Discover parables that ignited minds, miracles that defied logic, and unyielding love that knows no bounds. As you walk alongside Jesus through His joys and trials, you'll find your own perspectives challenged, your heart yearning, and your spirit awakening to the boundless possibilities of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Join us to hear the amazing but true record of the Man who changed the world, the Person about whom millions have strong opinions but little knowledge. From His humble beginnings in Bethlehem to His time-transcending teachings, the Anointed One changed the world forever
Hi there friend. This is Janet Parshall. Thank you so much for downloading this broadcast. And as always, I hope you hear something that's going to help you grow up in him and encourage you to get out there in the marketplace of ideas so you can let your light so shine. You can influence and occupy, and you can seek the welfare of the city. But before you go and listen, let me take one moment to tell you about this month's truth tool. It's called The Anointed One, and it's really a marvelous way to study the scriptures. It takes the four Gospels, combines them all together, but writes it in chronological order. Now, it was never designed to replace your Bible. Read it alongside your Bible. So you have the original text of God's Word, but also just so you can better understand who Jesus is and what he's done for us to be able to read it chronologically. All four of the Gospels condensed together is really a remarkable way to start to understand who the Savior is. It's called the Anointed One, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. We're listener supported radio, so it's my way of saying thank you. When you make a contribution. You can do that by calling 877 Janet 58 877 Janet 58. Make a gift of any amount and I'll send you the Anointed One. Or you can give online, if you prefer, in the market with Janet parshall.org. Scroll to the bottom of the page. There's the cover of the book. Click on and make your donation. While you're there, consider becoming a partial partner. Those are people who give every single month at a level of their own choosing as my way of saying thank you. You always get the monthly truth tool, but you get a weekly newsletter that includes my writing and an audio piece just for my partial partners. So please consider giving to In the Market with Janet Parshall, call 877 Janet 58 877 Janet 58 or online at in the market with Janet parshall.org. Now please enjoy the broadcast. Hi friends, this is Janet Parshall. Thanks so much for choosing to spend the next hour with us. Today's program is prerecorded so our phone lines are not open. But thanks so much for being with us and enjoy the broadcast.
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
Americans worshiping government over God.
Extremely rare safety move by a.
Major 17 years. The Palestinians and Israelis negotiated.
Hi, friends. Welcome to in the market with Janet Parshall. Ever sung that hymn? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Or there's something about that name. It's more than just a name. Every single human being living now, living in the past, living in the future, should the Lord tarry, is going to have to answer the question, who is this Jesus? And if he is exactly who he says he is, the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the father but by him, well, then there's going to be. When it all comes to an end, a reckoning. And the world will be divided into two camps. Those who said yes and those who said no. But in the meantime, he still continues to fascinate even those who haven't yet fully recognized who he is. The unblemished Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. But they're fascinated. Did he really do miracles? Did he really well get executed and then rise from the dead? Did he really do all of the things that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John historically wrote about? Is that true, or are those just ignorant veterans 500 years after the fact, full of contradictions and errors? And what if that story were to be put together in one book where you simply chronologically went from, well, the point where you knew he was coming as Messiah to the point where his resurrection takes place and you put it all together in a book, what would that read like? Would that hold your attention? Would you begin to understand in a new and a fresh way, exactly who the Anointed One is? That's exactly what we're going to talk about. A book that did just that and bears the title The Anointed One The complete life story of Jesus Christ. It's written by a man who loves God's Word. Rod Loughlin is with us. He has spent more than 50 years as a pastor and a businessman. He's a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He pastored two Southern Baptist churches. He's owned businesses in real estate aviation software. His love of the Bible led him to develop the readable Bible. You can learn more about that on the LinkedIn site that I've put on a page for rod, and he's put his full, the full story of Christ into this one book called The Anointed One. It's a very fascinating way to discover again who Jesus is. Rod, the warmest of welcomes. I've been so looking forward to having this conversation with you. First, I want to learn more about you. So you've pastored churches, but also you've been a wonderfully successful businessman as well. Tell me a little about your journey.
