In God’s great wisdom, He chose four different men to write the four Gospels, providing us with a multifaceted view of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ...At the time Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were recording their accounts, they likely had no idea their writings would eventually be gathered together to form the very foundation of the New Testament and the bedrock of the Christian faith...These four books have stood the test of time for two thousand years, serving as undeniable historical evidence that Jesus existed, walked this earth, and delivered a message that changed the world...They center on His teachings and His intimate relationship with the twelve main disciples, testifying that He was indeed the long-awaited Messiah...The four Gospel Books are about Him and the teachings that He taught others...The gospels are centered around His Twelve main Disciples and the events around His Disciples and His acts and deeds with them...Because there are four distinct authors, each bringing a slightly different perspective to the story, the Gospels become even more credible...In a court of law, four witnesses who tell an identical story word-for-word are often suspected of collusion; however, four witnesses who agree on the core facts while emphasizing different details are considered highly reliable...
The beauty of the four Gospels lies in how the authors remember and emphasize different aspects of Jesus' life, yet remain perfectly unified in the essential truths of His ministry...While one may focus on His miracles and another on the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, they are in total agreement regarding His identity as a Teacher, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His glorious resurrection from the dead...We are given four competent, knowledgeable, and credible witnesses who each provide a unique vantage point on the Man they believed was sent by God...These testimonies are not just stories; they are portraits painted from different angles that, when viewed together, show us the full picture of who Jesus is...By presenting their perspectives in this way, the Gospels invite us to see the Messiah through the eyes of those who knew Him best and were eyewitnesses to His Majesty, bridging the gap between history and faith through a witness that is as diverse as it is Divine...
At the time of these different men writing their stories about Jesus, they had no idea their writings would be added to the Bible, and later become the foundation called the New Testament...The four gospels are also the foundation for the religion of Christianity...The four books about Jesus have been around for two thousand years and are evidence that He existed...
And to a very large extent, the belief in Jesus is based on the credibility of these four writers and what they witnessed or what they heard from other credible witnesses...Much of the world's faith and belief in Jesus and Christianity is based or founded in these four gospels...The four gospels can be traced to the first century...Therefore, the gospels were written relatively shortly after Jesus' death...They were written at a time when many who had followed Jesus were still alive...Two of His Disciples wrote gospels about Him...And other followers wrote about Him different books in the New Testament...So, if there were inaccuracies in the four gospels the early followers would have had an outcry over the inconsistencies about their Teacher and Master...So these four gospels are the Spiritual Authority about Jesus and His Teachings and how He followed and believed in God...
The four gospels were written shortly after Jesus' ascension, but there would be more and many other writings about Him...Before these four gospels were canonized and put into the New Testament there were other writings to consider putting in the Bible...The Gospel of Thomas first comes to mind...And there were other writings that may have been by disciples or others close to Jesus...There would have been oral traditions of and about Jesus that were heard regularly by friends and family...So those canonizing the New Testament would have to choose the best writings that represented Jesus...The early adopters of the New Testament, would have prayed and done their best to give everyone the most reliable and accurate picture of Jesus...They would pray and ask God as to what should be put in the Bible...And those canonizing the New Testament chose the current set of books in the Bible that best represent Jesus...And they did this in the second century, years after Jesus' death...This would allow those reading about our LORD to get a more consistent picture of Jesus and who He was and is...Irenaeus was involved and instrumental in using the four gospels as the gospels in there use and because of their tradition, their Scripture, and they were being used by most of the bishops of his time...
Theologian William Lane Craig wrote this about the Gospels...“The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events...Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported...The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred...The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians...Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts...Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession...The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels...The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation...Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus...It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax...And what was there to gain by lying?...They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine...Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached...Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah...This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud...Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down?...If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth...Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true...Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified...If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead...And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised...Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.”...
The four gospel writers tell us of a story about a Man, which is so utterly fantastic and is still hard to believe...A story of hope and harmony, in a broken and tragic world...It is a story of Truth and Grace Living among us...It is a story about LOVE...A story of faith in this Man, so that we might believe that these things did happen...The gospels are the story about the LOVE of God...He sent His Son to us to save us, because He LOVES the world and LOVES mankind...We could not and cannot save ourselves...So we need a LOVING God and a LOVING Savior to help us with our sins...And as we read about Jesus, He directly tells us that there is a God, and that God wants to help us...We learn about Jesus' special relationship with God, whom He calls His Father...
