The Life of Jesus in Four Accounts 7 min read Lesson 1 of 12

Why the church kept four Gospels instead of one, what each of them is, and how to read them side by side without flattening them

Four Accounts, One Life

The New Testament opens with the same life told four times, and the church that collected the books refused every attempt to melt them into one. Each account has its own opening, its own shape, its own reader in mind. This series walks through the life in order, and at each step asks which of the four is telling it, and what the others do with the same moment.

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Lesson 1 of 12 · What you are reading

There are four accounts of the life of Jesus because four people wrote for four kinds of reader, and the church kept all four rather than choosing one or blending them. Mark is the shortest and, most scholars hold, the earliest: fast, spare, ending at an empty tomb. Matthew writes for readers who know the Old Testament and shows Jesus fulfilling it. Luke writes for a Gentile named Theophilus and says he has checked the sources. John writes last, from a different angle, with different events, and tells you at the end why. The first three overlap so heavily they can be printed in columns; John cannot. None of them is a biography in the modern sense, and all four say what they are for. The way to read them is not to fuse them into a fifth account but to let each tell the life in its own order, and to notice, at every scene, who is speaking.

Four openings

Each Gospel announces itself in its first sentence, and the four sentences are four different books.

The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. — Mark 1:1 · WEB

Read the comment on The Beginning of the Good News

The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark has no birth, no genealogy, no prologue; he starts with John the Baptist in the desert and Jesus is baptized by the ninth verse. Matthew opens with a genealogy, the book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1), because his readers will want to know the line before they hear the story. Luke opens with a formal preface to a patron. John opens before creation: in the beginning was the Word.

εὐαγγέλιον euangélion G2098

from the same as εὐαγγελίζω; a good message, i.e. the gospel:--gospel.

Good news, a good message — the word Mark uses in his first line, and the word the four books came to be called. Before it named a kind of writing it named an announcement: the herald’s word for a victory or a birth in the imperial house. Paul uses it thirty years before Mark wrote, for the message itself, Christ died, was buried, was raised (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). The books are called Gospels because they carry that announcement in the form of a life. The word is singular in the New Testament; there is one gospel, told four ways.

Luke says how he worked

Only one of the four tells you his method, and it is worth reading slowly.

Since many have undertaken to set in order a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus; that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed. — Luke 1:1–4 · WEB

Read the comment on That You Might Know the Certainty

Many have undertaken to set in order a narrative; eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered the material; I have traced the course of all things accurately from the first; I write in order, to Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of what you were taught. Luke admits predecessors, names sources, claims research, and addresses a single reader with a Greek name. The sentence is the closest the New Testament comes to a historian’s preface, and it tells you two things: the accounts were written from testimony, and they were written to persuade.

John says what it is for

The fourth Gospel states its purpose at the end rather than the beginning.

Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. — John 20:30–31 · WEB

Read the comment on That You May Believe

Jesus did many other signs which are not written in this book; these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. John has chosen, and says so. He has seven signs where the others have dozens of healings, long discourses where they have parables, a three-year span with three Passovers where they have a story that could fit in one. He is not writing a fourth version of the same book; he is writing a different book about the same man, and he tells you the principle of selection.

Three and one

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew 1:1 · WEB
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham: Matthew’s first line names the two covenants his readers know, and the book will keep quoting the prophets.
“Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:27 · WEB
Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself: Luke’s summary of what the Old Testament is for, put in the mouth of the risen Jesus.
“There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn’t have room for the books that would be written.” John 21:25 · WEB
If everything Jesus did were written, the world itself would not have room for the books: John’s last sentence, and the admission every Gospel makes by being short.
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 · WEB
Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures: the gospel as Paul received it, before any Gospel was written — the announcement the four books grew around.

Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels, from a Greek word for seeing together, because they can be laid in three columns and read across. They share most of Mark’s material, often word for word; most scholars hold that Matthew and Luke used Mark, and shared a second source of sayings that has not survived. That is a reasoned account of the evidence, not a certainty, and readers who hold that Matthew wrote first have arguments too. What is not in doubt is the pattern: three accounts that overlap and one that stands apart. About nine-tenths of John has no parallel in the other three.

What the four ask

They ask not to be merged. From the second century readers have tried to weave the four into one continuous life, and every attempt loses something each writer put in on purpose: Mark’s speed, Matthew’s prophets, Luke’s outsiders, John’s long conversations. The church that could have chosen one kept four. This series follows the life in order, birth to resurrection, and at each scene says which Gospel is telling it and what the others do with the same moment. Where they differ, the difference is shown, not smoothed; where a reading is contested, it is marked. The one thing you will not find here is a fifth Gospel.