Well, my my brother says I've had a checkered career. Janet. The Lord is just. You know, I started out actually at Chase Manhattan Bank as an analyst. I've done mergers and acquisitions as a corporate financial consultant on my own. Um, traveled the world. Uh, when you fly in an airplane, you're breathing an air that probably goes through parts that were made by a company. My brother and I used to own, um, I've done a whole bunch of things in business, but. But my love is doing exactly what your last guest was talking about. Telling the story of Jesus. That's what we're here to do.
So very, very true. So I love the way that you've straddled these two worlds, but you've what's held you together. The super glue, if I may put it that way, is really and truly a love of Jesus and a love of His Word. This is a very creative way, though, to lay out the book the way you did in the Anointed One. Explain to our friends who are yet to get a copy, and I certainly hope after our conversation they will get one. But talk to me about the way in which you laid this out, and particularly as a grad of southwestern, how you could do this and not adulterate, if you will, what we know to be the text of the Gospels, but yet fill in the blanks as you move along.
It was a very interesting project when I completed translating the four Gospels for the readable Bible. I found myself wondering, can I take every word of these four gospels and put them together and have one story with no contradictions? And do they all? Does it fit together? Does it make sense? Now, other people have asked that question, and A.T. Robertson put out a famous harmony of the Gospels. There's several out there, and I just felt that it was not intellectually honest to answer my question that way by just looking at what other people had done. So I read through the four Gospels and I, and I took a spreadsheet, actually, and, and I identified all the what I call moments in the life of Jesus. In the four Gospels, we have 438 moments in the Life of Jesus. For instance, the moment he was born, the moment his mother called him over and said, they're out of wine. And he said, what should I what's it to me? In the each of these are moments, and I identified 438 moments. And then what I did, I made a took four columns and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John made them different colors. And I would put down the chapter and verse of each moment in the four Gospels. So I used the chronology in Luke. As you know, there's no one chronology of Jesus's life. We don't know exactly when everything happened, but I took Luke's. Luke's said that he presented the information in an orderly fashion. Some people interpret that word as chronological. That's that's a debatable thing. Scholars debate. I don't ever debate. It's just there. So I took that chronology, hung all the other events that weren't in Luke's chronology onto that chronology. And I had a life of Christ with 438 moments. Then I took each moment and let's let's just take that moment when Mary says, they're out of wine. That's a moment. And let's just I'm making this up. Actually, that only appears in John, but let's just say Matthew had one sentence and Mark had two, and Luke had three. So I took every noun, adjective, verb, and adverb of the different sentences by the different gospel writers. And I created 1 or 2 sentences with every one of those nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. So I then I had a paragraph, a short paragraph, or even just one sentence about an event, and I worked my way through event by event and produced a manuscript with every noun, adjective, verb, and adverb of the four Gospels as one story and 110,000 words became about 70,000 words. It was a really interesting project, and I only had 20 words that I struggled with thinking, how do these fit? And I thought out of 70,000, or starting out with 110,000 words, a 20 word problem is probably my error.
Oh, I have to tell you, I'm so glad I asked about your background first, because the business side of your brain just came through in a wonderful way, the way you did this. I'm fascinated by this process and I just love the book. It's called The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. Brad Laughlin is our guest, and we get to spend the entire hour with him. I'm happy about that. We'll continue right after this. The four gospels tell the life of Jesus from different perspectives. What if you could read a book that contains all four Gospels in one? A book to be used alongside your Bible. That's why I've chosen the Anointed One as this month's truth tool. Read his story in chronological order to better understand the scriptures. As for your copy of The Anointed One, when you give a gift of any amount to in the market, call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58 or go to in the market with Janet parshall.org. We have the privilege of spending the hour with Rod Laughlin. He is the author of the readable Bible, and he joins us today to discuss his newest book, The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. And it really tells these four gospels almost in story form, but it doesn't in a chronological order, which I think is fabulous. Rod, before I go on, because my network headquarters is based in Chicago and she might be listening, talk to me about your co-author.
