The Words of Jesus – Axios Press

Summary

The canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, provide not only Jesus’ words but also his actions, the context within which the words are spoken. By presenting Jesus’ words without those intervening stories, we can experience Jesus’ teachings in a way that is fresh and immediate. When we are confronted directly with a saying in The Words of Jesus, we cannot glide over it as we follow the story; rather, we have the singular opportunity to linger over his words and reflect on their meanings. A valuable teaching tool and research resource in the classroom, The Words of Jesus is a new way to study the foundations of Christianity and is ideal for those who seek an introduction to Jesus’ ethical teachings.

Chapter divisions:

*Section 1: Important Sayings

*Section 2: Other Sayings

*Section 3: Complete Sayings

Complete Sayings are arranged chronologically, with similar sayings from different gospels grouped together.

Taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Acknowledgments

Editor’s Note

Part I

Selected Sayings

Part II

Other Important Sayings

Part III

The Complete Sayings from the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in Chronological Order

EDITOR’S NOTE

The canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, provide not only Jesus’ words, but also his actions, the context within which the words are spoken. Why then extract Jesus’ words alone?

There are three principal reasons for doing so. The first reason is that isolating his words makes them even more immediate and unmistakable. When we are confronted directly with a saying, we cannot glide over it as we follow the general contour of the story. A second reason is that the words taken alone are compact, 44,382 in all; so we can either linger over them and study them intently or read them all in one sitting. A third reason is that extracting words permits us to compare similar teachings from different gospels more directly than we can by using a standard concordance.

This collection of the words of Jesus is in some sense an experiment. The complete words have never been extracted and published alone, to the best of our knowledge, so we will have to see if readers find it useful. The layout is as follows. Part I provides a selection of particularly well known sayings from all four gospels presented as a kind of dramatic monologue. It is as if Jesus were speaking directly to each of us. Part II presents additional sayings that are not quite so often quoted but still seem very important. Some of these slightly less well known sayings may be initially startling, as in Matthew, chapter 10, verse 34 (“I came not to send peace but a sword”), by which Jesus presumably means that his teachings are inherently controversial and demanding and that they may even divide family members from one another.

Part III provides all of Jesus’ words from all the gospels in the order in which they appear to have been spoken. Thus it repeats material covered in Parts I and II but fills in the remainder of Jesus’ words. It is in part a chronology and, like all chronologies, inevitably involves some guesswork, since the gospels are not always concerned with the exact sequence of events, and it is not always clear where an episode presented in only one gospel might have fit into another. However, Part III is more than a chronology because it not only lists events but actually quotes the full text of the words spoken at each point in time. To the best of our knowledge, this has also never been attempted before.

The advantage of gathering the words from all four gospels in Part III in more or less chronological order is that it follows the story of Jesus’ life more closely than a random collection of sayings, and it enables us to group together different gospel accounts of the same or similar sayings so that we can readily compare them. In cases where Jesus’ words are the same or similar from gospel to gospel and where they seem to be spoken at more or less the same time to the same person or persons, we have simply presented the different gospel versions one after another. Where Jesus’ words are similar from gospel to gospel but seem to be spoken at a different time or to a different person or persons, we have placed the heading “Related Sayings” above the passages in question. Whether the similar sayings are contextually identical or contextually different, the objective of grouping them in Part III is to help us reflect on their meaning, not to compare them word for word as a biblical scholar might.

Finally and importantly, this book is in no sense meant to substitute for the gospels themselves. The editor assumes that the words of Jesus will lead readers back to the gospels themselves again and again to place passages in exact context.

Hunter Lewis

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From Part II

OTHER IMPORTANT SAYINGS

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

7:6

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.