Hi, friends. I am Annie F. Downs. Let's read the Gospels. The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

These are the stories of Jesus Christ's life on earth, the friendships, the parables, the sacrifices, the meals, the miracles.

So each month here on Let's Read the Gospels, we're reading all four books. Make sure you're subscribed.

And remember, we have a downloadable reading plan if you want to follow along that way, or there's the Let's Read the Gospels guidebook that has some extra notes for me,

journal prompts, some questions to dig a little deeper into the readings. You can find all that at Annie F. Downs.com slash Gospels.

So here's how this works. Most months, we read three chapters a day for 30 days, but this month we are reading the Gospels in chronological order from the New International version, or at the NIV.

So we're reading the stories in the order they took place, which means we mixed together from all four books most days, but this is how they actually happened from all four authors.

I'll share the references with you here at the beginning. You can find them in the show notes as well, or in your guidebook or reading plan.

You can listen or read along in your own Bible, and then I'll pray, and that is it.

So today is day seven, and we will be reading Mark 3, 7 through 19, Luke 6, 12 to 16, Matthew 5, 1 through 12,

Luke 6, 17 to 26, Matthew 5, 13 to 48, Luke 6, 27 to 36, and Matthew 6, 1 through 34, and I'm reading in the NIV.

Crowds follow Jesus from Mark. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed.

When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idomea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon.

Because of the crowd, he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him to keep the people from crowding him.

For he had healed many so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.

Whenever the impure spirit saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the Son of God, but he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.

Jesus chooses the 12 apostles from Mark. Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him.

He appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.

These are the 12 he appointed. Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, Son of Zebedee, and his brother John, to them he gave the name Bowenergies, which means Son of Thunder.

Andrew Philip, Bartholomew Matthew, Thomas, James, Son of Alphius, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him from Luke.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God.

When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also designated apostles.

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