There are four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. One might consider them the Beatles of the New Testament. That said, somebody who knows the reference might ask, “So who is Ringo?” But the drummer of the Beatles, as happens too often for drummers, gets short shrift. But I am not here to talk about the Beatles.
I am here to talk about Matthew and Luke. In each of them, Jesus talks about Jonah as a sign for the people. More than just a sign, he is an expression of Jesus’ frustration. In the face of all the signs and wonders that Jesus accomplished in the presence of the people, they kept asking for more. Many demanding these signs were not people of faith, seeing their faith expressed in the power of God through Jesus. They were the opponents, the disbelievers, the ones looking for a bit of Godly flair in this self-proclaimed Son of Man.
But where it gets interesting is that Matthew and Luke do not record precisely the same things. As I hope I have made clear, we are preaching on Jonah in the month of April. Both gospel writers share Jesus and the reference to Jonah, but not in identical terms. What I mean is that Matthew specifically references the three days of Jonah in the belly of the fish as a narrative prophecy of Jesus’ three days in the belly of the earth (there is a previous post that talks about the different kinds of prophecy) where Luke does not.
Why would Matthew mention this Easter parallel while Luke would not? What does it say about the inspiration of Scripture? That is important because it implicates God in the sharing of the Scriptures that we have. These are two passages that are either referencing the same incident, but with different details, or, if one wants to push the issue, two different moments when Jesus mentions Jonah. So, the Matthew moment and the Luke moment. If it is important to keep the stories straight. If it is important that it might be implicated that there is ‘error’ in Scripture with the divergent Gospel accounts in reference to Jonah.
Or it may go to the root of our theology of inspiration, how we think about God in regards to the writing of the Bible. I believe that Matthew and Luke speak to the eyewitness accounts of Jesus from two different points of view. Two people seeing the same thing but not remembering identical details. That may be troublesome in a court case, but I, for one, do not see it as troublesome in the Word of God. God’s inspiration is the presence of the Holy Spirit upon the authors of Scripture.
Thus Luke and Matthew are not in competition with one another. Rather, they are complementary to one another. There are many accounts across the gospels that are in distinction to one another. Only two carry aspects (different from one another) of the Christmas event. Only three provide for us the narrative of the Lord’s Supper. John implies that narrative and adds the story of Jesus’ washing the feet of the disciples. The gospels provide different amount of detail to the temptation of Jesus by Satan.
I do understand there is an "amalgamation" gospel, one that joins together the events of all four into a single narrative. It sounds like an interesting read, but it is not the Bible. God has provided us with four points of view on the life and times of Jesus. Read them as four people relaying their accounts of our Savior. They are not identical because people, much less their memories, are not identical. God has gifted us with these four.
They are complementary. Each of the four, traditionally Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--but the authors choose not to self-identify in the texts--each provides us their witness of Christ. They enrich one another. When digging in to a deep understanding of the gospel, one layer of reading is to note where those distinctions take place. A second layer is to see where those four individual voices speak distinctly (not differently) from one another. How much more then can we learn about our Savior?
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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