The Story Retold | An Introduction to the Four Gospels | Bible Study Video

The four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—aren’t just biographies of Jesus. They are divinely inspired, historically grounded, theologically rich accounts of the life and mission of Christ. In this session of The Story Retold, Pastor Mark introduces the nature and purpose of the Gospels, showing how they work together to tell one unified story of redemption.

Watch “An Introduction to the Four Gospels”

Why are there four Gospels instead of just one? What are their differences—and how do they connect? In this session, you'll learn why each Gospel was written, how the authors were connected to eyewitnesses, and what makes the Gospels reliable and relevant for today. Pastor Mark also highlights the Gospels’ deep connections to the Old Testament and challenges us to read them with fresh eyes—looking for Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises.

📍 The Story Retold meets monthly on the third Sunday of the month at 10:50 a.m. in the Jr. High Catechism Room. Catch up on previous sessions anytime here on our blog or on YouTube.

📖 Click to Show Full Transcript of This Class

Let's open up with a word prayer, and then we'll get into this and move on. Heavenly father, we thank you for this day and this opportunity to gather, worship you, and to see, sacrament baptism and how you, rest your promises upon your people.

And we see those promises come to fruition in the gospels. As we come and we consider the four gospels today and look at the big picture of them, we pray that we would be mindful of how this all comes together to tell your story and that you would use those gospels in us that, that word that we hear would motivate us to share the good news, the gospel with Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Alright. So we've gone through the big picture, the big story of the Bible. We've looked at the Old Testament use of the New Testament. That's what we did last month. Today, we're really considering the four gospels together. When we move forward onto the next lesson next month, we'll be looking at specific stuff of the gospel of Matthew, and that's why this is gonna be one of the more church classes that we'll have just because we are going to get into the deeper details. I don't wanna muddy the waters by spending a whole lot of time on some of the stuff when we're going to be considering it more deeply at a later day.

So have you ever asked this question? Why do we have four gospels instead of just what? What are some of the ways that you've heard that answer or something maybe that you've answered that question for yourself? What are some of the reasons that you think we have more than just one gospel? Dressing different. Dressing different people. Yeah. That's big part, but we'll talk about that. Different, different eyewitnesses for specific to bring out specific things that you Yeah. That's good. Yeah.

The idea that somebody saw this from a different perspective, and it's going to help us more understand the fullness of the message and and what is going on in the gas falls. Also and there's a there's an authority to this that that we put these four gospels together and that they are different, but they tell the same story. I've always been kind of flabbergasted by the people who are, or get some doubt because the gospels are different. You'd have a whole lot more doubt if they were exactly the same.

If there was only just one, here, what we see is that this is a story that for the while there's differences in the gospels, there's telling the same story. They're tested to by different people, written in different times in different places. As Phoebe said, different eyewitnesses.

So they're they are blessing. And just as, an aside, I have a minute to place them a talk to this, and it just came into my mind. When they started binding, the books of the Bible together, when they switched from scrolls to what we call a codex, like a normal Bible, part of how we understand that these are the four gospels is when other false gospels started being introduced, they started binding the four gospels together, I think along with the book of acts. Binding those four together and when they would essentially, you know, hand them out or give them to the churches, people could see, oh, these are the four together that tell the full story with Jesus.

What a blessing that is for us as the church that has these different gospels, you know, the gospel of Thomas, these gnostic texts that were second century, third century documents, that they we can see that the these four authoritative gospels are bound together. It helps us to know what it was and what it wasn't. That we didn't come to these other gospels and say, all these should be included. No. They were bound together. They were put together. This is the early telling of the story of Jesus.

