I openned our Bible study up to questions last night, and this was the first question, “Why does the Bible have four gospels instead of just one?”
It’s actually a pretty good question. I mean what’s the point of having four books which pretty much tell the exact same story?
If you’re wondering the same thing, here’s what I told him last night.
Pretend you’re a judge of an extremely important case in court. You want to be as unbiased about everything as you possibly can. The prosecution has their story, the defendent has his story, but nobody really knows who’s telling the truth or not. You, as the judge, weren’t there when the incident took place and neither was the jury.
In every single case, the most powerful source in determining what happened is an eye witness.
The only thing more convencing than an eye witness is four witnesses telling the exact same story.
Was Jesus the Messiah? Was He crusified and did He rise again? Is He the Son of God?
Don’t ask my opinion, ask the eye witnesses who saw the whole thing.
When evidence is stacked up like that, you have to either accept it or choose to ignore it.
It’s as ridiculous as saying that I don’t believe George Washington really existed. It’s just something made up by patriotic Americans to sound like we had a great man lead us to independence. I never saw him and my professor says the story is made up. Only naive fanatics would believe in somebody like that.
Another interesting thing about having four gospels instead of one, is that we get the same story about the life of Jesus but from four different perspectives.
Matthew focuses on Jesus Christ the King of kings and His right to the throne of David.
Mark focuses on Jesus the servant.
Luke focuses on the humanity of Jesus Christ as the “Son of Man.”
John, who was the closest disciple to Jesus, goes extreme and focuses on Jesus as the “Son of God,” and God in the flesh.
This probably isn’t the only explanation for having four gospels, but it sure makes sense to somebody as simple as I am.
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Interesting your explication about the four gospels
Comment by Fernando Tamos February 25, 2008 @ 11:32 amBoth of the answers given to the question “Why 4 Gospels” were wonderful answers. I had not really even thought of this question previously. The explanation of the 4 eyewitnesses with the exact same story was new to me. I had not heard that explanation before. Your answer was a blessing as it helped me to better understand ‘why 4 Gospels’. Thank you. Praise be to God. The 2nd explanation regarding 4 different perspectives helped me to understand that explanation better. I have been taught the 4 different men taught different ’sides’ of Jesus but I had not processed the idea that this was their perspective of Jesus. What a blessing! Thank you for your ministry and your service to God and Our Saviour. I thought the baby clip was great. It was so cute. I watched it at least 4 times. She is precious. You and Gretchen have been blessed and I appreciate you sharing that blessing with us. My prayers are with you. Your Sister in Christ, Pam
Comment by Pam Guess March 28, 2008 @ 9:52 amThank you, Pam, I appreciate your prayers and the encouragement.
To God Be The Glory,
Tyler
Comment by Tyler Masters March 28, 2008 @ 4:02 pm