Susan Tough, one of the most wonderful women I've ever met. Susan was introduced to me by, um, uh, another friend of hers as a possible editor for the readable Bible or possible proofreader. And I discovered that this woman has this incredible ability to proofread. And she's a great copywriter. She does work for Moody Press, by the way. She became the senior editor of the Readable Bible. But when she was younger, God sent her to seminary, told her to go to seminary. She knew she was not going to be a pastor. She had no idea why she would ever go to seminary, but she was obedient and she did it. And years later, she became the senior editor of a Bible. She is the co-author in this book, and her great imagination is constrained within biblical limits by her godly character, and her thoughts are fed by her knowledge of the Scripture and empowered by the indwelling Christ. And the result of that is that she has produced the most wonderful sentences that make the story of Jesus flow. When the gospel writers were writing, it's kind of like they were sitting there and God was feeding them these, these thoughts. And it's kind of like Jesus did this, Jesus did this, Jesus did this. And the the Gospels, when you read them, you go from event to event to event, and you don't see the human side of the story of the apostles, their relationships to each other. There's kind of a backstory that's hidden. And we came up with this idea that we wanted to take the story of Jesus and put it in a form that would read like a secular biography. So people and there's a lot of these sigh of relatives like this. They take pride in all their knowledge, but they will not read Scripture. But you can't be a really knowledgeable person in Western culture if you don't know about the life of Christ. So we have produced a book that believers can give to unbelievers and say, hey, I know you don't want to read scripture or a Bible, but you really ought to know about this man who changed the world and has been such an influence in our world. It's because of him that we emphasize love and charity and devotion to goodness and righteousness and doing good things and treasuring children who were just children were the dregs of the earth before Christ came along. They weren't valued. And so he's affected our society. And here's a book you can hand to a lost person, and they're interested in it because it just flows. The sermon on the Mount, instead of being 3 or 4 pages of a soliloquy, which is what a secular person would see it as, we added a bunch of dialogue where people are asking questions and Jesus is answering the questions. So the Anointed One is not the Bible. It's the complete life story of Jesus. And we take the events. Every event in the Bible, every, I'd say 98% of the words. Not every event in the Bible, every event in the four Gospels we've taken, 98, 99% of the words are in the Anointed One, but they're tied together with embellished sentences, embellished text that Susan put together.
Susan, my friend, if you're listening, thank you for your outstanding work, and you are appreciated by more people than you know. And I echo everything rod said before about just the Way. This is such a compelling book. By the way, I should point out Susan got her masters from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, so that is the co-author, along with Rod Laughlin of the book. We're talking about, The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. So let me play the devil's advocate because I'll get emails. You just said this isn't the Bible. And so some people are. I mean, there are people who think you'll lose your salvation if you read any other translation other than the King James. So I want to go and cut down some bramble bushes here, because there are people who are going to say, if you hand this to someone who's not saved, and yet it's not the Word of God, whether it's NIV, NASB, King James, whichever version, you've given them a second class gospel. How do you respond?
Okay, that's a great question. You know, before I answer that question, I want to I want to say something to your audience. If you're out there and you feel like God is sending you to seminary and you're fighting it because you can't imagine any reason you should go to seminary, think of Susan. Tough. You have no idea what God's going to do in your life next year, five years or ten years from now. Go. If God is asking you to go. Okay.
Good.
So let's talk about how I got saved. I am a real literalist. The readable Bible reads closest to the New American standard. I think when you're reading the Bible, you should know what the Word of God says. You don't want an interpretation of some man. You don't want to paraphrase. You want the words. But when I was lost and boy, I really was lost, I, I got I was flying on airplanes. I was 28 years old. I was on airplanes almost every week working as a corporate financial consultant on my own, and I just got bored of flying. So I happened to be taken by a priest to a Catholic charismatic prayer meeting, and I picked up a little good news, New Testament. Now the good news translation today's English version is written for people with English as a second language. It has about a fourth grade vocabulary. And Eugene Nida at the American Bible Society. And another man really were the first people to to develop the concept of dynamic translation instead of word for word translation. So the TeV or the good news, it's it's scripture, but it's not scripture. You can argue it both ways. But I read in the good news, I was happened to be in Ephesians, and I read. For by grace through faith you've been saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Now I have that scripture memorized that way. And those aren't the exact words of the TeV. But I read Ephesians 278 and nine and I thought, wait a minute, this letter is being read to all these people. I know there's people in the audience who've committed a mortal sin, one that's serious in its nature, they knew was sin, and they did on purpose. And my church taught that if you do that, you're going to hell until you confess it to a priest and do penance. And the good news told me, no, it's a gift. I got down on my knees and said, Lord, wherever this leads, whatever it means, I'll never confess my sins to a human again. I'm trusting you. Give me this gift. I got saved reading a dynamic translation.