So it's important that we understand moving forward what the word gospel means. It is translated from the word in Greek, which means good news. It's a Greek word for good news, and it is a proclamation, the idea of a telling of this good news, sort of like you would announce a victory in battle. Right? That we're going to spread this, that it's gonna be heard. It's gonna be published abroad. It's good news. And so what do we have? We have the good news, the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

This is the spreading of this victory that Jesus has for his people. So what is the nature of the gospels? What are they like? Well, they are historical works. These gospels are a specific type of literature, but they are historical works. They are making historical claims. These are not like some ancient texts that are saying that here's a story that holds transcend the truth. It doesn't matter if it ever happened. You see this specifically in the claims that Luke makes. Right? You know the story of beginning of Luke's gospel.

Just think about, the Christmas story. When did the, when did Mary and Joseph go to be counted for the census? When I reach When Quirinius has governor of Syria, when a living, breathing dude was ruling in a particular area. These are not stories to tell some transcendent truth. These are not Aesop's space. These are historical works. Also, the gospels are historical works or theological works along with being historical works. They're telling us something. The way in which they tell the stories is telling us something about what is being accomplished. I think I've used in the other classes, that idea that, you know, we see the specific miracles that Jesus teaches, and they're telling us something about Jesus and who he is beyond the fact that he could heal blinds. If he can make somebody physically see, he can make somebody spiritual see.

These are theological works as well. And also they're literary works. In each of the gospels, there's different types of literature. Right? Obviously, a parable is to be understood differently than a, something like the feeding of the 5,000. We don't, we don't read the, prodigal son. While it may have happened somewhere at some place that Jesus sovereignly knew about, we don't read it that way. We read it like a parable. Also, we don't read something that Jesus does like we do, his teaching. We get to the attitudes. We realize that he is bestowing covenant blessings.

Blessed are those. Blessed are those. Blessed are those. Blessed are the feet of children running in the sanctuary about us. Right? No. Jesus didn't say it. But we understand that the teaching of Jesus is different than what he is doing. So they're also literary works.

And so while we come to books of the Bible and we wanna read those books differently, you know, we don't read Revelation the same way we read Sad Sam. It's one is apocalyptic literature, one is a historical look. We definitely don't read Proverbs the way we read the nine prophets. We don't read the Psalms in the same way we read the letters of Paul. We kinda need to do the same thing in the gospels. Be mindful of the literary formats that are taking place within the gospels as we read them. That is a helpful thing to do. So the gospels are historical works, theological works, and literary works. If we come to them and understand the nature of them, that's gonna really help us in our interpretation as we read them.

Together, all of this tells us the complete story of Jesus. Jesus is everything. He's what scripture is about from beginning to end. We've discussed that, and this is this therefore, all these different things are are showing us his complete story. So as we think about this, support that we understand oral tradition and eyewitness testimony. To some degree that there was naturally going to be oral tradition about the history of Jesus. Even if this was a more literate culture than we think it is, which I tend to think we oversell the literacy rates of the ancient world. I think more people we assume everybody was dumb. I think that's dangerous.

Yeah. Even if even if we consider that everybody was let's say everybody was lower, that that the literacy rate was even higher than I think it was way above it. The availability of pen and paper was very limited. It's not they're not running the Walmarts and getting, a good pen and a notebook like you have in front of me taking notes.

And so oral tradition is always a huge part of our understanding of how scripture was passed on. So we also understand though that the writer of the gospels are eyewitnesses or they're connected to an eyewitness, or they or they claim to have consulted them. So Matthew would have been an eyewitness. Mark is connected to Peter who was an eyewitness. It's the gospel according to Mark, but we know that Mark and Peter, basically, for lack of a better way of saying it, worked on this together.

Then we have Luke. What does Luke tell us? I have exhaustedly great Theophilus, Basically, interview people, done my due diligence. Hey. I'm a doctor. I do research, to get the full story. We get the idea that that Luke was very thorough, and so you probably talked to eyewitnesses. And then we have the gospel of John, who was an eyewitness as well. So as they're not part of this, we also know that the gospels are early documents. In other words, their chronological close to the events they destroy.

