WALKING THROUGH THE NEW

TESTAMENT
The New Testament presents the life and works of
Jesus and the way He was received by the people
who had been waiting for Him for so long.
THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS
GOSPELS
The Gospel are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. They announce the Good News of our Lord Jesus
Christ. They were authored by writers known as evangelists,
a term derived from the Greek word euangelion, which
means “announcement of the good news.”
GOSPELS
Among the books of the New Testament, the four Gospels
are the principal witnesses to the life and teachings of
Jesus Christ. The Gospels are not historical biographies of
Jesus, but rather are faith accounts about Jesus by His
early followers. Through these accounts, readers are called
to faith in Jesus.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
The Acts of the Apostles describe the early spread of the
Good News to the world and the formation of the Early
Church.
 LETTERS
The twenty-one Letters in the Bible are called Epistles. Fourteen of these
are attributed to St. Paul:
Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,
1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.
They are addressed to the early Christian communities and to the
individual leaders of these communities.
They give advice on some doctrinal positions about the person of Jesus
and practical directions or guidelines on how to live a Christian life.
LETTERS
The remaining Letters – James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1,2, & 3 John,
and Jude – are attributed to other apostles.
All the letters are concerned with how Christian should
apply Jesus’ teachings, His Good News of salvation, to
their daily lives.
REVELATION
The Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse, is the
only prophetic book in the New Testament.
It is a highly symbolic and visionary account of the decisive
struggle of Christ and His followers against Satan and his
forces.
KNOWING HOW THE GOSPELS WERE
FORMED
 When you read the Gospels, you read the result of a process
of composition and formation that took 40 to 70 years. Does it
surprise you that the Gospels were written some 30 years after
the events they happened?

• The history behind the Gospel is fascinating. Jesus’ Death and

Resurrection took place around A.D. 30, while the first written
Gospel appeared only around A.D 60 and 70. What do you
think went on in the intervening thirty years?
• Recent Church teachings describe three stages in the formation of the
Gospels. These are:

1. Jesus’ earthly life in the Palestine,

2. The Oral Tradition
3. The Written Gospels
STAGE 1: JESUS’ LIFE IN PALESTINE (A.D. 1-30)
The Gospels present the works and words of Jesus
of Nazareth. As the son of Mary, Jesus was born
probably between 6 B.C and 4 B.C. during the reign
of Herod the Great and was crucified on a Friday
in A.D 30.
STAGE 1: JESUS’ LIFE IN PALESTINE (A.D. 1-30)
Jesus proclaimed the Good News of our salvation. After
the Resurrection, the apostles preached that Jesus Himself
is the Good News for in Him, God definitely revealed
Himself and His love for us in a total and an unconditional
way. God sent His only Son to become man and die for us,
the greatest sign of His love for us.
STAGE 1: JESUS’ LIFE IN PALESTINE (A.D. 1-30)
In Jesus, we are saved from our sins and are reconciled
with God. Through Jesus’ actions and teachings and
especially though His Passion, Death, and Resurrection,
Jesus became our Savior. He won for us the salvation from
sin that God had promised to us.
STAGE 1: JESUS’ LIFE IN PALESTINE (A.D. 1-30)
During His public ministry of about three years (A.D 27 to 30),
Jesus preached with unique authority as foretold by the prophets.
He performed many miracles and chose twelve men as His apostles
whom He sent to carry on His work when His time on earth had
been completed.
He commissioned His apostles to preach His message of salvation
to all nations. He promised them that He would send His Holy Spirit
to enlighten and empower them as they spread the Good News
throughout the world.
STAGE 2: ORAL TRADITION (A.D. 30-64)
After Jesus’ Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon
them, the apostles fulfilled Jesus’ command to preach the Good
News. With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the apostles
understood clearly for the first time who Jesus was and what He
had accomplished.
Faith in Jesus was the core teaching that the first preachers passed
on to the world. Thus, in real sense, their preaching consisted of
narrative faith account of Jesus’ earthly life.
STAGE 2: ORAL TRADITION (A.D. 30-64)
In the course of their preaching, the apostles gained many
followers for Christ. The apostles traveled throughout
Palestine and in the Middle East and moved to Greece,
Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and Rome itself.
Throughout these countries they proclaimed the Good
News of Jesus. Their teaching and missionary activities
started what is known as the period of “great
evangelization.”
 STAGE 2: ORAL TRADITION (A.D. 30-64)
This period immediately following Jesus’ Resurrection constituted
the Oral Tradition stage in the formation of the Gospels. The Good
News was spread only by word of mouth.
The original proclamation of the apostles after Pentecost is called
the kerygma.
Kerygma is the act of proclaiming the Good News of Salvation
through Jesus Christ.
 STAGE 2: ORAL TRADITION (A.D. 30-64)
Although during this period the apostles preached
about Jesus Christ only orally, partial written
compilations of Jesus’ parables, miracles, and
sayings and an outline of the Passion narratives were
already being written and passed around.
However, it took some more years before the first
evangelist created the first Gospel.
WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?
Biblical scholars cite several reasons.
First, people preferred the spoken, “living” work than
written word.