Wow, what a story. Rod Loughlin is with us. He's the author of, along with Susan Tufts, The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. It is absolutely fascinating way to learn about Jesus. In addition to God's Word back after this. This is in the market with Janet Parshall. We are visiting with Rod Laughlin. He wrote the book The Anointed One, along with his co-author, Susan Tough, and the subtitle is The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. Now, I said that at the end, just before the break, along with the Bible, is neither rod nor I will ever abdicate. You're not going into the Word of God. But rod made a very important point, and that is what did Paul say? I have become all things to all people. By all means. So that some might be saved. If you have someone who won't go near the Bible because you have to put your brains in a box, shut up under the bed, and then think you're going to believe everything in that book. And that's out there in the marketplace of ideas. But they will read a book like this. First, you want to get their attention on who the person of Jesus is. So I'll ask you, I'm going to put you on the stand, and I'm going to be the prosecuting attorney here rather than the defense attorney. Have you changed the story, sir, in any way that would adulterate the true meaning of the Gospels?
Never, never. The the embellished text has comments like, maybe when they go to the camp, there might be a few comments of one apostle to another or one disciple to another. And then Jesus speaks to what they were speaking about, rather than Jesus just suddenly start speaking about a topic. We provide some flow that makes it, uh, enjoyable to read, easier to read, and creates humanity in the lives of people beyond just simple facts. You hear them talking a little more and that adds adds to the story. But it is not the Bible. But people will get saved. Reading this we bring in. Not only do we have the whole four Gospels here, but we bring in other texts. For instance, at the moment Jesus was born, the Anointed one reads, here was baby Jesus, about whom later the Apostle Paul wrote, being in the very nature of God Himself, he did not consider equality with God something to be held on to. Rather, he emptied himself by being made in human form and appearing as a man. He humbled himself by taking the form of a servant. And then we say, And God the Father said, and we quote the Psalms, which speaks to when Jesus was born, let all my angels worship him. So we bring in Old Testament scriptures, other New Testament scriptures to fill out the picture. I might say to see it how people in heaven might have seen it.
I love that, by the way, I have a friend who came to faith in Jesus Christ watching the serialized television show Jesus of Nazareth. So, you know, again, I think for fishing for men. We use all kinds of fishing baits. And you're not saying this is a replacement. This is a way of starting to interest people. And I like what you said before. Give this to somebody who doesn't yet know Jesus as their personal savior, and think somehow that the Bible is a book filled with contradictions, written by ignorant people who made mistakes during their passing down stories through oral tradition. You've heard it all. We've talked about it a thousand times on this program. This is a wonderful way of just seeing the biography of Jesus. But I liked also what you just said, rod, the biography of the other people. You know, I can't wait to have conversations with the 12. I want to know what it was like to be Peter. What was it like when you were going to get out of that boat and walk? You didn't have a whole lot of faith, but you had enough faith to get out of that boat and at least take a couple of steps. What was that like? Or what was it like to say, Lord, I'm never going to deny you. And then he looks at you. Bible doesn't say he says anything, but what was that look? You know, that look must have translated, I don't think condemnation. I think it was compassion. I knew you were going to do this, Peter. And boy, you have no idea how you're going to serve me for the rest of your life. I mean, the biography of those people absolutely fascinates me. So that's what I so appreciated, among other things, about the Anointed One. But I have to ask you, as a man who's a grad of southwestern man, who's been involved in pastoring a man who wrote the readable Bible, because the Bible is living and it is inerrant, inspired, immutable, transcendent, applies to all people in all times and all places, and, we're told, never returns void. When you were doing all your charts and graphs and nouns and verbs and moments, what did it change in you and what did you learn about our Jesus that you didn't know before?
