Brothers & Sisters,

            I love reading the Gospels. The Gospels are good and glorious accounts of the life and ministry of our Savior. One of the reasons that I love reading the Gospels is that I can see myself in them. I am the man in need of healing. I am the prideful Pharisee in need of confrontation. I am sinner in need of saving. This is one of the reasons why I love the Gospels. Here is another, they are radically different. Have you ever considered that the Gospels are biographies, but that they are no ordinary biography? Geoff Robson makes this exact point when he writes, 

“If the subject of a biography has died, their death is sure to rate a mention in the book – maybe as an unexpected tragedy, or simply as the end of their life and their achievements. Yet in all the many biographies I’ve read, there’s one thing I’ve never seen: the idea that the central figure in the story came into the world in order to die. Death is the end of life, but it’s not the purpose of life.

            Yet incredibly, all four biographies of Jesus present his death in exactly this way – as the very purpose of his life. Jesus himself predicts his coming death before it happens, and clearly sees it as being central to his mission.”

Geoff Robson, The Book of Books: A Short Guide to Reading the Bible, Brief Books (Sydney: Matthias Media, 2015), 27-28.

Maybe this year as part of your New Year’s resolutions you’ve made plans to read more biographies, and you’ve made plans to read your Bible more. I hope you have, and I hope that the Gospels of the New Testament are part of your plan. In the history of literature, there is nothing like them and that is because there is no one like Jesus.

Warmly in Christ,

Mike