Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

They are not identical so which one is TRULY Jesus words. I too agree that the spirit helped them remember, but i also relaise that the nitended audience of Matthew is not the intended audience of Mark. THe emphasis of MAtthew is not the same emphasis as Mark.

You said it quite well. The Holy Spirit brought Jesus’ words to their remembrance. It was His own words with no additions at all. Fully accurate. Yet each one brought out what was necessary for their own intended audience by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. This means that there is no contradiction at all in the accounts. They are all fully inspired and they are all accurate. It is the same as the accounts of the miracles of Jesus. Were there two demoniacs or only one when Jesus crossed over into the country of the Gadarenes? Matthew says there were two (Matt 8:28) while Mark and Luke only mention one. Which accounts are inaccurate and thus uninspired? None of them. They are all fully accurate and fully inspired. Mark and Luke do not say that only one demoniac was there. However there focus was not on the one who is not recorded as getting healed but on the one who was healed and sent back to his people as a testimony.

If we take the view that the words are not necessarily accurate, then we are left to our own interpretation and our own decision to know what to keep and what to throw out. We become the test for truth instead of believing that God’s testimony will never be inaccurate. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean that the Word is wrong. It is rather our own understanding that is wrong.

Yesterday I talked to someone who believes that Jesus suffering didn’t end at the cross that Jesus had to be tortured for three days and three nights before “it is finished”. They have accept a world view that teaches them that all the English words translated “hell” mean a place of punishment instead of understanding that the Greek has several words with different meanings. The words “It is finished” then can be changed to this part is finished and there is another three days of torture in addition to the several hours of torture that He already endured. If the Word cannot be trusted to correct them, then we are all left to our interpretations.

Bottom line, I believe that the words are completely accurate without additions that would add to what Jesus said. They are completely accurate and completely inspired because the Holy Spirit does a perfect job. If you believe that Jesus’ words that were recorded are not accurate and that the Holy Spirit inspired the disciples to add words that Jesus never said, then I guess we have a different view of inspiration.