Well, before I answer that question, I'm going to deny part of what you said. I did not write the readable Bible I translated with the doctor, Brendan Kennedy, the scriptures. We translated them from the Hebrew, Aramaic and the Greek, and we put them down as they are. We were just God's instrument to format them in modern formatting.
Wow. I will take that clarification, but it's still awe inspiring.
So yes. What amazes me. Okay, give me your question again specifically.
Okay. So if I can remember my question specifically, you got into this word and because it's not a book, it is the book that is the word of God doesn't contain is which means neither you nor me or anyone within the sound of my voice gets into that word without being impacted, changed. So what did it do to you when you were? Yes, absolutely. What did it do to you when you got into this and you started working on The Anointed One?
It made me see Jesus as a more real person than ever before. When you when you spend hours in a court, I spent 400 hours creating the text of those 438 moments. Isn't that interesting? I never thought about it this way before. Almost an hour. A moment When you spend time with anybody, you get to know them. You marry somebody, you spend time with them, you get to know them. You see things you never saw before. They talk to you more. Jesus said, my, my sheep. My sheep know my voice, and I do know Jesus's voice. He speaks to me sometimes. I hope he speaks to you. The he guides us in life. And when you spend time with Jesus reading about all he did and how he cared for people and healed people, and how he put up with people and how he suffered, you start to draw closer to him and you want to be more like him. And he did that to me, and he's given me this burning desire to introduce other people to him and help. Even more important, I think, help thousands, tens of thousands. Hopefully someday millions of people introduce Jesus to others.
Yes, amen and amen. The book is called The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ back after this. If you could read all four Gospels in one book to hear the story of Jesus in chronological order, would you? Well, that's why I've chosen the Anointed One as this month's truth tool. Use this book along with your Bible to truly grasp who Jesus is and what he did for us. As for your copy of The Anointed One, when you give a gift of any amount in the market, call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58 or go to in the market with Janet parshall.org. We are visiting with Rod Laughlin who's a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He spent 50 years as a businessman and a pastor. He helped develop the readable Bible, and we're talking about his newest book. It's called The Anointed One. He wrote it along with Susan Taffe. Again, the subtitle tells you what it's all about the complete life story of Jesus Christ told in story form, chronological order, and really, I think is a wonderful tool, particularly to put in the hands of someone who does not yet know Jesus as their personal Savior. So let me talk about a couple of things that I thought when I was reading it. So I love the fact that you date at the upper left hand page. So we start out at four BC, and then the next entrance is after you tell us about the setting. It's three BC and then Jesus is born and then one BC. And then finally it's interesting because there's this jump. You jump to the first year of his ministry AD 27. I know that the Bible is purposely silent about this point, particularly as you were developing this, developing this along with Susan. And you were writing it in this form. Did it just not think, oh, I'd love to fill in the gaps here. And yet there's a gap purposely there we're not to be told about. So tell me your thoughts.
There are gaps. One of the things I discovered in doing this, there are gaps that you never imagined, you never thought about. I'm going to throw one at you now. It's going to shock you. Did you know? You know absolutely nothing about anything Jesus ever did in November, December, January or February?
No. How interesting.
You know what he did from Passover to the Festival of Shelters or, uh, in the in October, but you know, nothing past that. So Jesus must have rested every year. He was out there doing ministry. And I don't know if you want to call it sabbatical or what, but we know nothing of what Jesus did in November, December, January, February. I was shocked. I just now tell you something else. How many days do you think you know about what Jesus did?
Oh, my. I'm afraid to ask. How many?
Well, he had roughly a 1200 or 1400 day ministry. Um, actually it depends. Now, what are you going to say? He had 360 days a year of ministry, or just really six months, a year of ministry? 180 days. So he had somewhere, you know, we can argue it between 900 and 1400 days of ministry, but you only know about and I only know about what he did on 93 days.
Wow.
