Two and two together

John 21:1 says, “After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself.” What sea was He on? The sea of Tiberias is the sea of Galilee. John 6:1 says, “After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias.”

Jordan explains, “It’s just got two names. Haven’t you ever been somewhere that had two names? Did you know there are four different names given to the sea of Galilee? Look them up.

“Can you figure out now how Mark 5:1 and Matthew 8:28 work together? What it is is two different localities right by each other on the sea coast. It’s no problem.

“You don’t have to tear pages out of your Bible; you just think about the thing awhile. It’s like over in Samuel. One place it says he’s got 4,000 horses, the next place it says he’s got 40,000. People get all worried about those horses over there.

“If you spend a half-hour reading Samuel you’ll see that in one place he’s talking about the horses pulling the chariots out into battle and in the other place he’s talking about how many horses he’s got in the stalls. Because everybody who’s got horses in battles will have a few spares around.

“If the Gentiles nations around did it, don’t you reckon Israel was smart enough to do it? Don’t you think a guy like David was smart enough to have a couple of spares?  Sure. Well, it’s just one of those principles of just applying the sanctified common sense God gave you to the problem.

“How about the thing where it says there are two possessed by devils? That’s something you’re going to notice in Mark and Luke as opposed to Matthew. Mark and Luke are going to focus on the one guy and Matthew’s going to focus on the two.

“Why would that be? What’s the number two in the Bible? How many witnesses do you have to have to have an acceptable testimony? Matthew’s presenting evidence; testimony. So he presents the number of testimony.

“Besides that, isn’t Matthew presenting the dispensational viewpoint? How many houses of Israel are there? How many branches in Israel? There’s two. Israel and Judah. The two branches and Matthew’s presenting the evidence of the thing here and the deliverance that Christ can bring for the both of them.

“Mark and Luke focus on the individual aspects, rather than these overriding dispensational things. That’s why they give you a lot more detail. That’s why they’re interested more in chronological order and those kind of things.”