In this short summary of His Ministry, we are going to focus on the last 3 to 3.5 years of His life on earth. However, we must first highlight that His life began with His birth from the virgin Mary. This is paramount to understand and was foretold by God in Genesis 3:15. Also, making sure it is understood, by His, we are referring to Jesus Christ – Son Of Man – the great "I AM". Let us start out by saying that trying to capture all that encompassed His ministry on a single page is not possible. For even John, an eye-witness and one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, closes the book of John by stating the following:

Therefore, with this section introducing you to His ministry and covering just some aspects of His ministry, we encourage you to read the four gospels in the New Covenant; the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to learn more.

To set the stage we start the summary of His ministry with John the Baptist paving the way for Jesus. The prophecy of John the Baptist is covered in the Old Covenant scriptures and through God’s promise of him being the messenger of the coming Messiah. John the Baptist was born just six months prior to Jesus and was out in the wilderness preaching repentance of sin and baptizing many leading up to him ultimately baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River. At that point, with Jesus being baptized, the heavens opened and God said, “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:13-17 NKJV). After His baptism, Jesus spent 40 days fasting and in the wilderness where He was being tempted by satan.

Soon after, Jesus began gathering His disciples that would be with Him throughout His ministry. He had a total of twelve with the first two being brothers Andrew and Simon (Peter). Once the twelve were called by Jesus they were later sent in groups of two to spread His ministry as His followers were increasing and in different locations. At this point the disciples had witnessed miracles from Jesus, as well as, been through training, preaching, teaching, and baptizing many as they traveled along His side. From the early stages of His ministry Jesus made several claims to why He came to earth and in flesh. Just to list a couple, “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10 –NKJV) and “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 – NKJV). This soon became clear to His disciples and would ultimately become their mission.

His ministry included preaching, teaching, performing miracles, casting out demons, and speaking in parables just to name a few. We cannot put a finite number on or acts of all the miracles that He performed in His time on earth. However, turning water to wine, the loaves & fishes, healing the blind, healing lepers, and raising the dead are all very well-known and recorded in the four gospels. In His preaching, He had some very common opening and closing statements. Many times He would open with “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17 – NKJV) and close with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 11:15 – NKJV). He also identified the two greatest commandments of the ten. In the most simplified form, love God and love your neighbor. If you look at all ten commandments with this in mind, if you do not break these two it sure makes it much more difficult to break one of the remaining eight.

From a geographic framework, His ministry did not cover a very large area. This makes His ministry all the more revealing and inspirational as this took place roughly 2000 years ago and pre-dated all the common forms of communication abroad that we have today. Still yet His ministry and His name has reached every corner of the earth. Based on the recordings in the four gospels, over the span of His ministry, Jesus spent most of His time in Galilee and Judea; however, He also ministered in Samaria, Perea, and Decapolis. An image and link to a detailed map detailing His ministry is included below if interested in learning more. Another interesting aspect of His ministry is that Jesus only went into Jerusalem on a couple of occasions with the last leading to what we know of today as Holy Week. Even though Jesus told His disciples very clearly what was going to transpire they did not understand. The scripture included below makes this clear.

As Jesus predicted to His disciples this all came true. Therefore, after His death, burial, and resurrection and before His ascension into heaven, Jesus met with the remaining eleven disciples in Galilee and gives them the great commission. From this powerful message, and His final ascension into heaven, they were deployed to spread the gospel to all nations…keeping His ministry intact to move forward until His return.

A map of His ministry

Final topic, the conversion of Saul to Paul. The event occurred on the road to Damascus as part of His plan. Arguably the most transformative story and event for all of man and in the History of mankind. Although this took place 3 to 8 years after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven, we feel it must be included here as this is a very significant part of His ministry. The first encounter, or event, on the road to Damascus was with Jesus calling out to Saul, a persecutor and murderer of Christians, in a voice from heaven asking “Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?” and He said, “who are you Lord?” then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” (Acts 9:3-29 NKJV). From this powerful encounter for Saul, all that was known of Saul dies, not him physically but becoming dead to self. Saul was transformed. He departed from His sinful ways of persecuting Christians and repented…changing from Saul to Paul. In the book of Acts we learn that Jesus does appear to Paul on several more occasions than just that of what occurred on the road to Damascus. Jesus was ministering to Paul which ultimately made him an apostle. The apostle Paul then spent the rest of His days on earth traveling abroad and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. All the while being hated by many, escaping several murder attempts, being imprisoned, and ultimately being executed in Rome as a martyr for Jesus. During this time he was also used by the Lord to write thirteen books of the New Covenant. In closing, with these events all transpiring approximately 2000 years ago, one could assume that this may be the last we hear from Jesus as only God the father knows the timing on when Jesus will return. However, what we do know, is that the calling from Jesus to transform Saul to Paul was again a very significant part of His ministry, by advancing the gospel, and moving the church forward.