So through the anointed one. See every one of those 430 moments in Jesus's life and start numbering the days and you'll come up with 91, 2 or 3 days. And a lot of those days, it just says he traveled through the villages of and names a couple of towns.
Wow. Okay. Again, um, I love the fact that we are allowed in God's classroom to ask questions, even though we might not get the answers this side of glory. So we often think of Jesus's ministry, and I'll bet everybody within the sound of my voice would say, yep, we think of it as a three year ministry, right? Roughly from 30 to 33. Now you've broken that down to 93 days. Wait, I have two immediate reactions to that. The first is, oh, my. He turns the world upside down in what is tantamount to 93 days. That makes him.
He did stuff 900 other days that we don't even know about. And that's why John wrote about how there wouldn't be enough. What did he say? There wouldn't be enough books in the world to fill it. All right. Well, he did so much that we know nothing about. We just know the tiniest tidbit of what he's done.
So, given just that tiniest tidbit of what he's done, it raises a couple of other questions. This follow up. So we've got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the canonical gospels. They're the ones that are there. Why do you think it is that? And John points this out, that there is so much it would be voluminous. He can't put it all in there. Why did they choose what they chose, do you think, to tell us if there were 900 plus other days, that he was doing things that are not included in the Gospels?
Well, I believe that all Scripture is inspired by God. I don't believe they chose what to tell us. I believe God said, tell them about blind Bartimaeus. Tell them about Jesus talking about Lazarus and Abraham. Tell them this. And there is what God did is tell. Told them to tell us and tell the enough. Write down enough that the world will have enough to understand that they must come and give their life to Jesus, for they will be judged. There will be a final judgment. And just like, uh, Abraham was it who was down in hell? And is it Abraham is down in hell and he calls out, Lazarus, uh, tell my brothers or sisters and and you know, Jesus says they they have the word that everybody has enough. There's enough in the Word of God for a person to understand his sin and to know that he needs to come to Jesus, that he's the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the father, but through him. The Word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any double edged sword. It divides as deep as the division between bone and marrow, between soul and spirit, and it's able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And so God has given us enough information and we don't need any more information. There would be no advantage to having it. People say, give me more, give me more. No, you have enough. God wants you to make a decision.
Yes, exactly. Wow. One of the things and there's so many about the book, I appreciate it, but I love the way that you break down. If we look at this quote unquote three year ministry, you chronologically look at what happened in year one, year two and year three. I never read it in that order before, because I don't see that distinction when I read the Gospels. But when you laid it out in this chronological form, then you begin to say, oh, that's where he was at that point in his ministry. I think that's fascinating.
Yes. And you and you also discover, if you look in the back at the maps and actually, I believe Jesus had a four year ministry, not a three year ministry. And you'll see that, yes, it has, but if you look in the map in the back, there's there's Jesus's travels, his first year of ministry, and you see the events in the first year of ministry and then the second year of ministry. There were a lot more events, not so many in the third year of ministry. It's kind of interesting, but that, again, what we know is in the fourth year is just all over the place. But what we know is such a small part of what he did, that I almost feel like I shouldn't have put those maps in of his travels, because it's really only 93 days of travel. When he was traveling for hundreds and hundreds of days, He did so much more than we know about.
Wow. But I have to tell you, just as somebody who loves visuals and it helps me as a student, my Bibles are always filled with Paul's missionary journeys. I've never seen a map like this that lays out Jesus's journey, and I very much appreciated that. The other thing too, is this came to a life for me traveling to Israel numerous times where you'd be going, you start going, oh, it's not that far from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Or where's Bethany in relationship to this? Or John? For why did he have why did he go that way through Samaria, as opposed to the way the Jews went, which would have been east of the Jordan? It just puts all of that in such clarity. I greatly, greatly appreciated that. Let me switch from Jesus to the biography of the apostles, which is because you were writing about them, and because their personalities come through in the Anointed One. Who surprised you the most when you were writing of the 12 of the apostles that are in the Gospels?
