Who is Jesus?

One follower of Jesus named Paul wrote about this in a letter we have saved in our Bible that we call the Letter to the Ephesians.  In it, he says,

“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” 

—Ephesians 3:17-20

: : Did you catch that? : :

Paul wants people to “comprehend” something that is too big to fully know. This thing is so primary that it fills people full, it can’t be truly measured or exhausted, and it effectively roots and grounds us.

: : What is this thing? : :

It is the love of Christ. To answer the big question of “Who is Jesus"?” you will run into the story of a God who loves you and your family, who wants what’s best for you, and who is willing to prove his love for you.

: : So… Who is Jesus… : :

You can find the best first answer to this question in a biography about him by people that actually knew him or that knew people that knew him.

The first four books of what we call the New Testament in the Bible are four different biographies of Jesus written by people that either knew Jesus or knew people that did. 

Below is a link to an online copy of each. We would love to give you a physical copy of the Bible too, if you want one!

• John is a great place to read about the life of Jesus. John and his brother both began following Jesus from town to town as Jesus taught and ministered. John was with Jesus at nearly every major story and writes about those moments as an eyewitness full of awe and wonder. He was there when Jesus turned water into wine, when his friend Peter walked on water, when Lazarus came out of the grave, and when Jesus spoke gracious truth to a woman at a well in the middle of the baking noonday sun. You can see in his writing a man that was completely captivated by the things Jesus said and how he treated others. The most famous bible verse in the whole world was written by John (John 3:16).

• Matthew was a close friend of Jesus. Before he met Jesus, he was a tax collector and most people didn’t care to be his friend. Matthew was someone that was easy to hate. One day Jesus invited Matthew to begin following him and so he did. Matthew, maybe for the first time in his life, is accepted as a friend and left his job that gave him lots of money with next to no friends and zero satisfaction. He followed his friend Jesus until the day that he died and wrote his biography so we can know Jesus the way he saw him.

• Luke was a physician. As far as we know, Luke never met Jesus face-to-face. Instead, Luke became a follower of Jesus after hearing about who Jesus was. He says he wanted to research who Jesus is and he wrote it all down for his friend named Theophilus. Luke writes more like an investigative journalist digging up the truth of a story rather than an eye witness just giving his own side of the story. He gives many places, dates, and names so his friend or someone else reading it could follow up if they wanted. His stories are very clearly written as if he’s documenting from a witness’s account of how things happened.  After the biography we call the book of Luke, he also writes another investigative book we call Acts to tell what the followers of Jesus did after the resurrection. The book of Acts is sort of a sequel to the book of Luke which ends with almost a “to be continued” feeling.

• Mark, or sometimes called by his full name John Mark, is a friend of Paul. As far as we know, he didn’t meet Jesus face-to-face either.  His writing style is very quick.  It’s the shortest of all the biographies. Think of a great 80’s movie montage scene - the part of the movie you see the hero go from exciting moment to exciting moment without much filler between. That’s what reading Mark is like. It’s easy to see why people were excited to meet Jesus after reading Mark.

All four of these biographies are about the same Jesus. All four tell the same story from different points of view.  Each has a different flavor and write to a different intended audience.

Even though all four are written by very different people with different goals in mind, all four are in 100% agreement about who Jesus is, what he said he wanted to do, and what he did, in fact, do.

They together give us a four-dimensional view of the most important person in the history of mankind - Jesus!

: : What is the Gospel? : :

You may have noticed that those biographies by John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often called “gospels”.  For example, the Gospel of John. 

So, what is a gospel?