JESUS AND THE GOSPELS

Jesus and the Gospels

Jesus and the Gospels

Introduction

The Gospels are important books that tell about the life, miracles and teachings of Jesus. They include accounts of the miracles he worked and narrate them in different manners. All the four gospels describe the life of Jesus Christ from His baptism to the death, the miracles that he worked and the present Jesus as the Son of God. The betrayal and the events leading to His death are also included however; it is done by each author in a different manner with each focusing on different aspects because of which there have been concerns about the validity of these events. The miracles that gospels present are some strikingly similar with the Jewish history and therefore, the interpretation of them by first century Jews was done in the light of the history that they had in their mind.

Discussion

The four Gospels

The Gospels are important documents without which little would have been known about Jesus. Believed to the based on eye witnesses accounts, The Gospel of Mathew, The Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John, cover the teachings and miracles of Jesus. Written some decades after Jesus's death, all four of the Gospels present Jesus as the Son of God. There is a mention of His baptism, the miracle of the feeding of about 5000 people from five loaves and two fishes and His prayer in the Garden. The trial that He went through till the account of his death, burial and resurrection are also included in these Gospels (www.domini.org). Each of the four writers has dealt with these aspects of His life in their way with each having a different focus or varying focus on different aspects.

The Gospel of Mathew is believed to be the first one written out of the four Gospels and is considered to be penned to convince the Jews of the fact that Jesus was the promised Messiah that the Old Testament prophesized. It includes a lot of references to the Old Testament, events as well as quotations and also discusses the miracles of the Christ.

The other Gospel written by Mark is not specifically for the Jewish side as Mathews. His writing is mainly inspired by what he learnt from Apostle Peter and it is basically the notes that he took from his teachings that he assembled into a book (www.basicchristian.org). Like Mark, the Gospel of Luke is also written for non-Hebrew recipients. The book provides testimony for the genuineness of the miracles of Jesus. Since the writer was a physician and a scientist, he explored the claims of Christ's miracles and asserts them as historical realities. In contrast to the other three Gospels John's work is for all ethnic groups. With the selective material that he includes, he offers a more focused evidence of certain signs to prove that Jesus is indeed the Christ and the Son of God (Jackson, n.d.).

Some people believe that the accounts presented in the ...