Well, first of all, I have to give credit to Susan for everything you see of insight into the apostles comes from Susan. I thought it was fascinating how Judas had money on his mind. And he had. He wanted people to know what he did, and I thought that was an interesting insight. And he wanted reward. Now you don't think about those things. You know, Judas was walking with Jesus all those years, but he was trying to satisfy some personal desires, not trying to satisfy Jesus's desires. And that and what really struck me, and it just hit me yesterday, of all things, it just hit me yesterday when I was thinking about that, how Jesus knew Judas. Now it's very, very, very hard. It's even harder than that for Christians to realize how human Jesus was. You know, he emptied himself and was found in the form of a human, and he had human limitations, and he was tempted in all ways like us, yet without sin. Well, if he was tempted in every way like us, he had to experience all the emotions that we experience because it's our emotions that so many times lead us to sin. So Jesus was surprised by a lot of things we read in the Scripture, and we're always so amazed that Jesus knew the heart of the man, or he knew what was going on in somebody's mind when he went up to talk to them. But he did not always know that there were moments when God gave him God the father gave him godly, supernatural insight into a person. But Jesus walked the earth as a human being with the limitations of a human being. Power went out from him when a woman touched the bottom of his robe, touched the tassels on his robe, and he did not know who it was. Isn't that interesting. Mhm. Mhm. And as you read this story and you read about the disciples, it's really striking to see when you think about what were they thinking and the things they went through and how Jesus was so humble and he loved Judas and he wanted Judas to be saved. That's a difficult thought. Mhm.
It is. And then to have this person whom you loved betray you.
Mhm. Mhm.
So if he's acquainted.
And then another deny you. Yes.
Exactly. That's exactly right. But doesn't that speak to the fact that when the Scripture says that he's acquainted with all of our sorrows. And I love that, so he knows what it's like to be tired. He knows what it's like to be betrayed. He knows what it's like to be rejected. That doesn't. That draws me closer to him because this, this unique person who is fully God and yet fully man and leaves, as we often talk about the splendor of the throne room of glory, and comes down and experiences betrayal and denial and distrust and all of those other things. That means when I go to him with my burdens, he can say, and does, I know. I know The Anointed One is the book, the complete life story of Jesus Christ. Rod Loughlin and Susan Tufa put it together. It's an absolutely fascinating way to read the story of Jesus back after this. The Anointed One The Complete Life Story of Jesus Christ. Rod Loughlin and Susan Taft have authored this book. It's a wonderful way that lays out the story of Jesus as found in the Gospels, but writes it in chronological order. It is not the Bible, as rod said before, but it's a wonderful way to take someone who doesn't yet know the Lord as their personal Savior and just assert a whole bunch of rumors, hearsay, false testimony about what the Word of God is, but will read something like this. And it's just I love the biography in this, particularly so toward the end on his way to Calvary. I love the way you put this. A few good days. So he comes in, the palm branches are there, the people are cheering. Talk to me about that, because I really think we we tend to view these incidents so much in isolation. You know, maybe it's because our pastors will teach us from the pulpit about one section of that. But when you think contextually of those days, from the hosannas to the crucify him! Whoa, what a week. Talk to me about that.
