This article was originally written for Christ Hold Fast. The Scriptures contain four Gospels that convey the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The records of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John comprise some of the most cogent examples of literature in man’s history, notwithstanding their spiritual objective. You would be mistaken, though, to assume that this quadrilogy concerning God’s Son constitutes a biography. The Gospels are not biographical records of Jesus’s life. We are never given a glimpse of Jesus’s teenage years. Instead, the narrative goes straight from his birth to his public ministry — if we’re given a nativity account at all. St. John even goes out of his way to remind us that he hasn’t recorded every single one of Jesus’s acts. (Jn 21:25) In that sense, then, the Gospels function more like literary essays, composed with a specific thesis and purpose in mind. Each account of Jesus’s life acts as treatise to show us something about person and work of the Savior.
The most unexpected gospel.
The most unexpected gospel.
The most unexpected gospel.
This article was originally written for Christ Hold Fast. The Scriptures contain four Gospels that convey the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The records of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John comprise some of the most cogent examples of literature in man’s history, notwithstanding their spiritual objective. You would be mistaken, though, to assume that this quadrilogy concerning God’s Son constitutes a biography. The Gospels are not biographical records of Jesus’s life. We are never given a glimpse of Jesus’s teenage years. Instead, the narrative goes straight from his birth to his public ministry — if we’re given a nativity account at all. St. John even goes out of his way to remind us that he hasn’t recorded every single one of Jesus’s acts. (Jn 21:25) In that sense, then, the Gospels function more like literary essays, composed with a specific thesis and purpose in mind. Each account of Jesus’s life acts as treatise to show us something about person and work of the Savior.