evil. And yet it was God's pre-arranged plan. Man meant it for murder. God meant it for salvation. Both are true at the very same time. So here's where I want us to land here. We often picture the cross as the only place where Jesus suffered for us. And yes, that was gruesome. But before a single nail was driven, he had already endured an entire night of injustice. Exhausted, beaten, lied about, abandoned, shuffled from judge to judge like a problem nobody wanted to own. He didn't have to stand through any of it. He could have spoken one word and walked away. But he stayed to all six. So when you think about what your salvation cost Jesus, do you just think about the cross or do you think about the night for it?

And this leads us to the final question. It's a good one. And it takes us into the courtroom to the strange legal move that actually sent Jesus to the cross.

Question 10. The Jewish leaders convicted Jesus of blasphemy in their own court. But in front of Pilate, they swapped it for a completely different charge, treason against Caesar. So here's the question. Why? A, they had found new evidence against him. B, Pilate was Jewish and would care about blasphemy. C. Rome would never execute a man over a Jewish religious dispute, so they recast him as a political threat to Caesar. Or D, they were trying to give him a fair Roman trial. 10 seconds. Lock it in.

All right. The answer is C. And this is one of the most calculated coldblooded legal maneuvers in the entire Bible. Let me set it up. So in their own religious court, the charge against Jesus was clearly blasphemy. It always was. Listen to the moment it happened in Mark 14:61. "But Jesus was silent and made no reply. Then the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Messiah, the son of the blessed one?' Jesus said, 'I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.' Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, 'Why do we need other"

witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?"

"Guilty," they all cried. He deserves to die.

So, I want you to notice the charge against Jesus from a Jewish perspective was blasphemy, claiming to be God. And by Jewish law, that was a death penalty offense. But here's the problem. We touched on it earlier. They couldn't carry out an execution. Only Rome could do that. So, they needed Pilate, the Roman governor, to sign the death warrant.

But here's the catch. Pilate couldn't care less about Jewish religious law. Imagine them walking into a Roman courtroom and saying, "This man deserves to die because he claims to be God." Pilot would be like, "Wait a wait, you're kidding me. Because he makes a claim that he's God. You You want me to execute him?" Pilate would have laughed them right out of the courtroom. That's y'all religious thing. Y'all settle it yourselves. A charge of blasphemy would not have been enough to get Pilate to execute a death penalty on Jesus.

So they dropped the religious charge and had to come up with a political charge, one that the Romans would actually care about. Listen to the new accusation. Luke 23:2. They began to state their case. "This man has been leading our people astray by telling them not to pay their taxes to the Roman government and by proclaiming he is the Messiah, a king."

Do you see the switch inside the Jewish court? The charge was blasphemy. Jesus claimed to be God, but in front of Pilate, it switched and suddenly it becomes treason. He's claiming to be a king. He is now a rival a or a threat if you will to the Roman emperor Caesar. He's telling people that they don't need to pay their taxes, which is a flatout lie because Jesus told people that they should pay their taxes. But that didn't matter. They found the one word that would make a Roman governor's blood run cold: king.

Because in Rome's world, there was only one king, Caesar. And anyone setting himself up as another king was committing treason. and treason meant crucifixion. So here is the same man Jesus, same day, two completely different charges depending on which courtroom they were standing in. They told the Jews he was a blasphemer and they told Rome he was a revolutionary or guilty of treason. Whatever it took to get him on a cross.

But notice even then Pilate didn't want to do it. He kept trying to release him. So they played their final card and this is the one that broke Pilate. Notice John 19:12. "Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, 'If you release this man, Pilate, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.'"

There it is. That was the threat. Pilate, if you let this man go, we will report you directly to Caesar ourselves that you were okay with a man who claims to be king. We will report you to him and you're going to get in trouble. They were not going to let Pilate walk away because they wrapped Jesus in the one charge a Roman official could not afford to ignore: disloyalty to the emperor. Pilate the coward came. He handed Jesus over to be crucified.

But here's the thing that's so interesting. They thought they were being so clever. They thought the king charge was a lie they invented to manipulate Pilate. And it was the truest thing anyone said all day because Jesus is a king, the king of kings. They even nailed a sign over his head on the cross meant as mockery. "Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews." They thought they were sneering. They thought they were mocking him, but they were actually prophesying. The charge they fabricated to kill him was the very title he has held before the foundation of the world.

All right, so it's time to tally up your score. How did you do on this quiz? Drop your score in the comments. Maybe you did great, maybe you didn't do as well as you would have liked, but remember, the score was never really the point. The question is, did you learn something that would make reading the Gospels more fun and more understandable? If so, then the goal of this video was accomplished.

So, my prayer is that you don't just walk away feeling smarter or feeling good about yourself cuz you got a 10 out of 10, but hungrier hungry to dig into the word of God like never before. And I want to remind you, if you want to learn how to study the Bible on a seminary level, click the link in the description below where you can learn all about my online course that is designed to take your study of the word of God from where it is now to where you'll be studying the Bible on a seminary level.

If you're not interested in that, uh if you haven't heard, I've got a brand new book called Breaking Through: How ordinary Believers Experience Extraordinary Freedom. I would love for you to get your hands on it. People are absolutely raving about it already, which blesses my soul. Um, and I think it'll be a blessing to you as well. Link is also in the description. I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now.