The Gospels and Red Volkswagens

What if the order of the New Testament was on purpose? What if we read the Gospels not as four varying accounts, but as one inspired four-fold Gospel? How would our understanding of the rest of the New Testament change if we read it through the lens of this four-fold Gospel? These questions, posed to me by Dr. Jonathan Pennington, made me stop and think. To illustrate, he drew a helpful illustration for me, about a red Volkswagen.

If you were to go out and buy a red Volkswagen, something remarkable would happen to your perception and observation of other cars around you. You would begin to see, more than ever, many other red Volkswagens. For me, it was a blue ’75 VW Vanagon, but that’s beside the point. I could immediately see what he was getting at: when you saturate yourself in the Gospels and see them as the defining documents of the movement of Jesus followers, you begin to see them echoed and alluded to (not always in direct reference, of course) throughout the rest of the New Testament. The four-fold Gospel is, after all, the biography of Jesus the Messiah, upon whom the rest of the writers put their faith and whose followers they wrote to instruct.

This conversation with Dr. Pennington led me to reevaluate the fervor and depth of my own study of the Gospels, and I realized that I had only begun to skim the surface. That’s why I am excited about the Mobile Ed: Studies in the Gospel Bundle (9 courses).

This collection of Mobile Ed courses provides training from some of academia’s forefront scholars on the Gospels and this Jesus whose story they tell. This is an unprecedented opportunity for you to study from Jonathan Pennington, Daniel M. Doriani, Craig A. Evans, Mark L. Strauss, David E. Garland, and Joel Willitts. Combined, these authors and professors have spent decades studying Jesus and the Gospels, and they have produced many esteemed commentaries and monographs on the subjects.

This Mobile Ed bundle includes nine courses to ground you in a firm foundation of Gospel studies:

• NT251 The Sermon on the Mount by Jonathan Pennington
• NT252 Parables of Jesus by Daniel M. Doriani
• NT253 Miracles of Jesus by Daniel M. Doriani
• NT301 The Gospels as Ancient Biography: A Theological and Historical Perspective by Jonathan Pennington
• NT311 The World of Jesus and the Gospels by Craig A. Evans
• NT314 Book Study: The Gospel of Matthew in Its Jewish Context by Craig A. Evans
• NT315 Book Study: The Gospel of Mark by Mark L. Strauss
• NT316 Book Study: The Gospel of Luke by David E. Garland
• NT323 Book Study: The Gospel of John by Joel Willitts

How do I use these courses?

Mobile Ed courses are carefully designed to fit your life and your learning style. For the full Mobile Ed experience, you can take the course in a structured environment within your software, taking full advantage of self-tests and quizzes, associated readings, and the course’s group for discussion. The video lectures are available in short, logical thought-packets to help you learn more in less time. They are accompanied by transcripts to help you search, make notes, and follow along.

If you want to simply watch the videos, you can do that too—on your computer or your mobile device! This is perfect to learn alongside your spouse, or to enjoy learning during a long commute.

These courses can also be utilized like an enhanced commentary. Search them, quote them in papers and articles, and comb through their information as Logos presents the data in its tools and features.

No matter how you learn, Logos Mobile Education will be a great fit for you. So dive into an in-depth study of Jesus and the Gospels with the best guides you could ask for!