Footprints of the Unnamed

By Tommy Bresson

Though their names are never mentioned, the Gospels are filled with characters that left a footprint. Courage. Friendship. Worship. Explore the lives of the unnamed characters and be challenged to think about the footprint you are leaving behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490885766

Tommy Bresson

Tommy Bresson, author of Running Through Life: Reflections From 26.2 Miles, began writing in 2008 when he created a blog to chronicle his life as a missionary. Following five years on the mission field, Tommy became a bible and history teacher with the intent of impacting young lives through education. Tommy is an avid soccer fan, having played at the collegiate level and coached at the high school level. Tommy is also a running enthusiast who has completed fourteen marathons.

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Copyright © 2015 Tommy Bresson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-8577-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-8578-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-8576-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015910084

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/29/2015

Contents

Gospel Author Backgrounds

Introduction

Chapter 1     Persistent Pursuit Of The Lowly

Chapter 2     The Greatest Gift

Chapter 3     Overflowing Goodness

Chapter 4     The Mirror

Chapter 5     The Label Breaker

Chapter 6     The Greatest Foursome

Chapter 7     The Boss Man

Chapter 8     Speechless Worship

Chapter 9     Overcoming The Lies

Chapter 10     The Enduring Woman

Chapter 11     The Test Of Waiting

Chapter 12     Courage Worth Seeing

Chapter 13     Dropping My Stone

Chapter 14     Lost And Confused

Chapter 15     Change You Can See

Chapter 16     A Gift Of Extravagance

Chapter 17     The Spies

Chapter 18     The Largest Small Gift

Chapter 19     You Never Know

Chapter 20     Great Expectations

Endnotes

Gospel Author Backgrounds

As we begin our look at the unnamed characters found within the pages of the four Gospels, it is imperative to have an awareness of who each author was and who their intended audience was. Having the correct context for each author and his Gospel will provide a better understanding as to why certain stories appear in one Gospel, but not another; or why one author chooses to focus on one character in the story while a different author chooses to pass them by. Knowing some basic background information of the four men who penned the gospels will be very helpful as we track the footprints of the unnamed.

Matthew

Matthew, the author of the first gospel, had a life full of pleasure, wealth, and status prior to his encounter with Jesus. Yet when Jesus called Matthew out of life as a tax collector, everything changed.¹ Not only was his name changed from Levi to Matthew, but his entire life became different. The name Matthew can be translated to Gift of God, and Matthew showed how the gift of God’s grace and forgiveness provided him with a radically changed life. Matthew did not take much time to explain his conversion, yet by his admission of being a tax collector, a lot can be assumed about Matthew.

In Biblical times, tax collectors lived a life of luxury and wealth. However, the wealth they received came at a cost to their neighbors and fellow countrymen, resulting in tax collectors being among the most hated in Jewish society. Not only were tax collectors collecting more taxes than required in order to pad their own pockets, they were viewed as traitors since they were working for the enemy, the Romans. Thus, Matthew and his tax collector friends were not viewed with a large amount of respect.

However, after Matthew met Jesus, everything for him changed, and he highlighted this change in his writing. As a result of his social circle being dominated by tax collectors, Matthew took time to highlight Jesus’ continual mission to love the sinners and outcasts of society. Matthew’s job as a tax collector required a meticulous personality, which he used while writing his Gospel. Matthew included details others did not, no doubt as a result of his training in observing and documenting small details. Additionally, since the position of tax collector resulted in a higher than average wage (albeit it came from stealing from others), Matthew’s sphere of influence was among the wealthier in society. This influenced Matthew’s writing as his intended audience was more geared toward those in society like him: those who had wealth. This was clearly evident in his description of Jesus’ birth story in which Matthew focused primarily on Joseph and Joseph’s side of the story. Those who penned the Bible were unique in their culture in that they commonly highlighted female characters and provided them with important roles within a story. Esther, Ruth and Deborah received significant details about their lives. Additionally, women were mentioned as the first to arrive at Jesus’ tomb after his resurrection. However, those in Matthew’s intended audience would have had a diminutive view of women, therefore Mary had a small role in Matthew’s version of the story, and Joseph was the focal point. Clearly, Matthew had a target audience to whom he was writing.