The author of the Gospel according to John tells us that he wrote the things the Son of God did down, so that we might know that His testimony is true...John was only one of the authors...These four men, the four authors would each tell his story is his way, and it would be different...We are given four different points of views, from four different men...The four authors write about a Man, who is a Teacher, a Traveling Teacher, a Healer, does miracles, and dies on a cross, and then is resurrected back into life again...The influence of each of the four authors writing the gospels also play a part of the great pictures and stories we read about this Great Man who influenced them greatly in these books...The four gospels are written about a Man who stood up and called Himself Truth...The four authors each tell us of their story of the life of Jesus...One thing the four authors and the four gospels have in common is that after Jesus' death He is first seen by women...Something odd since women could not be witnesses in court, and the status of women in Jesus' time was not that credible...And yet, women are the first to see and report about the resurrection of Jesus...Often God chooses the low in status to bear witness to show His great work...
The four gospels are the Truth, until they can be proven untrue...Non-believers think just the opposite...Non-believers think the four gospels are untrue, until they can be proven as the Truth...So as one reads the two thousand year old books, you make a personal decision or a personal belief that they are true or just have faith that these are four different authors who wrote the story of the ministry of Jesus...The four authors, regardless of who the authors are -are either telling the Truth about a Teacher named Jesus, or there are four different authors making up the greatest lie and lies ever to exist in the history of man...You have a choice as you read and reread through the four gospels and study them, as to whether you believe them as truth or as lies...At times, I have written that these four books are a biography of Jesus...But they maybe better explained to be eyewitness accounts of His three years of ministry and His death on the cross and His resurrection after His death for a period of forty days...And regardless how one reads them the four gospels are the books with the most information about Jesus Christ...So if one wants to learn and study Jesus and know more about Him, and they believe the four authors were eyewitnesses or interviewed those who knew Him and they were eyewitnesses, one must read and study the first four books of the New Testament...John wrote the fourth gospel...I personally find St. John's book very intriguing...And many say it was written many years after Jesus' death, when John was a much older man...After all these years, why would this eyewitness Disciple, write a book of lies, and so eloquently (written as it is)?...Why would an elderly man write lies about One he loved so much...John wrote about Truth and Jesus saying He was the Truth, the Way, and the Life...John had many years of mental or physical notes to decide what was true, and what was not true to include in the fourth gospel...And these four gospels are the main and primary source and reasons for believing in Jesus...
But being four in number that helps build in an internal control of the truth, sort of a system of checks and balances, with the four different authors and the followers and eyewitnesses of Jesus...These books were written not to many years after Jesus death and resurrection...But they were written over a period of years, to give, at least to me, more credibility...By more credibility, I mean, over a period of time, if Jesus' resurrection and the other things He was said to do -did not happen, then more than likely another truth would have came to light...We are told by Paul that Jesus was seen by more than five hundred men after His death and resurrection, and many of them were still living (1 Corinthians 15:6) years after His death...So these five hundred eyewitnesses or a Man returning from His death, gave more and more credibility to the story of the resurrection...And when these four gospel books were being circulated among the early believers and early Christians, any reader could have probably found one of the five hundred men, or any of the other close followers of Jesus who knew Him or seen Him before His death, and could have went to Matthew or Mark or Luke or John (the original authors) and said -why did you write that story that way, this is how it really happened...This would be a check and balance for the author's stories, with so many eyewitnesses and followers of Jesus and His resurrection...And also having four different and unique authors of the gospels...Why write four different gospels, if no one believed in this Man named Jesus?...
The four gospels are similar, yet are different, especially the Gospel According to John...Some of the stories about Jesus are shared...The stories of Jesus are interwoven with teachings that have multiple meanings...The Parable of the Lost Son comes immediately to mind...And the stories are great ones...And great stories have always been shared...It is God who originated the stories in the gospels, by sending His Son to be born in Bethlehem...The gospels are the biography of Jesus, His birth, life (and mostly His ministry), His death, and His resurrection...The gospels are the best evidence of the Truth about Jesus (there is very other little evidence at all, if you do not believe in the four gospels)...These written stories were passed around mostly by early believers and by early Christians and this good news of Jesus spread, and actually spread quickly...Not only do we first learn about Jesus and His life on earth in these gospels, but He goes around teaching around Israel...Jesus teaches us much about His Father in heaven...There has never been a collection of four books put together (like these books are in the New Testament) that are collectively more important to the entire world than any other four books...These books are among the most sacred and holiest of the books ever written in the history of man...That is something in itself to think about...And because of their sacredness and holiness, they naturally bring controversy from the unbeliever...And Jesus who seemed to be involved in many controversies while He lived, is also involved in them as He watches us down from heaven...
