Ans. God has given us four Gospels, all intentionally different, yet all true. We cannot put them into one. If I ask a wife about her husband, she gives me his character as husband. I ask his son, and he tells me of his father. The servants tell me what he is as a master, and his master what kind of a servant he is. All are true, yet different because seen from a different point of view. We do not reconcile the Word of God, we believe it, and as we learn more of Christ, our fancied mistakes disappear.
Matthew begins with the Lord as Son of David, Son of Abraham, heir of the promises and heir of the throne of Israel. Accordingly we find His legal genealogy, and God speaks to Joseph.
In Mark, He is the Servant Son, so we begin with Him about thirty years of age.
In Luke, He is the Son of Man, so His actual genealogy is given, and God speaks to Mary. He was the seed of the virgin.
In John He is the eternal Son. "In the beginning the Word was... He was with God, and He was God." His history on earth begins with verse 14.
In John 20, Mary of Magdala, in her ignorance, came to the grave, seeking for the living in the place of the dead. Her devoted love could not do without her Savior. This gave her the place to carry the message to the disciples of their new relationship to His God and Father in the risen and ascended Christ.
In chapter 19:39, 40, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about an hundred pounds weight, and they wrapped the body of Jesus in the linen clothes with the spices. When Peter and John entered the sepulcher they saw the linen clothes lying all undisturbed, and the napkin that was about His head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. These show the calm dignity of One superior to death, who without haste or violence of any kind, rose triumphant from the grave. We would not for a moment think that the angel rolled away the stone to let Him out, as was the case in Lazarus being raised, but rather to witness that the sepulcher was empty, for He could not be holden of death. Nor must we let our minds run into imaginings,- the Word of God is all we want.
Ans. The baptism by fire is the judgment that is yet to fall on the unbelievers spoken of in this portion.
Ans. Paul was in prison for Christ's sake. His great concern was to give a right testimony, and that it should be done in the Spirit of His Lord. For this he counted on the prayers of the saints, and that through grace supplied by the Spirit, his life might have the character in which his adorable Lord ever acted and spoke, so that Christ might be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.
May we also think of and pray for this grace to be given to us.