HOLY GOSPELS

The New Testament is divided into the Gospels and Apostles. The four Gospels record the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ The Apostolic section of the New Testament records how the Church founded by Christ on the Apostles continues the life and mission of Jesus in the world until the end of time.

Regarding the attempts by certain scholars to find the “real” Jesus behind the Jesus in the Gospels, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his recent popular book Jesus of Nazareth:

“All of these attempts have produced a common result: the impression that we have very little certain knowledge of Jesus and that only at a later stage did faith in his divinity shape the image we have of him. This impression has by now penetrated deeply into the minds of Christian People at large”

 The Pope describes a calamitous state of affairs—a state where even Christians reading the Gospels come away from them with the impression that “very little certain knowledge of Jesus” can be gotten from them. The Gospels are supposed to be the good news, but this state of affairs is very bad news! The causes of this problem are many and various, but they basically all boil down to a separation of reason from faith and a separation of faith from real life and action. This course in the CLAA will produce the opposite “impression,” namely, that the most rational account of what Jesus did and taught is the account given by faith and that this faith urges us on to embrace the best way to live our lives as human beings and as Christians.

The very fact that there are four Gospel points to a deep truth: the incredible reality of Jesus Christ, God-made-man, is so powerful and great, so deep and rich and subtle that there is no way for the whole of that reality to be contained in just one particular view of Him, even an inspired one. Indeed, the very last thing said in the very last of the Gospels is that even if the whole world were filled with books about Jesus, they still would not be able to contain the fullness of all that Christ did (John 21:25). And the word he uses for “world” isn’t the word for planet earth—it’s the Greek word cosmos—the whole universe! If we have to say anything about it, then Christ is even more amazing and wonderful than all that we find in the Gospels, not less.

But, as St. John also says, the Gospels “have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30). Each of the four Gospels, then, though they share a deep harmony with the others, has something distinctive to say. The purpose of this course will be to read each of the Gospels-- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (an average of ten lessons per Gospel)-- giving special attention to the unique focus and structure of each Gospel. The course will also show how these distinctive portraits of Christ build on one another and harmonize into a complete picture of Christ.

The goal of all of this, as St. John states it, is 1. “that you may believe,” and 2. “that you may have life in His Name.” Thus this course will reveal the profound union that exists between the Gospels and the Creed (1) and also the profound connections between this faith and Christ’s life as the model for our own (2).

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Nathan Schmiedicke, Ph.D.

Dr. Nathan Schmiedicke is the director of the CLAA Biblical Studies program.   Dr. Schmiedicke was born the fifth of eleven children and raised on a small family farm in Michigan. He attended Catholic school through eighth grade and was home-schooled through High school. After graduating with honors from Thomas Aquinas College (CA) he married his college sweetheart, and began graduate school at Marquette University (Milwaukee). He completed his PhD in Biblical Theology in 2007 and began teaching Theology, Scripture, and languages at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, PA and classics at nearby Villanova University. Dr. Schmiedicke is a Senior Fellow with the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.  Nathan and Wendy have five boys.