Rose Guide to the Gospels: Side-by-Side Charts and Overviews

By Rose Publishing

See how everything in the Gospels reveals Jesus as the divine Messiah, Savior, Servant, Healer, and Risen Lord! Rose Publishing introduces Rose Guide to the Gospels, your quick-reference guide through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. With over 100 pictures, charts, and timelines, this user-friendly introduction to the four Gospels helps you explore over 150 key people, places, and stories in the life of Jesus. Add depth to any Bible study with in-depth summaries of how the Gospels were written, the key people and events in each of the four books, why you can trust them, how Jesus fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament, and much more!

Unlike commentaries, this guide is packed with maps, timelines, and side-by-side charts which show key information on all four Gospels at a glance. From an introduction to Jewish and Greco-Roman life to a “who’s who” of over 50 key people, get a condensed and thorough overview on the four Gospels!

Includes the following:

• An introduction to the Jewish and Greco-Roman culture and customs in the time of Jesus
• An overview of the life of Jesus—why he came, what he did, and why it matters for us today
• The who, what, where, when, and why for all four Gospels. Compare how these books are alike and how they’re different
• An in-depth look at how the Gospels were written. Know why we can have confidence that the Gospels are reliable testimonies of the life and work of Jesus Christ
• A harmony of the Gospels with more than 100 events, all with Scripture references
• A “who’s who” of more than 50 key people in the Gospels
• Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah
• Answers to skeptics’ objections about the resurrection

Perfect for individual study, small groups, young adult and youth groups, church libraries, homeschool, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798400500688

Book preview

Chapter 1

The

Four Gospels

Why, two millennia after his crucifixion, is the world still so fascinated with Jesus?

Do a search for his name on the internet and you’ll be given anywhere from 330–880 million links to browse! Just for fun, consider that lower number. Who could ever read so many web pages? At one per minute—and skimming nonstop for sixteen hours a day—you’re looking at a project that would take more than 950 years. (Of course, no one should try to read most of those links; contrary to popular belief, not everything we find on the internet is true!)

Jesus crucified

A better plan would be to set aside a few hours to carefully read the New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Together, these four biographies of Jesus (as they’ve been called) give us an accurate, breathtaking portrait of the most extraordinary life ever lived.

What Is a Gospel?

The Greek word euangelion, translated as gospel, means good news. In ancient times, royal heralds would be dispatched to travel from village to village, announcing the gospel of a king’s military triumph or impending visit, or the birth of a royal heir. In the Bible, the term gospel refers to the heavenly good news announcement that God has, in Jesus, fulfilled his messianic promises to Israel and supplied a Savior for the world. Gospel also refers to any of the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four gospels each proclaim—in different ways, as we shall see—who Jesus is and what he has done to make salvation possible.

The four gospels can be described as short biographies of Jesus, but they differ from most contemporary biographies. A modern biography usually presents a detailed, chronological, and comprehensive summary of someone’s life. It tries to shed light on all aspects of its subject—his/her personality, character, accomplishments, etc.—from the cradle to the grave. The Gospels don’t exactly do this. In fact, it’s estimated that, between the four gospels, only about fifty days of Jesus’ three-year ministry are highlighted! It’s also been suggested that reading all the recorded words of Jesus found in the Gospels would only take the average person about three hours. Clearly, the gospel writers—and behind them, the Holy Spirit—were highly selective in the material they chose to include.

We can also think of the Gospels as verbal portraits of Jesus. Each gospel writer views Jesus from a different perspective. We could also say they are messages about Jesus, each one built around carefully selected events and themes from Jesus’ life and designed to show the significance of his life to a different audience.

Though the Gospels weren’t the first New Testament books written, they appear first because they link the story of Israel in the Old Testament with the birth of the church in the New Testament. The followers of Jesus were convinced that he was (and is) the Messiah, the anointed one foretold in the Old Testament. They saw Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, as the fulfillment of the Jewish law and the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). They believed that his death on the cross for sin made the Jewish sacrificial system obsolete. They saw Jesus as the personification of all God’s glorious promises. Given these breathtaking beliefs, it’s no wonder the Gospels make up almost half (46 percent) of the New Testament. In the eyes of the earliest Christians, the entire Old Testament anticipates the life of Jesus, and the entire New Testament celebrates and builds on that life.

Why Four Gospels?

