Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...

Its often seen as a weakness of the Christian message that the core of it - the life, death and resurrection of Jesus - is based on four slightly differing accounts shoehorned together in the thin end of a best-selling book. Jesus' story is presented, in the canonical new Testament, by four different accounts. The four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - each come at Jesus from a different angle, with different emphases.

I've been reading (at long last) an excellent book by the late, great John Stott; "The Incomparable Christ". I'm not that fair in - and already I love it. It is a Christ-exalting, truth-affirming, intellectually rigorous presentation of the Christ of reality, the Christ of Christian faith, and the object of Stott's efforts to serve the church. One of the (many!) things that Stott beautifully engages with in this book is the question of why there are four Gospels.

John Stott, 1921-2011

my obituary here, review of "The Radical Disciple" here

Stott provides a superb answer to the question;

"Speaking personally, I find it helpful to detect in the four evangelists four dimensions of the saving purpose of God: its length, depth, breadth and height.

Matthew reveals its length, for he reveals the Christ of Scripture, who looks back over long centuries of expectation.

Mark emphasizes its depth, for he depicts the Suffering Servant who looks down to the depths of the humiliation he endured. 

In Luke it is the breadth of God's purpose which emerges, for he depicts that Saviour of the world who looks round in mercy to the broadest possible spectrum of human beings.

Then John reveals its height, for he depicts the Word made flesh who looks up to the heights from which him came and to which he intends to raise us"*

I think this a fantastic angle to approach the four Gospels from - and its a view that proves to be true as one studies the Gospels as individual documents - even as Jesus comes closer into view thanks to the different accounts.




* (John Stott, "The Incomparable Christ", IVP 2010)