Page 18 - The Gospel Chronicle - Parallel

Parallel: Introduction

randomly ordered stories that need to be realigned to achieve coralation of similar sounding events.
The result is a trade up of one harmony for another, or of chronology for the counterfeit of comparison.

While similarities do clearly exist, The Gospel Chronicle does not focus on similarities of
events, but rather the order of events that are present. If the similarities naturally line up, then great!
But if not, such similar events are viewed as different events occurring at different times. The order of

events is derived from internal gospel references to Hebrew feast days, geographical locations,
estimated travel times, and literary progressions like “Thus”, “Therefore” or “After these things”,
which tell the reader plainly the natural order of events as the writers intended them to be read.

A great example of this is found in the passages of the four gospels that record Jesus’ baptism
by John at the Jordan River. The typical rendering of gospel order is that Jesus immediately went into
the wilderness upon coming out of the water. While this is essentially what happens, there is a small
caveat not largely associated with Jesus’s baptism. If we only read Matthew, Mark and Luke it can be

construed that Jesus immediately departed into the wilderness. But once we reinclude the gospel of
John we receive a missing piece of the equation. We find in John 1:15 – John 2:11, that there are five
sequential days recorded, encapsulating Jesus’ baptism, that must influence our understanding of
when Jesus departs into the wilderness. These include the day (1) before John baptizes Jesus, (2) the
day Jesus is baptized, (3) when Jesus meets Andrew and Peter, (4) when Jesus calls Philip and

Nathanael as his first actual disciples and (5) the wedding in Cana where Jesus turns the water into
wine, called the beginning of Jesus miracles:

“John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that
cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me… The next day John seeth
Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God [Jesus is here baptized] … And I
saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God… Again the next day after John stood, and

two of his disciples; And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus… the Messias, which is, being
interpreted, the Christ… The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth

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