The believers and early followers of Jesus would have wanted the Truth to be written about their Teacher, and it to be communicated properly and correctly...Why would they want anything else to be written about Him other than the Truth?...Jesus taught truth, goodness, forgiveness, humbleness, and righteousness...To include lies and falsehoods in the stories of the One who said I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6), and I came into this world to testify to the truth- would not be logical...It simply would not make sense to lie about a Man who taught the things about Truth that He taught...Everyone who listens to truth listens to Me, He said (John 18:37)...Jesus stood for Truth, and said when you know the Truth, the Truth shall set you free (John 8:32)...For lies to be written about One who said all the things He said about Truth, makes no sense...The four books would not have lasted as they have lasted, if they were about lies...There were too many people around who knew Jesus, when the four gospels were written, and would correct these writings to get to the truth out -about the good news of Jesus...What Jesus taught and His miracles were in the public and among His people...He did not go around teaching behind closed doors and hidden corners...People heard what He said, and they saw what they saw...Wouldn't someone or some group found out the lie or lies about Jesus, since He was very much a Public Figure?...As the gospels were being written and being passed around among believers of Jesus, wouldn't someone or some group say these things are not true that have been written about Him...I think, if the four gospels were not true and were actually lies, then the believers, which were only a small group at first would have fallen by the wayside, along with their four books about Him...If the things He did and said were not true, I think four total books would not have been written...But the four authors each had something they wanted to say and write about and His life...If someone and some group came out and said there was no resurrection, and much of this "stuff" is made up, I believe the gospels would have lost much of their credibility and would just have died right along with their Leader...But the gospels are true, and Jesus' followers knew of His commitment to the Truth and His words of Truth...Jesus wanted the Truth to be written, because He is Truth...
Luke, a friend of Paul, went out of his way to learn all about Jesus...Luke, himself, was not an actual eyewitness to Jesus...Luke wrote the third gospel...And he did his own research on Jesus for Theophilus and writes the Gospel According to Luke...And then later Luke would write the Acts of the Apostles...Why write a second book, if the research were not true about Jesus in the first book?...If Luke found out that some or the stories about Jesus were lies in His first book, I believe they would have been reported by him or to him...But Luke goes on and writes a second book about Jesus...And the book is about the miracles and doings and deeds of the followers of Jesus, after their Teacher's death and resurrection...Like a good, smart writer and author Luke talks about researching his Subject in the beginning of his gospel...I do not believe the Acts would have been written, if Luke did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead and was the Messiah...Luke writes, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word...With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."...Luke seems to do the research many of us would do to find out about Jesus, and see if He did all the things that He did do...So there is much evidence of Jesus, because Luke did go on and write a second book, the Acts of the Apostles...So Luke believed Jesus to be a real person and did walk the earth and knew Peter, John, and the other disciples...He was a Teacher, miracle healer and worker, and did die on a cross, came back to life, met with His Disciples for over a period of forty days, and then ascended to heaven...Luke writing the second book after all his research, gives us great evidence of Jesus and what He did on earth, and later what His Disciples would do...
Jesus often taught in parables...There can be different interpretations about His parables...But somehow in His teaching method Jesus seems to be not only talking to someone two thousand years ago, but also He seems also to be talking to us, His current reader of the Four Gospels...He seems real and alive in the Four Gospels, because He is alive...Jesus seems humble and really full of grace and truth as John says...I never have felt that any of the gospels were untrue...Jesus seems like a real historical and humbled Man, who walked the earth, as I read the gospels...
Two of the authors of the four gospels, Matthew and John, were actual disciples of Jesus...They were two of the Twelve people inside Jesus' inner circle...The author Mark was a friend of Peter, who was another disciple...Mark also knew Paul, and he traveled with Paul (Acts 12:25)...The author Luke was a doctor, and a missionary companion of Paul, who researched and carefully investigated everything from beginning to end about Jesus, and wrote about all that as Jesus began to minister and teach until He was taken to heaven (Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1-2)...For these four authors to fabricate stories about Jesus so soon after His death would not be logical...These were men seeking God and searching for the truth...These men would have a concern for God and what He might or could do to them, if they did not right things truthfully...It would not make sense for them to lie...For Jesus' word to spread and grow it would have to be the truth... The believers and these four authors would want the True Word about their Leader to get out...Since Jesus taught the truth, the early Christians would not have continued to read and pass on these early readings and books to others, if the four gospels were tainted with lies...Christianity probably would not grow, since Jesus says I AM the truth (John 14:6), if the four books were scattered with lies throughout their chapters...The Pharisees and the early Jewish opposition would have discredited the four gospels and the Christian movement would have stopped...The Sanhedrin during Jesus' ministry tried their best to find ways to discredit Him...The Pharisees and Jewish opposition to Jesus would have snuffed out Christianity quickly, if the four gospels are lies...The Sanhedrin had Him crucified...The religious leaders did not want a Jesus movement while He lived or after His death...The Jewish Religious leaders wanted things to remain the way before Jesus was born...These groups and many others were opposed to the Jesus movement and could still could not stop the Christian movement after His crucifixion...To believe that Jesus was the Messiah to come, would not be believed and would have failed if His opposition were able to prove, that the four gospels were tainted throughout with lies, and could specifically point out those lies...And with Paul knowing James and Peter the story is very unlikely a myth or legend...Paul talked to James and Peter after Jesus' death...Jesus' half brother, James and Peter a disciple of Jesus -would have told Paul the truth about their Brother and Teacher...Why lie about your Brother or Him after His death?...
