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John, Luke, Mark, Matthew

Whereas Matthew was written for Jews, Mark was written for the later Gentile converts. Matthew began his gospel with what he knew would be the first question about the Messiah any Hebrew would ask: Is he a son of David? Is he qualified to be the King of Jews? Matthew answers that question (Matt. 1:6, 16), though not the most important, certainly the most important to a Hebrew, before beginning anything else such as Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. Mark, on the other hand, has no genealogy, instead sticking to Peter's stipulation of the qualifications for Judas' replacement (Acts 1:21-22): "companied with us all the time . . . from the baptism of John unto that same day he was taken up from us." Mark begins with Jesus' baptism (Mark 1:2) and continues on to the resurrection, closing at Jesus' last words to His disciples, which are incidentally His qualifications for an apostle (Mark 16:17-18).

Luke's purpose is different again from Matthew and Mark, but to accomplish it he uses elements of both. Luke wants to present Jesus the Messiah as the Son of Man (different from Mark's servant of man) so he takes Jesus' genealogy all the way to the first man, Adam (Luke 3:38), to show that Jesus is the Savior of all, not only the Jews. This particular message is important to Luke, himself a Gentile convert.

John wrote his gospel last, probably after the other writers had died. By the ninth decade when John began writing the church was already being infiltrated with heresies, gnostic or Jewish (and perhaps others then or to come later) so he more clearly presents Jesus as the Messiah Who is God Himself (Zech. 12:10; John 1:1-3,14; etc.) Thus, while Matthew wrote for the Jew and Mark and Luke wrote for the Gentile, John wrote for both, who were both in danger of being deceived by the many false religions Rome and Greece were famous for.

Luke wrote Acts as a companion to his gospel (Luke 1:1-2; Acts 1:1-2). In his gospel he presented Jesu...

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John, Luke, Mark, Matthew. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:12, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702439.html