Well, and Jesus again, he was tempted in all ways like us. He had all the human experiences. And what does God do in our lives? He gives us mountaintop experiences and the mountaintop. Experiences are never meant to be lived in totally. For all our life, there are moments where the Lord shows his glory to us in certain ways, and the Lord gave Jesus this mountain, mountaintop experience and preparing him for what was going to be the great suffering in Sunday school. Last week in our class, we were discussing without great suffering, there's never great victory. We were in the end of first Peter chapter three, and first Peter is all about preparing us to suffer. So the Lord was helping Jesus, reminding him he's there, showing him that his ministry had had an effect, that people were excited. And while he was about to go through the worst moments that any person could ever go through, he was seeing that, sure, they're going to be people mocking him on the cross. They're going to be people spitting on him. They're going to be people doing all kinds of cruel things. But there are good people out there that are listening and you never know. I always say to people, you never know when somebody is going to get saved, and you never know what the words are that are going to get them saved. I got saved reading the scripture, but I have been a pastor and so many times I've been up there and we've been singing just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for thee. Or we're singing, um. And all to Jesus. I surrender all to him I freely. Those are not words of Scripture. Those are words of man based on Scripture. And people come to Christ hearing the words of man based on Scripture, and it leads them to the Scripture. So the Anointed One is like that. It contains all of the the four Gospels. It contains a lot of other Scripture. It has words of Susan's and mine added to the Scripture, but it will bring people to Christ. I make this statement. I know it is true. Thousands of people will come to Christ after they've read the Anointed One. That will happen in time. There's an invitation at the end that everybody reads a book is going to read. And we we are so afraid to hand scripture to people. We're afraid to hand them tracts. And God gives us these tools. We never know what will bring someone to Christ. And this is just another tool for people to use to give to the lost and to sit down and understand Jesus's life better and draw closer to him. Uh, we see that experience. They're laying down the palms. Um, it's just wonderful. But then the suffering is coming, and we don't know. Regardless of where we are in our life, we don't even know where our friends are in their lives. We have friends right now that are suffering, and these words of Jesus will comfort them. So we need to get the words of Jesus to people in a form they will read. Because the Scripture does convict, it does lead people to salvation. Amen.
Amen. It's much more than. But to conceptualize this for our friends, this is like a gospel track, right? I mean, you don't.
It's it's a big track. Yes, but.
It's the same.
Idea. Track.
Yes, but it's the same idea. And when you end the book, after talking about Resurrection Day and after. And I just love the way you, Susan, worked through this and wrote it, there really is this simple explanation of the profundity of the gospel message, and there is that opportunity for the reader to be able to pray it out loud. So you started our conversation by saying, put this in the hands of somebody who won't go anywhere near a Bible. And at the end, they've now been confronted with this Jesus. That's how we started our conversation. Who is this Jesus and what your book, The Anointed One, does is explain who he is in the moments and the days of his life, told in a kind of fluidity that lets us walk through only those 93 days. We got to learn about him through the Gospels. It's amazing the way this flows.
Yeah. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. You feel like you understand his life better. It's no longer just a bunch of single moments, but it's a life story. And that's why we say the complete life story of Jesus Christ. Yeah.
You wrap it up with Isaiah, that wonderful passage that I call the great oil painting of Isaiah 53. Why did you choose to do that?
Because it's a great oil painting. It's a beautiful picture at the end of the book. Yes. And I think God means for it to be used that way. And then we, you know, we say the Christian church sums it up, meaning sums up this story in the Gospels, in the Apostles Creed, and we put it there. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. So that this ties the Apostles Creed to the whole life of Jesus. This book ties Together so many things that we do in our Christian life, and all those little readings of places in the Gospels. And I hope that it will give believers a framework so that when they're reading the Bible, they're reading the New Testament, they'll have a better feel for Jesus's life and come closer to him as a result of that. And I'm also hoping, of course, that people who have just who the heck is Jesus will read this and they'll discover it.
Now, I cannot tell you how much I'm on mission with you on this. In fact, you know, I was just thinking, particularly when you decide that you want to give someone a gift and you want to do it in a non-threatening way, this is a wonderful way to introduce them to this person of Jesus. Listen, you have to start with this knowledge. Everybody's curious. Okay? They may deny his divinity. They may deny the reality of his physical death, burial and resurrection. But they are curious. How do I know that? Because I give you the television. Okay. The great purveyor of values in our culture today. Have you heard me say this a thousand times? I'll say it 1001. Barna's research says we get more values from the cineplex on Saturday night than we do from the pulpit on Sunday morning. So we have all of these outlets around the holidays, Christmas, Easter. Who will talk to us about who was Jesus, stand in the checkout line at the grocery store and one of those two holidays, and you're going to see that those magazines are there. Those magazines aren't there to be given away for free. They're there because they want to make money. They make money because people are curious about Jesus. You and I can pick up on that in the marketplace of ideas. And the Anointed One is a marvelous way to really get people to start to understand who he is. And by the time they get to the end of the book, more than curious, I hope their name gets written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Rod. Thank you and to Susan for an absolutely fabulous book. Thank you friends. We'll see you next time on In the Market with Janet Parshall.