thought this is a little basic knowledge to know abt the Gospels and how they are the same, yet different. i guess the book of john is the most obviously different Gospel but what abt mattew, mark and luke? here's the breakdown:-

Matthew
Original readers were - Jews
Jesus is - the promised King
Significant themes - Jesus is the Messiah because He fulfilled OT prophecies
Greatest emphasis - Jesus' sermon and words
Character of the writer - teacher

Mark
Original readers were - the Gentiles (non-Jews) and Romans
Jesus is - the servant of God
Significant themes - Jesus backed up His words with actions
Greatest emphasis - Jesus' miracles and actions
Character of the writer - story teller

Luke
Original readers were - Greeks
Jesus is - the Son of man
Significant themes - Jesus was God but also human
Greatest emphasis - Jesus' humanity
Character of the writer - historian

John
Original readers were - Christians all around the world
Jesus is - the Son of God
Significant themes - you need to believe in Jesus to be saved
Greatest emphasis - the principles of Jesus' teachings
Character of the writer - theologian

there you have it.

matthew, mark and luke are known as synoptic gospels, meaning, they probably were written using the same source of material and rewritten to bring about each author's respective emphasis. one famous theory was that the book of mark was first to be written and matthew and luke re-wrote it to bring abt the point they were trying to put across to the different audiences.

john is more a standalone and for some time, scholars raised doubts as to whether it met the tests of "proximity to events" and "proximity to apostles" to make in into the canon of the NT. but more recent archaelogical evidence has dated john to an acceptable time of writing, ie, within the lifetime of eye-witnesses of Jesus, His life, death and resurrection.

thought it's important for us to know why certain books were included, why they were and what's the difference. since when we were asked to read matthew, mark and luke, we found it a bore that all the accounts were some what similar. there's a reason for that.

next up, hopefully my cell group could start discussing church history. there's alot of history to get where we are now today and it is really interesting to learn what happened so that we don't take things to granted. in the first place, the beginning of christianity was documented in the bible. i don't understand how any of us christians could take that part of history for granted.

more posts coming up... stay tuned.

{ Wednesday, June 18 }