What Are the Four Gospels?
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — four portraits of one Lord, and why the church has always kept all four.
The Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — are the four inspired accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Matthew writes for Israel (Jesus the promised King), Mark moves at speed (the servant who came “to give his life a ransom”), Luke researches for the outsider (the Saviour of all), and John distils a lifetime’s witness “that ye might believe” (John 20:31).
Three synoptics and one eagle
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic — seeing together — sharing much material from shared eyewitness testimony; John, writing last, supplements rather than repeats: the Cana wedding, Nicodemus, the raising of Lazarus, the upper-room discourse, and the great I AM sayings. Together they give roughly the same weight to one week — the last — that biography gives a life: the cross is the point, and all four march toward it.
It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
Each Gospel's angle
Matthew opens with a genealogy from Abraham and David — the King has papers — and gathers Jesus’ teaching into great discourses like the Sermon on the Mount. Mark, likely Peter’s memories, runs on the word “straightway,” all action, climaxing at a Roman centurion’s confession. Luke champions the overlooked — shepherds, widows, Samaritans, women, the poor. John states his selection principle outright: these are written that ye might believe, and believing, have life.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Why the accounts can be trusted
The Gospels present themselves as testimony, not legend: Luke interviewed eyewitnesses; John signs his work “this is the disciple which testifieth of these things… and we know that his testimony is true.” They preserve embarrassing details no myth-maker would invent — fleeing disciples, a denying Peter, women as first witnesses in a culture that discounted them. Written within living memory, they invited contradiction and stood.
This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
Quick answers
- Why do the Gospels differ in details?
- As independent witnesses do — perspective, selection, and order vary while the substance agrees. Identical accounts would suggest collusion; their interlocking differences are the texture of genuine testimony.
- Which Gospel was written first?
- Most scholars say Mark (AD 50s–60s), with Matthew and Luke following, and John last (80s–90s). All four were circulating while eyewitnesses could still be consulted.
- Which Gospel should I read first?
- Mark for speed, Luke for fullness, John for depth — many start with John 3, or Mark straight through in a sitting or two. Any door opens into the same Lord.
