Why Four Gospels?

One of the questions I have fielded most often during my twenty-one years of ministry is, “Why did God give us four Gospels instead of just one?” It’s a fair question.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the recent tome The New Testament in Its World by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird.  It is a sort of summary of Bishop Wright’s work over the last forty plus years in the style of an Introduction to the New Testament.  I say “summary” but it runs nearly 900 pages!

I was reading the chapter on the Gospel of John this morning and I thought it appropriate to share the following in regard to that oft asked question:

John stands out from the rest of the New Testament.  With Paul we are in the seminar room: arguing, taking notes, and then being pushed out into the world to preach the gospel to the nations.  Matthew takes us into the synagogue, where the people of God are learning to recognize Jesus as their king, their Emmanuel.  Mark writes a short tract, challenging his readers with the very idea of a crucified king and turning it into a handbook on discipleship for followers of the servant-king.  Luke addresses the educated Greek world of his day and paints a big picture of God’s purpose through Israel’s Messiah for the whole world.  

John, by contrast, takes us up the mountain, and says quietly: ‘Look—from here, on a clear day, you can see forever.’ We beheld his glory, glory as the father’s only son.  John does not include the story of Jesus’ transfiguration as the other evangelists do.  But there is a sense in which, John’s whole story is about the transfiguration.  He invites us to be still and know; to look again into the human face of Jesus of Nazareth, until the awesome knowledge comes over us, wave upon terrifying wave, that we are looking into the human face of God. 

That’s why we have four Gospels, my friends.