Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Introduction

What is the Church of Jesus Christ?

• Jesus’ Promise of the Church

• The Apostolic Gospel

• The Body of Christ

• The Apostles' Doctrine (Part 1)

II.

The activity of the original church

Definition of “devote” from Louw-Nida: to continue to do something with intense effort, with the possible implication of despite difficulty– ‘to devote oneself to, to keep on, to persist in.’

III.

The Apostles?

A. Who were they and where do they get their authority?

(Mark 3:13-19)

B. How can we be sure that what they have preached, taught and written is from Christ?

1. Christ promised that the Triune God would be with them to witness to the world.

(John 14-16)

2. Signs and Wonders accompanied their ministry.

3. The word of the apostles had to survive the apostles to reach the world!

A. The Scriptures

B. What are the actual Scriptures?

Who wrote them?

1. Matthew – the Apostle Matthew

2. Mark – the interpreter of the Apostle Peter

“This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ.9

For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them.

For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.”

These things are related by Papias concerning Mark.[1]

[1] Eusebius of Caesaria, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed.

Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans.

Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 172–173.

3. Luke – the companion of the Apostle Paul

Luke is also the writer of the Acts of the apostles.

4. John – the Apostle and brother of James, the son of Zebedee, one of the sons of Thunder.

5. Romans - Philemon (13) – the Apostle Paul

6. Hebrews – the author is unknown but is attested by Timothy who was the companion of the Apostle Paul and those who received the letter.

The Catholic Epistles (as early as the 4th century; see Eusebius, H.E. 2.23.25)

7. James – the brother of the Lord, the most prominent James in the early church aside from the Apostle James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, who was martyred early by Herod (Acts 12:2).

8. 1 & 2 Peter – the Apostle Peter

9. 1, 2, & 3 John – the Apostle John

10. Jude – the brother of the Lord

11.

Revelation – the Apostle John