Archive for August 24th, 2010

Why 4 different gospel accounts?

Have you ever wondered why there are four different versions of the same gospel story? Mark Driscoll gives a helpful explanation:

The way the Gospels in our Bible have been arranged provides a perfect example of how the same gospel story can be presented in different ways. Some critics of Scripture have argued that the differences between the Gospels are contradictions. This could not be farther from the truth. The four gospels simply are similar to your local nightly news. The first three gospels are like local network television affiliates for ABC, NBC, and CBS, which generally report the same stories with some variation in eyewitness accounts and details. This explains why roughly 60 percent of the first three gospels give the same information. John, on the other hand, is more like one of the national cable television newscasts—such as CNN—which have news stories that are rarely found on the local nightly news. This explains why roughly 90 percent of John is unique to his account. (Radical Reformission, 57)

What do you think are the implications of this in terms of how we adapt our gospel presentation? How can we adjust the form of our gospel presentation without adjusting the content?

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