Christian Middle

One of the things that keep me excited about the Bible is its capacity to surprise us.

For instance, I’ve just finished teaching this year’s Bible Study at my church. In a course I titled “Who Do You Say I Am?” we worked on the four gospels, listening to the testimony of each evangelist separately in order to distinguish their four voices.

Skeptics might want to make much of the differences among the gospels as a way of undermining their authority. In reality, however, it is in the clearly distinctive personalities of the gospel writers that Christianity can stake its strongest claim to validity.

As many Christian apologists have already pointed out, the affidavits of bystanders come under suspicion if their small details and story lines synch up too much. If everyone’s reports are too similar, detectives suspect the witnesses of collusion.

In the case of the gospel writers, however, there are plenty of variations in the way they present the story of Jesus. Yet, after reading all four, you know they’re all talking about the same person and events.

What makes this more interesting still is that no one planned how the story of Jesus would be told. In the early years of Christianity people expected Jesus to return very soon and, therefore, didn’t worry about keeping records of His time here on earth.

As the gospel spread, however, the stories that were originally passed down by word of mouth got collected in writing, eventually emerging as a series of gospels according to various witnesses. Early Christians assessed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together told the story of Jesus in a way that led readers to belief and salvation.

Instead of a single “authorized” biography of Jesus for the faithful to parrot, the New Testament offers us four renditions of Christ’s story. As believers, each of us bears the burden of creating our own picture of Jesus based on the scriptural evidence. Each of us must answer for ourselves Jesus’ question: “Who do you say I am?”

People who think religion is about telling people what to think ought to take a closer look at the Bible.

For updates on my book, or more information about me, continue to check back to this blog! I will also be frequently updating my Facebook Author page, as well my twitter account, @AuthorMcNabb, and my LinkedIn account, Katie McNabb.