Introducing New Testament: Its Structure and Story provides a survey of the NT beginning with the Gospels and ending with the book of Revelation. Dr. Lynn Cohick provides a brief overview of the historical situation of the NT and helps students understand the structure and major themes of each New Testament book.
“What is the Messiah? The Messiah is the promised Son of David, the one who would rule Israel righteously and rightly.” (source)
“The story of Jesus, the story of Scripture, is broadly speaking the story of redemption.” (source)
“He said, ‘The Gnostics, they know the Scripture texts, but they jumble up all of the story parts, and they end up with a very different narrative.’ He said, ‘It’s like when you take pieces of glass that have been put down as a beautiful mosaic showing the picture of a king. And then someone comes along, takes up all those pieces of glass and completely rearranges them, and now suddenly you have the picture of a fox or a dog.’ He said, ‘It’s not just knowing Scripture but it’s knowing the story, it’s knowing the narrative, the history of the people of God and God’s redemptive activities.’” (source)
“Essenes, who gave to us the Dead Sea Scrolls, that they also were very frustrated with how the temple was run. So some people were not interested in a Messiah that would overthrow Rome. They were interested in cleaning up the temple. They were interested in godly Jewish rule. Then you had others—simple folk—who dreamed of the Messiah coming and bringing peace to the land, making their crops succeed, helping them in the raising of their children in peace and quiet, everyone sitting under their own fig tree, under their own vine. That was the hope and the promise.” (source)
“Josephus describes James not as ‘the son of’ someone—which would be the typical way of identifying a figure in the ancient world—[he] instead says, ‘James, the brother of Jesus.’ So that tells us that Josephus assumes his audience will know who this Jesus is.” (source)