Second, … the original witnesses were still alive during

that time

Third, Early Christians expected Jesus to come back soon.

Eventually the early Christians saw the urgent need to write
down the Good News for the following reasons:

1. The Apostles and the original witnesses were dying or

being martyred.
2. The Good News was being preached to people farther
and farther away from Jerusalem. Thus a written record
was needed to guided the preacher to avoid error
3. When they realized that Jesus would not come back
soon, they needed a permanent record of Jesus;
message for the future generations of Christians.
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPELS (A.D 65-100)
The Gospels were written over a period of 30-40
years, from about A.D 65 – 100. There is nothing
quite like them in the world of religious or secular
literature. They are faith testimonies to the Life,
Death, and inspire new ones.
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPELS (A.D 65-100)
The Gospels were not written to serve as biographies
whose historical data need to by many sources. John’s
Gospel clearly states its purpose and limitation:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his

disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that
you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”
- Jn 20:30-31
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPELS (A.D 65-100)
The evangelists, the writer of the four canonical Gospels, drew their
materials from the oral preaching of the apostles and earliest
disciples of Jesus, as well as from partial written compilations of
Jesus’ teachings and accounts of Jesus’ miracles, Passion, and Death
that were available to them.
The sources and the creative work of the evangelists were within
the Church; the written Gospels are Church documents, created in,
by, and for Christian communities.
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPELS (A.D 65-100)
The evangelists organized the materials according to their own
particular sources and purpose. They were able to do so because
of the special grace of the Holy Spirit, which is called biblical
inspiration.
Biblical inspiration refers to the Holy Spirit’s divine activity of
superintending (overseeing and directing) the authors, editors, and
compilers of the Bible that allowed them to use their own
personalities and writing styles to communicate and compile without
error God’s revelation to humankind.
“[T]he book of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire,
with all their parts, written under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, have God as their author, and have been handed down
as such to the Church herself … Since, therefore, all that the
inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded
as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the
books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach
that truth which God, for that sake of our salvation, wished to
see confided to the Sacred Scripture.”
- Dei Verbum
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPEL (A.D. 65-100)
Gospel refers to the four written version of the Good News of
Jesus, namely those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four
Gospels formed the central part of God’s inspired Work in the
New Testament (Dei Verbum 18). They stand on the authority of the
apostles and first disciples who witnessed to the faith of all
Christians.
What is significant, however, is the what God used the human
authors, editors, and codifiers of the Bible through the Holy Spirit’s
special inspiration. The New Testament, like the Old Testament, has
God Himself as the primary author.
STAGE 3: THE WRITTEN GOSPEL (A.D. 65-100)
Each of the four Gospels pictures Jesus as Savior. The
evangelists’ concern was not to report a chronological
summary of Jesus’ life, but to share the incredible Good
News. What they wanted was to proclaim the religious
significance and enduring impact of Jesus, the Savior of
the world.
John’s Prologue compares the coming of Christ to the
creation of the world for there is no other adequate
comparison for it.
DISCOVERING THE GOSPELS’
PORTRAYALS OF JESUS
- There is only one Jesus.
- Why, then, are there four different accounts of His life?
- The answer is clear: we get to know persons better when
they are described from different points of view and by
various people, such as their parents, siblings, friends,
teachers, and even enemies.
This is all the more true of Jesus, the God-made-man. The
four Gospels give us a clearer and more complete picture
of who He is. The added quality of the inspired Gospels is
that they are living Word of God, which grounds the faith
of Christians in this ever-changing world.
DISCOVERING THE GOSPELS’ PORTRAYALS OF
JESUS
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the
synoptics or synoptic Gospels. Synoptic is from the Greek words
syn and optic which, when combined, mean “to see together.”
The three Gospels are called synoptic because they share many
similarities and thus can be studied together or alongside one
another.
The Gospel of John, however, is different from the three. It is longer
and written in a more poetic tone. It also contains accounts that are
found in the synoptic Gospels.
THE GOSPEL PORTRAITS OF JESUS
MARK: JESUS IS THE SUFFERING MESSIAH
In the Gospel according to Mark, the evangelist wanted to
make clear to the persecuted Roman Christians, but he was
also intent on teaching what it meant to be a disciple of
Jesus, that is, to follow Him unto the Cross.
It is interesting, though, that throughout Mark’s Gospel we
see Jesus trying many times to keep His true identity a
secret.
MARK: JESUS IS THE SUFFERING MESSIAH
Jesus instructed His disciples, the persons He healed, and
even the demons not to reveal who He was. Jesus’
consistent effort to conceal His identity as Messiah is called
the messianic secret. “He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to, the more they
proclaimed it” (Mk 7:36).
MATTHEW: JESUS IS THE MESSIAH AND KING
The portrait of Jesus as the Messiah-King
prophesied in the Old Testament is the focus of the
Gospel of Matthew. Whereas Mark showed Jesus
avoiding being proclaimed the Son of God,
Matthew portrayed Him being recognized and
proclaimed as the Messiah by His apostles.
MATTHEW: JESUS IS THE MESSIAH AND KING
Matthew also highlighted Jesus’ Jewish heritage by
opening his Gospel with Jesus’ genealogy, which reached
back to Abraham (Mt. 1:1-17). Matthew did this to confirm
to his Jewish-Christian audience that Jesus indeed was the
Messiah-King that had need promised them. Through Jesus,
the salvation the Jews longed for was finally realized.
MATTHEW: JESUS IS THE MESSIAH AND KING
Matthew explained that “to follow Jesus” is to learn Jesus’
way of life as He is the Teacher greater than Moses.
Matthew also stressed the importance of being formed
into a church or ecclesia (Mt 16:18; 18:17), a name for the
Christian community not found in any other Gospel.
LUKE: JESUS IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD
Luke wanted to bring to the Gentile community the good
news that Jesus was the Savior not just of a chosen few but
of all people, especially those considered outcast of
Jewish society. Hence, Luke portrayed Jesus as being full
of mercy and compassion, often crossing social, religious,
and political barriers to reach out to the poor, the outcasts,
the sinners, and the women.
LUKE: JESUS IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD
Luke’s Gospel is different from the others because it
shows the significant role of women in Jesus’ ministry
and it gives attention to Mary, the mother of Jesus,
in the infancy narratives. Aside from this, Luke’s
Gospel notes Jesus’ prayer life and His being “filled
with the spirit.”
JOHN: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, THE WORD OF
GOD MADE MAN
John’s Gospel emphasizes the divinity of Jesus, who is
described in symbolic images and titles such as “the Word
of God enfleshed” and “the Light of the world.”
John begins his gospel with a prologue: “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was God … And the Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we
saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son” (Jn
1:1,14).
JOHN: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, THE WORD OF
GOD MADE MAN
The divine portrayal of Jesus in John is so strong
that even in the account of His Passion, Jesus is
depicted not as a beaten, tormented victim but as a
glorified King, calm and fully in charge of His
destiny.
JOHN: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, THE WORD OF
GOD MADE MAN
Commentators calls John’s chapter on Jesus’ Last Supper,
Passion, Death, and Resurrection the “Book of Glory” and
the first twelve chapters narrating Jesus’ public life the
“Book of Signs.”
John concludes with this passage: “There are also many
other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be
described individually, I do not think the whole world
would contain the books that would be written.”
JOHN: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, THE WORD OF
GOD MADE MAN
Jesus revealed God in His words and deeds. The
portrayal of Jesus as the uniquely divine human
person – the Son-of-God-made-man – presumed
the basics of the Christian faith and reflected the
truth of Jesus’ nature and person more deeply.
THE GOSPEL SYMBOLS
One easy way to remember the four evangelists and the
Gospels they wrote is to take note of the symbols used to
represent them.