There's been a lot of debate about how early the gospels were. But generally speaking, as we learn more, even people who hope to discredit the bible, who don't agree with what the bible says, are starting to come to the realization that these are very early documents that most of the New Testament was written prior to the year seven. We are very confident about that, and particularly, like, I always use Luke's gospel as an example. Luke wrote Acts after he wrote Luke, and at the end of Acts, Paul just goes off. He's let away. We don't learn anything of his martyrdom. If he would have known and he would know a tell a full story of Paul's martyrdom, I'm pretty sure he would have, but he didn't.

So it's pretty we're pretty confident Luke was early, like, early sixties maybe. And when you fake factor in how close that is to the events they've ascribed, for antiquity, that's for lack of whatever I say, that's just nuts. Like, there is nothing else in antiquity that even comes close. The documents that we have for the New Testament, even the copies that we have from, like, say, the second century or people quoting them from the second century, they are way earlier than any other ancient documents to the events they describe.

We can reconstruct the majority of the New Testament from the writings by Irenaeus, who was from the late second century. You had a January, '1 '70 '5, that era. And he quotes the majority of the New Testament in his writings. I mean, that's less than a 50 from the events they describe. Nothing in antiquity is anything like that. The earliest manuscripts we have of Plato's are almost a thousand years old from Wayne. Now a thousand years from us, a thousand years after him. And we'd never questioned what's in Plato's Republic ever.

We question what's in scripture. Aw. That was a lay doctor lay document. The gospel written way up for Jesus. What? Like, you wouldn't do that with any other document other than scripture. Why? Because of the claims that it makes about who God is, who Jesus is, how we're saved, what says all these things. But they are chronologically close to the events they described. I was kind of looking this way. The oral tradition was going around, and you could go and you could check with Peter. We could talk with Mark, we could talk with Peter. And those guys just guys are starting to get murdered, and those guys are start have a lot of gray hair. Somebody needs to write this down. We need an authoritative word from the apostles.

Is that what happened? No. But that's what makes sense. That's the most likely explanation. For a while, all of a sudden, in the late fifties, early sixties, These apostles and their, the people that work with them are starting to get this written down. It also explains why we think that the gospel of John was probably the latest gospel. He lived the longest. He was probably the youngest of the disciples. He lived the longest. He comes in his life. I probably should write down this, and he has a different perspective. He well, we'll look at that perspective a little bit here before we move on. We'll really look at it when we look at the gospel of John. But he is further along the in this in living out what the gospel means.

Notice John doesn't mention the destruction of the temple. Why? Because the temple's already gone. He probably wrote it, you know, significantly after the destruction of the temple, but it doesn't matter anymore. Why have this prophecy of the destruction of the temple if it's already happened? I'm gonna talk about the implications of long term faith in Christ. But, anyway, this is probably why the oral tradition became writ tradition because we wanted to have the authority of the apostles.

And we wanna also note that was important for the authority of the apostles. How do we know that? Because the, pseudography, the fake gospels that those with, written by, you know, say the gospel of Thomas, they didn't say the David, the gospel of Jim Jo Bob, right, or the gospel of Cletus who decided to write down this now. It's like gospel. They claim to be an apostle because the apostles had authority. That's why we have the, there's the gospel of Judas, I believe, is one of the gnostic ones. I was gonna bring my collection of those down, but I've left it on my shelf with everything else going on today. This is why we have the secret book according to John in the gnostic, they claimed the apostolic authority.

What that gives us though with all these different versions is something that's called the synoptic problem. When you've I've alluded to her a little bit that, you've probably thought about it. You've read the gospels, and you're like, why isn't this in Mark? And why is this story told a different way in Matthew? Why are these differences? So the synoptic gospels, which are Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they have significant similarities, but they also have so I don't know if they're significant, but they had differences. There's these different ways to try and figure this out. We won't know. Nobody has ever found the document that says, yeah. Mark was first or Luke was first, and they worked off that as the base of the written, the written version of the oral tradition. But some suggest that Mark was first, for example, and Matthew and Luke worked off of that source.

