Quick Remarks on the Gospels

A short message on the teachings of the Church on the Gospels.

 

Major Teachings: Dei Verbum and the Document on the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted His teachings to ordinary men but through His help and the Holy Spirit they became much more than men and after some time began to fully understand their purpose as well as the purposes of Jesus’ teachings and instructions to them. There are some phrases in the world which we hear throughout our lives and think of as commonplace but as soon as we discover they come from the lips of our Lord or the ink from an Apostle of Jesus, we suddenly hold those words and phrases without hesitation as immaculate and Holy. Our Lord gave us a Church that entrusted these teachings to His Apostles and indeed instructed them to teach them to others (Matthew 28:20 NAB) but oddly enough never wrote a word and the Bible shows no explicit command to write. But they did.

Four of the Apostles wrote the Gospels doing their best to tell their audience about the Jesus they knew, each of them writing about the same Jesus. John, the one Jesus loved, wrote these words and the rest with a very personal feel and flow. Luke, the physician, writes in flavorful detail and diagnosis. Each of the other two have their personalities as well but they all teach of the same person, Jesus Christ. With this our Mother Church holds steadfast on the historicity and inspiration of all four as Apostolic origin (Dei Verbum, 18). In time the Church sorted out the accurate from the not, and assembled them in a symbolic order of the four creatures in Ezekiel and Revelation. We can trust our Church Fathers, why? Because Jesus did. We are His bride and as a perfect groom He promises to keep us from the gates of Hell (Matthew 16:18 NAB), which if she fails to tell the Truth, the gates of Hades have certainly prevailed against her.