Christianity, however, spread quickly the first hundred years...Christianity spread because it is the Truth...And it spread in spite of many early Christians getting persecuted and killed for their belief in Jesus...An explanation of the early growth of the Jesus following maybe that the early Christians not only took care of their families and friends, but also helped others...They followed Jesus' teachings and helped the poor, the widows, and those in need...Those being helped would be receivers of this help and would embrace the philosophy and teachings of Jesus...Others would watch and wonder, why are they helping others so much....The early believers had Jesus in their hearts, with the Holy Spirit, and they loved one another and followed His teachings, therefore they were His disciples (John 13:34-35)...And right after His death, they did not have any of the gospels, not one...So the very first Christians had only the heard word and words of Jesus...The first Christians did not have the gospels like we do today...The written word would come later...What the first Christians had was this past heard word and oral tradition of His teachings...And this was enough...The followers of Jesus spread quickly...
James, the brother of Jesus, was one of the key early Christian leaders...He wrote in his epistle, what good is faith and to claim you have faith in Jesus and have no deeds...Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and their daily food...If you just save I wish you well, keep warm and well fed, what good is our faith...Faith without an act or deeds is dead (James 2:14-17)...This type of leadership promoted sharing and charity...The early Christians treated each other like a brother and sister and freely shared their possessions...No one believer claimed that their possessions were their own and they shared everything they had (Acts 5:32-37)...It would be very unusual for the four early gospels with leaders like this to have lies in them...
So to understand that the early Christians were persecuted for following Jesus and His teachings, to know their humble lifestyle, their compassion for others, their sharing with others, why would they allow lies in their four most important books...Their daily readings or listening to others read these Scriptures about their Teacher would be the Truth for them or why would they follow their lifestyle...Many early Christians died for their belief and this lifestyle...One has to ask would all the early Christians that were persecuted die for a lie or a liar?...Would you die over a known lie?...
If these four books were of human originality they would have never lasted...As Gamaliel, the the teacher of Paul (Acts 22:3), said, if the stories of Jesus are from human origin they will fail, but if they are from God, you will find yourself fighting with God (Acts 5:38-39)...The gospel stories and the Books of the Gospels have lasted...They have stood this test...Jesus told us, His words will never pass (Luke 21:33)...That statement is the Truth...His word and the four gospels remain with us today...Those who fought the gospels and did not believe in those four books about His Son, have been fighting God for many years, two thousand years, in fact...If Jesus were only a Man, could have His spoken words, His teachings, and these four gospels remain vibrant and alive after all these years?...We often say and pray that God's will be done...And it does...God's will does get done...God's will always gets done...
God so values the creation of man and woman that He steps into creation and will dwell on earth for some thirty plus approximate years…This stepping into our world is a great show of LOVE...Choosing to become a Human is a Grand Compliment...This is because, He came for you and for us -all of us...He knows since He is our Creator, exactly what to say, what to do, how to act, and what we lack and need teachings in…So He travels from village to village in Israel for three years teaching us what we need to know…And we learn about Him and what He did in these books...This is why the four gospels are so important…
I have read the gospels many times...And as I re-read the verses of the four gospels, I am still overwhelmed by the goodness of Jesus as He goes about helping others in their needs...He did not say to others, let Me think about it for awhile, He took action and helped people...People in despair searched for Him...He was friends of the weary and those in pain...He could even help the hopelessness...His belief system and what He spoke and His actions are like no one else...
If you want to know about Jesus, you must read the four gospels...The four gospels are believable, complex, intellectually written (where thought must be given to them), and profound because of a Man named Jesus...Meeting or hearing about Jesus in the gospels by these authors shows us the tremendous influence He had on them...His influence not only on these writers but also on the world is unsurpassed....His matter to the world is that He is the Absolute Truth...He is the only way to get to God...The world would be completely different without the four gospels and the New Testament...So we can say that the world is completely different because of this One Man, whose name is Jesus...