You know? Okay. That makes sense. But others suggest that maybe Luke was first or Matthew was first. Also, there's another hypothesis that there was another source, hue, and it's called cue because the German word, for source is the word quell. And, of course, it's the Germans because they were the ones who tried to dismantle scripture with higher criticism in the eighteen hundreds. So, of course, they have to use a German word there. But at the same time, I don't really I don't think there probably was a q. I think there was a general understanding of the oral tradition of Jesus that we could guess we could call it q.

But and things like the teaching of Jesus, I think of it this way. Jesus traveled the countryside for three years, and what we know of his teaching is it can be read in a matter of minutes. So I'm guessing it's not anywhere near to everything he ever said. And I'm also guessing that maybe the sermon on the mount was given on a few different mounts, but only Matthew tell it that. You know, maybe they decide to start the sermon on the mouth so many times, they had to memorize. You know? That the that these things were significant.

So, you know, maybe that was a part of the oral tradition. But these are the different ways we try and answer the synoptic problem. I don't see it as a problem. It's what it's called. I see it as the nature and beauty of how God delivered scripture to us. Different authors. So we had different authorities, different understandings, multiple authorities to help us, you know, know what scripture teaches from these different perspectives. At the root of all this, before we start looking at the gospels, individually, what is the purpose of the gospels? Well, they're more than just biographies, and they all emphasize Jesus as the Messiah and him being the fulfillment of God's mind of redemption. They're all telling that part of the story very clearly, but they're going to have different perspectives.

They also connect the Old Testament to the Old Testament promises to the New Testament realities. They're all doing that in a different way. While Jesus is called son of man in multiple gospels, It's Mark's favorite way of saying it. The saying that Jesus is the Messiah. There's something significant about that. The incarnation there, you know, different things by son of man that we're learning. Again, these are theological works along with literary and historical works. We're getting different ideas of who Jesus is, different connections to what the old testament was promising and how it became reality in the new. And then these gospels are doing more than just giving information. They're essentially leaving people with the challenge. Right?

Probably what is the actual ending of Mark leaves us with a bunch of disciples that are afraid. And the question kind of applied there is, will you be afraid, or will you take this gospel into the world? Matthew sends the gospel or has the great commission as the last part of it, and, says go to the world and make disciples was a challenge there. Luke ends with the ascension. Christ is king at the right hand of the father, and he's gonna expand upon that in Acts.

But there's the different ways in which when we end these stories, we're called that you consider who Christ is and what that means for us. So there's four gospels, but they are telling one story. So these are important emphasis, but at the same time, all the gospels are for every audience, but there that we could see specific emphasis in these. So Matthew gives us that Jesus is the Messiah, and so he's, more or less pointing to a Jewish audience. One way that I would do that was see this in in something else on one of the slides that I have going forward. But this idea of Jesus as a new deliverer of the word of God is similar to Moses, with the feeding of the 5,000 and the sermon on the mount. Right? Moses came down the mount and shared the word of God. Jesus does the same thing. You kind of get that idea of just as Moses was an authority, now Jesus is an authority.

Mark, Jesus is a servant, and that would maybe been for a more Roman audience, particularly the fact that, you know, slavery was a big vein. And the ancient Roman Empire, particularly in Rome, Jesus is a servant. Also, Luke, Jesus is savior to a gentle audience. We know he's writing to a Greek man, Theophilus. That that is not a Hebrew name. That's a Greek name. So he's writing to them, for that purpose. And we also can understand that a little bit just from the fact that the book of acts is showing us how the gospel went from Jerusalem, Judea, Antioch, and to the ends of the earth. Right? Goes out to Gentiles. So we also understand that as part of his perspective, and he was a a companion of Paul who went to the Gentiles.

