Four gospels why

Luke claimed to be writing accurate history. We could question whether he was a reliable historian , or whether his sources were reliable, but the point is that his intentions were historical. Whether or not these events actually happened confirms or denies the truth of Christianity. Christianity rises or falls on the historical accuracy of key gospel events:.

The gospels are not merely collections of reports or sayings of Jesus. While all four gospels are concerned with the same historical events—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—they present different versions of these events.

They portray characters from different perspectives, sometimes using the same event to highlight something different about Jesus. They develop plot in different ways, occasionally rearranging the order of events. They emphasize different settings, including accounts not recorded by the other writers. The gospels have an agenda. They are proclaimers of the good news about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the kingdom of God.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The recognition that the gospel writers are theologians in their own right is one of the most important contributions of recent gospel research. Each evangelist has a story to tell and a perspective to emphasize. See how each gospel introduces his work:. Mark emphasizes Jesus as the Christ and Son of God. Luke tells us he wants to write an accurate historical account.

John introduces Jesus as the pre-existent divine Word, the self-revelation of God. Seeing the gospel writers as theologians has important implications for the way we read their accounts. We ought to read each gospel seeking to discern these theological themes. Since the gospels arose in the Greco-Roman world of the first century, it helps to compare them with other writings of this era to identify common literary features and narrative techniques. At the same time, we have to remember that the gospels are unique.

They arose in the context of the needs and concerns of the early Christian communities. The gospels were written to proclaim the good news of salvation and to call people to faith in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord and Savior. Thus, the emphasis is on doing, and Mark shows that Jesus got the job done. Luke was written to those more intellectually minded.

He states his purpose in the book's prologue:. Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which are most surely believed among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account Luke Luke is not writing as an eyewitness but as one who is recording eyewitness testimonies.

His portrayal of Jesus is as the perfect man. Hence, he focuses on those events in Jesus' life that stress His humanity.

The Greeks in their art and literature were always looking for the perfect man. The Gospel of Luke reveals that man. John, the writer of the fourth gospel, was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. The things he recorded were for the purpose of establishing the fact that Jesus was the eternal God who became a man. John wanted his readers to exercise faith toward Jesus.

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name John , The four gospels were written to cover four aspects of the life and ministry of Jesus.

Each gospel writer wrote from a different perspective to a different audience. They each looked at the character of Jesus from different angles. Thus the number of four arises from the four different perspectives we have given about Christ's life and ministry.

Each author is presenting a different aspect of Jesus' character. This is because each writer addressed a different type of audience. The Gospels are not intended to be a history or biography of the life of Christ in the modern sense of the term.

Each author is selective in what he portrays. Jesus did many more things than the Gospels record as John testified. When the Gospels are compared with each other we get an overall portrait of Jesus. He was God from all eternity who came down to earth as the perfect man.

This is the testimony of the four Gospels. Since the text and audio content provided by BLB represent a range of evangelical traditions, all of the ideas and principles conveyed in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry.

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TR Textus Receptus. Search Bible Search. Line-By-Line Order:. It is not presented to convert people to Christianity from other religious traditions, but is written to devoted, committed Christians in the Church that John founded and led. As these Christians struggled to understand the challenges of faith and fidelity to Jesus Christ in a world that they saw as increasingly hostile to their beliefs, John writes to encourage the believers in the validity of their decision to believe in Christ.

One way of understanding the great differences in the Gospels is to look at them through the modern lens of marketing. If a person or company had a product that they needed to sell, the first thing they would do is develop a marketing campaign that would focus on, and tailor to, the specific audience they hoped to reach.

For example, nobody would use the same advertising and marketing message to sell to middle-aged married women that they would use to sell a product to twenty-something single men. The intelligent marketer would craft the message in ways that explicitly communicate to the desired audience. The four Gospel writers were no different. They had a story to tell and a message to share, but they also had a definitive audience to which that message was intended.