How (Not) to Read the Gospels

Today, I want to take a slight detour from the story of Lazarus to talk more broadly about how we read the Gospels. Each Gospel is a coherent and carefully constructed literary account of Jesus’ life and ministry with its own self-contained message. In other words, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each composed their Gospels to communicate something specific about Jesus. They functioned like four attorneys making an argument to four different juries. Each Gospel writer selected certain events and details, ignored others, and arranged them in a deliberate order to tell a persuasive story to a particular audience. And while there is some overlap, each of their arguments differs somewhat from the others.