Then John, Jesus is the son of God to a broad audience. Again, the gospel has really gone out by the time John writes his gospel. The temple has been destroyed. There's just it's more of a broad audience, and notice his emphasis at the beginning. In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word is with God. He goes back to a creation idea, and the word became flesh. He came and dwelt among us. This is something that that really appeals to a broad audience. Again, they all appeal to a broad audience. I don't wanna, atomize this too much, but these are the these are the ways in which we see different perspectives of the story of Jesus. The gospels in the Old Testament, just a few ideas. It's gonna teach us things to look for.

I mentioned already Jesus, the new Moses in Matthew five. Blessed are those. Blessed are those. He's bestowing covenant blessings. And then we get to, some of the law statements. You've heard it said, if you're do not commit murder, but I tell you if you have anger in your heart to your brother, you are like a murderer. If you, look lustily to woman, you've put adultery in your heart. Right? There's the idea of Jesus as a bestow blessing, but also the store of the law. So we have the sermon on the mount for that.

And then we're feeding the 5,000 just as Moses had manna from heaven, Jesus feeds the people with the feeding of 5,000 just as there were quail through Moses. The fish is the meat that goes you get the idea. There's these things really happened. Matthew didn't make these things up. Mark didn't make these things up, but he's emphasizing them to make these connections for his audience and for us.

Another example of the gospel is in the old testament. Jesus is a suffering servant from Isaiah 53. We know that passage. You know, we read it around Good Friday all the time, and you can see that picked the on display here in Mark ten forty five or even the son man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. It calls back to that idea of the suffering servant from Isaiah 53. Then Jesus is the son David. We get this idea from in your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever. Your throne shall be established forever. That's in second Samuel. That's the covenant with David.

Well, then, Luke, what does he tell us in verse thirty two and thirty three of chapter one? He will be great, will be called the son of the most high, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of this valley David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be o n. He's sort of reproclaiming the truth of the Davidic covenant there and how it's fulfilled in Christ. Then we also, oh, nope. I didn't have an example from John. I'll see those when we look at the gospel of John.

So how do we read the gospel as well to Pay attention to the literary structure. Not gonna belabor this too much because I already did. Man, I'm losing my voice. But what we have then is this when you come to particular things, is this a historical story That how is this historical story connecting us with in the Old Testament if it is at all? Is this a parable? Do I read this like a parable? You get the idea here. Look for the literary structures of what it's doing. Also, look for quotations, references, and allusions. There's tools for that. We talked about that last time. That will help you fill in these a lot of these gaps.

Also, always read the gospels in my whole biblical story of redemption. Let your brain go back to the garden. Let your brain follow the people of Israel wandering in the wilderness, desiring to go to the promised land, and they would get there and they would mess it up. How does Jesus bring his people to the promised land for eternity? Read the gospels thinking in that way. That's particularly helpful, for example, when you come to the temptation of Jesus.

The way that story is told is in such a way that we get this idea that Jesus has succeeded with people of God have failed over and over. That's why it's helpful to read the whole biblical story of, redemption into this.

And also, remember that Jesus is a fulfillment of God's promises. That this is the fullness of the story. That's what's being told to us, and so that's what we wanna go looking for. You don't read, say, a Harry Potter book expecting the plot of Twilight. Right? This is the plot. Expect the plot. Enjoy the plot. The story gets deeper and more rich every time you read it when you understand the fullness of the plot.

Our challenge for the month, pick a gospel to read this this month. One of the four. And keep an eye out for the old test connections. What can you find? There's those tools in your Bibles. The footnotes or a chain reference Bible could be helpful. The New American Standard has Old Testament quotes, capitalized in the New Testament. That's a helpful, helpful tool to help you read the New Testament while looking for these Old Testament connections.

That's the basics. I hope that's helpful. Maybe a little more detail than I had planned them. We see some things came to mind that didn't come to the lowest prepping. But we'll get a d e s of the gospel is going forward over the next four months and look at some of these things that we've talked about.

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