Why not just write a single comprehensive book about Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, death, burial, and resurrection? One answer is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were writing to different audiences and emphasizing different aspects of Christ’s life and ministry. In fact, the early church—borrowing from Ezekiel 1:10 and Revelation 4:6–8—associated symbols with each of the four gospels.

scrollGospels Chart

Another reason we have multiple gospels is that a single perspective can hardly do justice to the memory of any person—much less Jesus himself. Some have gone so far as to suggest that God inspired four different gospels to appeal to various personality types. While that conjecture can’t be proven, it would surely square with God’s compassionate nature and Paul’s claim that God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4).

Matthew is the most prophetic gospel, showing how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament messianic prophecies.

Mark is the most practical gospel, depicting the various ways Jesus actively served God and others.

Luke is the most historical gospel, mentioning assorted political details and background information.

John is the most theological gospel, showing how Jesus is God incarnate and what faith really means.

At the very least, God used men from varied (and unlikely) professions to give the world glimpses of his Son. Matthew was a tax collector, John a fisherman, and Luke a doctor. (Mark’s vocational background is unknown.)

John ends his gospel with this extraordinary statement: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (John 21:25).

In other words, the gospel writers (called evangelists) had no shortage of source material to work with! Depending on their intended audience—and, spiritually speaking, depending on the promptings of the Holy Spirit—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tailored their messages accordingly.

Why Is John So Different?

The first three gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic stems from a compound Greek word that means same view or to see together. Even though these three accounts of the life of Christ have different emphases, they tend to approach his life from basically the same viewpoint.

It’s been suggested that the Synoptic Gospels focus on the man who was God; whereas John’s gospel views Jesus from the perspective of God becoming man. For this reason, New Testament scholar Darrell Bock suggests we read Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the earth up. In other words, these accounts present the disciples (and others) encountering the man Jesus and slowly coming to realize Jesus’ divine nature. Bock says John’s gospel, on the other hand, should be read from heaven down. It takes a different viewpoint or perspective—beginning with the statement that Jesus is the eternal, divine, incarnate Word, come to show the world what God is like (John 1:1–18).

Fresco of the Four Evangelists by Leopold Bruckner

Fresco of the Four Evangelists by Leopold Bruckner

Are the Gospels Trustworthy?

We have to remember that Matthew and John were two of Jesus’ earliest and most loyal followers. They had an up close and personal, front-row seat for some three years to the teachings and miracles of Jesus. Mark may or may not have been an eyewitness of Jesus (some believe he is the unnamed man in Mark 14:51–52). If he wasn’t an eyewitness, he enjoyed the next best thing: he was a ministry associate of two apostles, Peter and Paul. As such he had access to a wealth of stories and memories. What about Luke, the trusted colleague of Paul, and the only non-Jewish writer in the New Testament? Why should we trust his gospel? Because he states in his opening paragraph that he carefully investigated everything from the beginning (1:3). In other words, he listened to eyewitness reports and examined all available oral traditions and written records too.

Mostly, we can know the biblical documents are trustworthy and dependable because the human authors were guided and superintended by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20–21). And there’s this: on the night before his death, Jesus promised his followers that the Spirit would remind you of everything I have said to you (John 14:26).

Bible open

Though the Gospels surely don’t divulge everything that Jesus did, and though they leave us with many unanswered questions, they nevertheless confront us with the astonishing claim—and overwhelming evidence to back up that claim—that Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh, the Messiah-King of Israel, the Lord of the universe, and the Savior of the world. As C. S. Lewis has so wisely observed, if such a grandiose claim is false, it is of no importance. If it is true, it is of utmost importance. The one thing the claim cannot be is moderately important.

The Gospel of Matthew

Author

In answering the question of biblical authorship, scholars typically look for two kinds of authentication.

Internal evidence: clues found within a writing

External evidence: corroborating statements by others

St. Matthew the Evangelist by Josef Kastner

St. Matthew the Evangelist by Josef Kastner

In the case of Matthew (also known as Levi; see Luke 5:27–32), the external evidence for his authorship is strong. Prominent leaders of the early church—men like Clement of Rome (

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35–99), Polycarp (

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69–155), and Justin Martyr (

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100–165)—agreed that the first gospel was written by Matthew the apostle of Jesus.

The internal evidence also points to Matthew. As a former tax collector (Mark 2:14–17), Matthew would have been literate and an experienced record keeper uniquely qualified to write a gospel record of Jesus. Matthew might even have taken notes during the years he traveled with Jesus. And why would the first gospel contain several