THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE GOSPEL WRITERS
In our New Testament we have 4 Gospels, followed by the Acts of the Apostles, followed by the letters of Paul, followed by other letters.
And of course, the ministry of Jesus preceded the birth of the Church, Paul´s missionary journeys and the letter writing of Paul.
A timeline is formed in the head, with the ministry of Jesus, followed by the Cross, followed by the birth of the Church and the ministry of the Apostles.
Now this of course is not wrong.
What I want to talk about is what perspective we should have on the Gospels. Many Christians read them as though they were objective journalistic accounts.
This causes some to think that since the ministry of Jesus is before the Cross – when he speaks in the Gospels he is speaking under the Old Covenant – the letters of Paul on the other hand are New Covenant. I have heard some say, e.g. that the Lord´s Prayer is Old Covenant.
This involves serious misunderstandings!
Whereas the Gospels do relate events before the Cross, the perspective is not of an objective bystander.
If Paul´s letters are written in the interval of say A.D. 48 – A.D. 62, the Gospels are later, between say A.D. 65 – A.D. 100. That´s one thing.
But more to the point, they were not written to remember some golden age that had been, when Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walked the earth. The Gospels were born out of the historical witness to Jesus from living Christian communities, who experienced the presence of the living Lord Jesus in their midst, by the Spirit. The Gospels are written from the standpoint of the post-resurrection faith!
They are faith documents – written for Christians!
That they are faith documents, and not journalistic accounts does not impinge on their historicity. There are many reasons for trusting them as reliable in the essentials of the life and ministry of Jesus. And some recent research, say from the last 10-15 years has focussed on the importance of eye witness testimony (Jesus and The Eye Witnesses, Richard Bauckham, 2006).
THE AGENDAS OF THE GOSPEL WRITERS
The Gospel writers gathered material, some written, some oral no doubt, from yet living witnesses. But they took the material – the sources they had – and formed their Gospels with differing agendas. We have 4 different portraits of Jesus, not only because of different source material, but also because of differing agendas.
What shaped their agendas was the needs of specific churches they served.
It is e.g. widely believed that Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome, using the memoirs of Peter, shortly after Peter´s martyrdom there, to encourage the church, living under the persecution of Nero.
Again, many believe that Matthew´s Gospel was written to serve a Jewish Christian community.
So the needs of the church – the teaching needs of the church, were influential in deciding the Gospel writer´s agenda. As such, they contain paradigmatic history.
THE GOSPELS AS PARADIGMATIC HISTORY
The word paradigm comes from two Greek words: PARA (BESIDE) + DEIKNYMI (TO SHOW), or DEIGMA (EXAMPLE). Anyone who has studied a foreign language has got used to learning verb tables. These tables are examples of paradigms – a setting out of examples in parallell columns.
The verb to walk, an ordinary regular verb in English – set out in 1., 2., and 3. person singular, and 1., 2., and 3. person plural, in the present, past and perfect tenses e.g. – in separate columns – is an example of such a table. It is a paradigm. It shows you how all such verbs are inflected.
When it is said that the Gospels contain paradigmatic history, the idea is one of transparency – that there is not some great time interval of 2000 years separating the modern believer from the Gospel events. There is as it were only a glass window through which we can see Peter and the other disciples. Peter and John become examples for us today, sometimes good examples, sometimes examples to be avoided – but examples.
To think only of the Gospel of Mark which is toughest on the disciples – who are without faith, understanding nothing (Mk 4,40) – read the first chapters of the Gospel (in Matthew at least they have “little faith”):
The example of Jesus in suffering: Mark wants to show the parallells between Jesus, who had gone before, and the situation of the Church under persecution. Remember Mark 8,34!
In 1,12-13, he has the temptation of Jesus by Satan: Jesus is in the wilderness with the wild beasts – and he is victorious. Mark is the only Gospel to record the detail of the animals. Their mention, would be full of significance for the Christians helplessly facing the wild beasts in the arena in Rome.
The calming of the storm in ch. 4: The ship/boat was from very early on a picture of the Church. One can imagine Christians in Rome suffering persecution, strengthened by this story of Jesus, IN THE BOAT WITH THE DISCIPLES, and CALMING THE SEAS.
You have the healings of the deaf man (chapter 7) and the blind man (chapter 8) who only receives his sight gradually. Is this recorded in this Gospel because Mark wants to say that the disciples only gradually went from being ignorant and faith-less, to growing in spiritual insight?
Jesus teaching of the disciples:
From chapter 8,27 (Caesarea Philippi) to chapter 10,52, Jesus is with his disciples on the way to Jerusalem – teaching them what it is going to be like to follow him – WHAT IT IS GOING TO BE LIKE TO BE A DISCIPLE:
Prophecy of his death: 8,31
8,34: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me.
9,35: If anyone would be first, he must be last of all, and the servant of all.
9,36-37: He who receives one such child in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives him who sent me.
9,41-50: If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off….if your eye causes you, tear it out….Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
Prophecy of his death: 9,30-32
10,15: Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
10,17-27: The rich young man – who can be saved?! For God all things are possible
Prophecy of his death: 10,32-34
10,35-45: Not rule, but serve
10,45: For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
It will be seen that this teaching is interspersed by 3 prophecies of his death in Jerusalem. But the disciples do not really take this in, even though it was repeated 3 times.
In chapter 11,22-23, Jesus uses the cursing of the fig tree to teach the disciples about prayer. Here Jesus becomes an example of the man of faith.
So: The Gospels are not Old Covenant! They are written FOR THE CHURCH – FOR DISCIPLES OF ALL TIME – FOR US TODAY!
ONE FURTHER POINT ON THE AGENDA OF THE GOSPEL WRITERS
The Gospel writers wrote at a time in the last half of the first century, when an early form of Gnosticism was causing problems in the Church. We know this from Paul´s writings (e.g. 1 and 2 Corintians and Colossians). The Gnostic gospel had a message of salvation through a special form of knowledge (gnosis in Greek), NOT through the cross of Christ – it denied that God could become man – the very HEART of Christianity – a denial of the Incarnation. It had become important in the Church, not only to know Christ by the Spirit, but also to know the humanity of Christ and his teaching, through the writings of the Gospels.
The Church affirms that Jesus was both TRULY GOD and TRULY MAN.
CONCLUSION
Let me end by saying that certainly in Protestantism, there has been a great emphasis on Paul, and his teaching, sometimes at the neglect of the Gospels. This needs to be redressed. It is important that we read JESUS and the GOSPELS, FOR ALL THEY ARE WORTH!