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WHY FOUR GOSPELS? MARK 1:1-8By Pastor Glenn PeaseThe painter Lundwig Richter, tells in his memoirs of how he and three friends setout to paint the same landscape. They each were committed to produce asaccurately as possible what they saw. Nevertheless, the result was four differentpictures, as different as the four personalities of the artists.The same thing happened when four well-known artists painted the portrait of the United Nations hostess Maria Lani. Each of them knew her personally and sawher from a different perspective, and the result was four remarkably differentpictures.This helps us understand why there are four Gospels in the New Testament. OneGospel would give us the life of Jesus as seen from only one perspective, and thatwould mean a very inadequate portrait. Jesus is too complex to be seen from onlyone perspective. God inspired four men to write the life of Jesus, for each of themgives us unique insight into Jesus that you do not get in the others.Mark gives us the perspective that is most popular in our modern world. Wycliff Bible Translators have made Mark the most translated book in the world. There isno other book in the world in so many different languages. It is the shortest of theGospels, and, therefore, the fastest to translate and to read. But that is not the onlyreason for its selection. It is also the Gospel most appealing to the Gentile world.Matthew is written for Jews, and it is full of Old Testament quotes, andreferences to Jewish customs, all of which are of little concern to the Gentiles towhom Mark writes. He writes for the Romans, and they did not care aboutgenealogies and a persons pedigree. They only cared about his deeds, not his decent.The result is, Mark is a Gospel of deeds. Jesus is a man of action-a man on themove. It is a go go go Gospel, and Jesus is involved in one event and miracle afteranother, with hardly a breath in between. If Jesus ever relaxed, it is not noted byMark.Mark does not tell us about birth stories and childhood. He leaves that to Dr.Luke. He is more anxious to get on with the story of the adult action of the Lord.But this does not mean Mark is not interested in details. He gives us graphic detailsthe other Gospels do not share. If you want to know exact names, times, locations,or the numbers and colors, you go to Mark for these details. He is the detail man.His portrait is of Messiah on the run, but he is no blur, but rather, a very concretepersonality involved in very specific settings and lives. Mark tells us more about thelooks and gestures of Jesus than anyone.Mark is the only one who tells us that our Savior was a carpenter. Mark tells usmore about our Lord's emotions than the other Gospels. He brings Jesus closer to
 
us as a man of like feelings. The other Gospels just tell us of Jesus calling littlechildren to Him, but Mark tells us twice that when they came He took them up intoHis arms. Mark alone brings out a tenderness in Jesus that nobody else records.We could go on giving examples, but the point we want to make is, each Gospelwriter sees Jesus from a perspective that the others do not see. You cannot know allthere is to know about Jesus by reading just one Gospel. There are four of them fora reason, and each is vital to the total picture. Mark is the Gospel that is the firstGospel recommended for reading around the world, and this morning we are goingto start a study of Mark in our goal to know our Lord and Savior better.Mark begins his Gospel with the word, beginning. The Greek has no article, andso it is not in the original, the beginning, but just beginning. Beginning of theGospel about Jesus. Mark does not waste any time in getting the show on the road.This is the greatest show on earth, and the greatest story ever told, and he does notgive us page after page of background and introduction. He lifts the curtain on thisdrama for act one just as the gun is fired for the race to begin.Matthew is more like the educational channel with a long introduction of genealogies, exciting to those in the know, but boring to the majority of people who just want to see some action. Mark is the Gospel for them, for he is like one of thoseaction-packed films that starts off with a chase scene, or a few explosions, beforethey even list the characters. Mark does not even say, "On your marks, get set":He just says, "Go!"Now we could argue with Mark, and say the Gospel began long before John theBaptist came announcing the coming of Christ. It actually began in the mind andheart of God before the world began. This is, of course, the perspective of John'sGospel. He starts, "In the beginning was the word." He goes back to the eternalpre-incarnate state of the Son with the Father.Or we could argue that the Gospel began with the birth of Jesus, and this wouldbe Dr. Luke's perspective. You could argue that it started with the promise toAbraham, or go back to the promise to Adam and Eve. This is Matthew'sperspective. There are a lot of places you can begin the Gospel, but Mark says, hereis where the rubber meets the road: When Jesus actually began His public ministry,and began to demonstrate His deity in power and compassion for people. That iswhere the good news really became a reality. Before it was potential, but here itbecomes actual. All that went before was promise, but here begins the fulfillment.Nobody else has to be wrong for Mark to be right. Where the Gospel begins alldepends on your perspective.Mark's perspective is that it is the action of Jesus that really counts, and,therefore, here is where we begin: Where Jesus steps out of the shadow of Hisobscure and commonplace life, and begins to play the public role he came into theworld to play as the Messiah of Israel, and the Savior of the world.
 
Everytime you give an account of some event in your life, you have to choosewhere to begin. You can start with what you had for breakfast, or where you wentshopping, if these are relevant to the event. Or you can start with the event itself.Where you begin depends on your purpose, and on which details of the day arerelevant to your purpose. There was a time when Jesus was not a public figuredoing miracles and drawing crowds by His teaching. But then He began His publicministry as a man of action, and Mark shows this as the beginning of the Gospel.This is where the light began to shine and produce new hope and dreams.I have labored this issue because I believe it is a very important issue thatChristians need to get into their thinking. God has given us four perspectives on thelife of His Son, and thus teaches us the validity of, and the value of differentperspectives. You can argue all you want about the importance of the birth storiesof Matthew and Luke, or about the pre-existent Christ of John, but you cannotescape the fact that God inspired a Gospel to begin with the adult life of Jesus andJohn the Baptist his forerunner. All of them are valid and of great value.God is aware of the need to adapt the message to the needs of the hearers. Thus,He had Matthew write with a Jewish perspective; Mark with a Roman perspective,and Luke with a Greek perspective. What this means for us is that we need to beaware that we need to present Christ to those who do not know Him in a way thatfits their point of view. If you are dealing with an intellectual you will stress thatJesus is the Truth, and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom andknowledge. If you are dwelling with a person with all sorts of physical needs, youwill present Christ as the Great Physician. There are no limits to the ways you canpresent the Lord, for He has hundreds of names, and plays hundreds of rolesdepending upon the need.One of the most important things we need to learn about our Lord is that He isadaptable. Do not limit and stifle your growth in Jesus by locking Him into yourculture, and into the framework of your own background and awareness. Be opento the Jesus and multiple perspectives. But this is not to be interpreted to mean thatall perspectives about Jesus are correct. There are all kinds of wrong perspectiveson Jesus too. History is full of them. The New Testament has plenty of them.People saw Jesus as a winebibber and a glutton. People saw Jesus as a lawbreakerand a blasphemer. Some even saw Him as one of the prophets returned. This was apositive perspective, but it was still false.From the earliest centuries there have been fictional accounts of Jesus designedto make Him conform to the current values of the culture. He was portrayed inmany apocryphal Gospel as a sensationalist doing the very thing Satan tempted Himto do. He used His divine power to make play birds fly away, and to make boardsshorter without cutting them, and other crowd-pleasing miracles. False perspectiveson Jesus have been common. The only way to discover what is false is to put it upagainst the four basic views of Jesus God has revealed in the four Gospels. If anyChrist is presented that is not consistent with these four portraits, then you knowyou are dealing with a false Christ. There is no higher goal for the Christian to aim
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