Author Description

If you want to know the true, full story of Jesus, what he did, when he did it, and why he did it, in one, seamless narrative, this book is for you. If you are a believer, it will enhance your devotions by helping you know Jesus more intimately. If you are a skeptic, it will logically challenge your doubts. Even if you know the Bible well, this book will show you aspects of Jesus' personality, mission, friends and enemies that will come as a surprise. You will see things that were always there in plain sight - in the ink on the pages of Scripture - but you will see them as you never saw them before. The product of more than 8,000 hours of primary research and teaching to adult Bible study classes at Grace Church of Glendora, California, this book shows how the four gospels harmonize in perfect, non-contradictory detail. It explores the relationships and motives of Jesus, of his Disciples, and of his family. You will feel the political, cultural, and theological currents swirling around Judea in Jesus' day. You'll learn why everyone logically believed the Messiah had to appear exactly when Jesus did. You'll learn why the majority of people Jesus encountered believed immediately that he was the Messiah, and why the masses greeted him with euphoria while the Jewish leaders and the Herods received him with dread. You'll learn how the Bethlehem Star was a true celestial event; how Mary managed her relationship with Joseph and her family after her divine pregnancy; how Jesus escaped death many times until he was ready to die; why Pilate argued so exhaustively against killing Jesus; how both Peter and Judas denied Jesus, but one was saved and the other lost; and how Jesus turned the Passover into the astonishing new rituals of the Last Supper and the Cross and changed the world forever. Far from appearing in an insignificant geographical backwater - the Messiah came in a time and place which was then the hinge of politics and history. He wove together the threads of Old Te