In addition to writing to the wealthy, Matthew was writing to a predominantly Jewish audience. This aspect significantly impacted his narration of Jesus’ birth. Recognizing that the Jews did not see Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah, Matthew went into the lengthy ordeal of providing details about Jesus’ lineage, no doubt with the intention of showing the Jews that Jesus was in fact the promised Messiah that they had been waiting for.² More than the other three Gospel authors, Matthew continually quoted the Old Testament in order to point the Jews back to the Scriptures with the hope they would understand and believe Jesus was the promised Messiah.

Finally, Matthew was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus; therefore, it can be assumed he had an eyewitness account to much of what he wrote about. Following Christ’s death and resurrection, Matthew became a missionary to Ethiopia where he was beheaded for preaching about Christ. Vastly different from his tax collector days, this certainly left a legacy of a life radically changed after meeting Jesus.

Mark

While Matthew was very disciplined in mentioning a lot of details, Mark occupied the other end of the spectrum. Mark’s gospel was characterized by being fast-paced and action-packed. He knew what he wanted to share, and he did not waste time doing so. Mark’s intended audience was the general Christian church in Rome. As a result of this, Mark was portraying Jesus as the perfect suffering servant. Mark wanted his audience to be able to relate to a savior who was not foreign to suffering, as the Christians in Rome were under a great deal of persecution around the time of Mark’s writing.

Throughout the Roman Empire, Christians faced varying degrees of persecution. The heaviest eras of persecution came under the emperor Nero around 65 AD. In an attempt to rebuild the city of Rome to make it more to his liking, Nero set the city on fire, causing much of it to crumble to the ground. Needing a scapegoat for the great fire, Nero blamed everything on the Christians, setting off a city-wide hatred and persecution of Christians. Nero himself had been known to crucify Christians using crosses to burn them alive and also to keep his palace lit at night. Aware of these circumstances, Mark highlighted the role of Jesus as a suffering servant, so the original readers could find peace, strength, and encouragement in knowing their Savior could empathize with their experiences.

Furthermore, an additional means of encouragement to the Christians was Mark’s inclusion of the miracles of Jesus. Of the four Gospels, Mark included more miracles than any other author with the intention of providing encouragement to the early church, showing that God was capable of the supernatural. Unlike Matthew, Mark did not provide as much detail about each specific event; rather, he used his fast-paced writing to ensure he could include a greater number of stories to bring peace, hope, and encouragement to the suffering church.

Luke

Luke provided a unique perspective in that he was the only gospel author who was not a disciple and therefore did not witness everything himself. Luke clearly stated from the opening of his account that he gathered his information from interviewing those who were eyewitnesses.³ Despite not being an eyewitness, he was no stranger to the characters in the New Testament as he had traveled with Paul on his second and third missionary journeys. Combined with his other book in the Bible, Acts, Luke could lay claim to writing more than any other New Testament author. These two books should not be viewed as separate entries; rather, they were meant to be paired together. With this in mind, Luke’s gospel started earlier than Matthew or Mark with the announcement of John the Baptist’s birth. Similarly, his gospel ended later in Jesus’ story than the other three with a description of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven.

Luke continually followed two themes throughout his gospel: showing Jesus’ perfection and focusing on the poor in society. Luke went to great length to show Jesus was perfect. Jesus entered the world as a perfect man; he lived a perfect life, offered himself as a perfect sacrifice, and served as the perfect savior for all of mankind. Woven into that Luke portrayed Jesus with a great deal of humanity, as he highlighted Jesus engaging and participating in culture, conversations, and the lives of many people. Since Luke was writing for a broader audience, he traced Jesus’ genealogy back to Adam to show Jesus is the savior, not just for a particular race, but for every man, woman, and child.

