Ch. 17 - The New Testament

Understanding the Scriptures

In this lesson, Carson introduces the 27 books of the New Testament. We start off the spring semester (Chapters 17 through 30) by reading paragraph 129 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which reads: "Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself (Mark 12:29-31). Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament (1 Cor. 5:6-8; 10:1-11). As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New (St. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 2:73)." An overview of the four Gospels is given. We look at who wrote the Gospels, who their audiences most probably were, as well as the major themes they contain. We then move on to discuss Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul's 13 Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 7 Catholic Epistles, and the Book of Revelation.