4. It was an active life. The first thirty years may have been spent in quiet preparation, but the three years of his ministry were very busy. See pictures in Mark 1. 36-38; 2. 1-4; 6. 31-34. Notice the hyperbole in John 21. 25, which is not to be taken literally. But if the whole life of Jesus were related with the minuteness of the day between the sunset of the Last Supper and that of the burial the narration would require one hundred and eighty-five books as large as the Bible.
II. Let us arrange the events of Christ's life in chronological order, grouping them into Seven Periods.
1. The first period is that of The Thirty Years of Preparation, of which we notice the following facts:
1.) It begins with his Birth (Luke 2. 7), and ends with his Temptation (Matt. 4. 1).
2.) It is related mainly by Luke (Luke 1-4) with some facts in Matthew (Matt. 1. 2; 4. 1-11), and a brief mention of its closing events in Mark (Mark 1. 9-13).
3.) It was passed mainly in Galilee, though with isolated events in Judea, in Egypt (Matt. 2. 14, 15), and in Peræa. See John 1. 28.
4.) It was the longest of all the periods, embracing nine-tenths of his life; yet it is the one having the fewest incidents recorded; and of eighteen years in it absolutely no events are known.
2. Next is The Year of Obscurity. In this and the two succeeding periods the year is not a precise epoch, and may have been a little less or a little more.
1.) It begins with the first followers (John 1. 35-37), and ends with the return to Galilee (John 4. 43, 44).
2.) It is related only by John, who, of all the gospel writers, records the visit of Jesus to Judea and Jerusalem.