Have we not all seen animal and human figures painted on

the ceilings or walls of our churches?

Do we know what the figures stand for?

 THE GOSPEL SYMBOLS
In the early days, many people could not read or write. They learned
their faith through stories told to them or through Christian art and
symbols. Many popular early Christian artworks show the symbols
used for the evangelists.
Many popular early Christian artworks show the symbols used for the
evangelists. The Book of Ezekiel (Ez 1:10) and the Book of Revelation
(Rv 4:7) provide the sources these symbols. Both books speak of a
vision of four living creatures serving before the throne of God.
“ The first creature resembled a lion, the second was
like a calf, the third had a face like that of a human
being, and the fourth looked like an eagle in flight.”
- Rv. 4:7
 THE GOSPEL SYMBOLS
Each evangelist was assigned a symbol according to his style of writing. The use of such
symbols is part of our Christian tradition.
Matthew - MAN – his Gospel opens with a record of Jesus’ human ancestors.
Mark - DESERT LION – his Gospel opens with John the Baptist “crying out in the desert.”
The symbol also fits Mark’s style, which is as vivid and as direct as lion’s roar.
Luke - OX – his Gospel opens with Zechariah offering a sacrifice to God in the temple.
The ox is a reminder of ancient animal sacrifices.
John - EAGLE – his Gospel starts with a prologue praising Jesus, who alone can look at
the face of God just as the eagle alone can look upon the sun.
John’s style of writing is different from the other evangelists. So while the synoptic evangelists
are represented by creature of the skies.