GOSPELS PART 2

 

            The men who wrote these books were eye witnesses to the life of Christ in one way or another.  All together there are 89 chapters in the combined writings of these men.  The first, three are called the Synoptic Gospel’s, which means seeing together.  Many of the accounts are the same and in the same order in the gospels.  John follows a path of his own.  They are merely pamphlets in size to many other writings and yet there is more truth in the Gospels then all the other writings put together.  The Gospel’s tell of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ who is the Son of God.  They tell of His divine message and His plan of redemption for all mankind.

            The word Gospel means, “good news.”  Each Gospel has its own character.  The Lion to Matthew, the Ox to Mark, the King to Luke and the Eagle to John.  Matthew presents the king, Mark presents the servant, Luke, the Son of Man and John the Son of God.  The early disciples considered the gospels to be the garden of truth that all must drink to quench their thirst.  Matthew’s gospel is written for the Jews.  It is the gospel of the past and is very didactic.  Mark’s gospel is written for the Romans, it is for the present and anecdotal.  Luke’s gospel is written for the Greeks, for the future and historical.  John’s gospel is written to the church, for the eternal and is spiritual in application.

            Matthew knew Jesus well, yet we see from his writings that he used some of the information that Mark brought forth.  It is known that Matthew spent a great amount of time researching his writings because of the amount of Old Testament prophecies contain in them.  Mark relied on the teachings of Peter, Mark was Peter’s scribe.  Mark may have relied much on the writings and teachings of Peter but he was in Jerusalem when Jesus died.  The last supper and the Day of Pentecost occurred at his home.  Dr. Luke was thorough in his research, he not only had the apostle Paul to rely upon but he went to other sources for his book.  John gave many accounts and background to incidences that only an inside observer would know.

            There is a lot of controversy on John’s authorship.  We will now examine facts that bring light on this subject.  The church fathers back the claim that John wrote the book.  It is known that the writer of the book was a Jew from Palestine.  The writer was an eye witness to what he saw.  He was an apostle and John is known as the disciple who Jesus loved.  He was a close personal friend and cousin to Jesus.  John was known as the person that took care of Jesus’ mother Mary.  John was accustom to Jewish culture and traditions.  The Old Testament was the religious life of the writer.  The writer knew the people involved, the time, the number of people involved, the places and the manner in which the events took place.  The writer knew the inside details and John was the closest of all the disciples.