Throughout his gospel, Luke paid special attention to the poor and neglected in society. While reporting about Jesus’ birth, Luke had a special focus on Mary and her perspective. Not only this, but Luke also told the story of the shepherds coming to Jesus after his birth. As we will see later, shepherds were among the lowest of society in Biblical times. Luke’s careful attention to the poor and rejected gave further backing to his declaration that the salvation Jesus offers is a free gift for everyone.

John

John stands as the most unique gospel out of the four with nearly ninety percent of his gospel being different than the others. Perhaps that should not surprise us when we recognize that the author himself was rather unique. John was not only one of the twelve disciples, he was in Jesus’ inner circle, which enabled him to see certain events other disciples did not witness, such as the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration, and the empty tomb! John also stood unique as he was the only disciple mentioned at Jesus’ crucifixion.⁴

John’s writing was in simple Greek which made it easy to understand for a varied population. It is unclear if he was writing to a Christian audience or a non-Christian audience. However, his basic Greek would have made it possible for both audiences to read and understand his message; and his mention of the Logos⁵ convinces us that his recipients were at most Greek or at least very much aware of Greek philosophy and culture. His writing style emphasized the power and love that surrounded each of Jesus’ miracles and discourses explaining those supernatural events, something John most likely witnessed after having been present for so many of His miracles.

Each gospel was written to a different audience, highlighting different aspects of who Jesus is. The fascinating thing about these four men was that they were simply trying to share Jesus’ story. There was nothing spectacular about them. Nothing that distinctly separated them from the rest of society. Nothing that would have united them within their culture. They were individuals who had experienced the grace, love, compassion, power, and mercy of Jesus Christ and wanted to share that experience with others. Through their sharing of their encounter with Jesus, the world is forever changed. It is from these four men we see the footprints of the unnamed.

Introduction

The sun had just begun its climb over the hills of Germany’s Black Forest. It was slightly before six in the morning, and the sound of my alarm was commanding me to get out of bed. Outside it was cold. Under my covers it was warm. My mind was quickly creating a collection of reasons to go back to sleep. But I was in the middle of training for a marathon and knew if I had any chance of getting in the needed miles, it would have to be done early in the morning. Ever so slowly I began to crawl out of bed and walk a couple of blocks toward the start of my running trail.

Too busy rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I scarcely took in my surroundings as I walked to the trail. This particular run was not meant to be anything memorable. It was no different than so many other miles I had previously traveled. Nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing exciting planned. However, it turned into a run I would never forget.

Shortly after I began my run, I realized the previous night had left behind a fresh powder of snow. After recognizing this, I began to gaze at the amazing beauty surrounding me. Trees were frosted with icicles. The blanket of snow on the path looked smooth and peaceful. In that moment, I began to worship God as I enjoyed his creation. His heavenly storehouses laden with snow had delicately and beautifully decorated the forest.

This particular run called for me to travel four miles in one direction, turn around, and come back on the same path. Shortly after finishing the first four miles, I was struck with an amazing realization: I was the first person to travel that particular trail for the day. How could I tell? My footprints. There was only one set of footprints in the snow: mine. It was an exciting thought to know I was leaving the first set of footprints on the trail. Soon I began to think through a series of questions: would those who came after me be able to tell what kind of shoe I was wearing based upon the footprint? Would those who came after me be able to tell I was running? If so, would they be impressed and think I was running quickly, or would they think I was running slow?

Then, as I continued on my run, the Holy Spirit pounded my heart with deeper questions. In my life, what kind of footprint was I leaving behind? What kind of impression was I leaving on those I interacted with? What could people tell about the way I lived, or the condition of my heart, based upon the footprints I was leaving? With each step I took, more questions poured from my heart. Were the footprints I was leaving pointing people to Christ and making a difference in this world for his kingdom? What story did my footprints tell?

In the months following that run, those questions would not leave my heart. They kept me awake at night. At times, I was confident my footprints were worth following. Conversely, as other images came forth, I was hoping they would get washed away immediately, a footprint nobody would follow. That particular run will never be forgotten. It was supposed to be normal. Nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing exciting planned. Yet it became a run and a moment I will never forget.

The Bible is filled with individuals who have left their own footprints. Some of these are mentioned by name and continue to