by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
The four gospels are like the four directions into the temple compound. They give us a gate into His courts. They are like the four main gatekeepers (I Chronicles 9:24-26) into God’s Holy city. They are like the four colors in the Tabernacle door. Because they open the way into Christ, we can “come before His presence with singing<\/em>” (Psalms 100) and “know that the Lord is good<\/em>.” Matthew opens the door of Testimony to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, Luke to the Gentiles, and John to the gnostic doubters. They are like the four living creatures around God (Ezekiel 1:5-10), they give us the face of a lion, to show Jesus’ kingly character, an Ox to show His service to man, the face of a man to identify with earth’s greatest, and the face of an eagle to show us how to fly in the heavenly places.<\/p>\n By giving their testimony in the first century, they were never exposed as liars. They saw what they saw, and it all agreed with what had been prophesied hundreds of years before in the Old Testament. The crucible of their testing leaves us with four substantial corners to our faith verdict. They were examined from every angle, by Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and Skeptics, and stood the tests of critical examination. Now we can enter into His gates, His courts, know that He is good, know His mercy, and find it is truly everlasting, that His truth does indeed “endure to all generations<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Have you examined the evidence of the four gospel accounts? What have you discovered? That the Lord is good?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton The four gospels are like the four directions into the temple compound. They give us a gate into His courts. They are like the four main gatekeepers (I Chronicles 9:24-26) into God’s Holy city. They are like the four colors in the Tabernacle door. Because they open the way into Christ,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[606,959,690,121,708],"class_list":["post-90637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-gospels","tag-john","tag-luke","tag-mark","tag-matthew"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32812,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-there-only-one-gospel-when-we-have-four-gospels\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":0},"title":"Why is there only one gospel when we have four gospels?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm confused, if there is only one gospel why do so many people say the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Answer: The gospel is the good news preached concerning Jesus Christ and salvation. All of the New Testament is the gospel in this sense. See The Message\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7687,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-are-the-main-things-we-learn-from-the-four-gospels\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":1},"title":"What are the main things we learn from the four gospels?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What are the main things we learn from the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Answer: See \"The Four Gospel Accounts.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45631,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-there-no-proof-who-really-wrote-the-four-gospels\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":2},"title":"Is there no proof who really wrote the four gospels?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What evidence do we have that the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? I hear a lot of people saying they were anonymous, and we have no proof they were written by the people whose names are given to them. Answer: To claim there is\u00a0no\u00a0evidence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19106,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-are-the-four-faces-of-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":3},"title":"What are the four faces of Jesus?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What are the four faces of Jesus? And how are they related to the present-day church? Answer: The phrase is not used in the Bible, but it is how some modern writers refer to the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each gospel is addressed to a different\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61057,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-four-gospels\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":4},"title":"Why Four Gospels?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Shane Carrington \"Take your child to work day.\" What a great idea! How many young people see Dad as a father, yard-mower, car-washer, and neighbor, but never see him in his role as employee? Truthfully, we all take on different jobs that say many things about who we are.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13300,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-it-take-35-40-years-to-write-the-gospels\/","url_meta":{"origin":90637,"position":5},"title":"Why did it take 35-40 years to write the Gospels?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What was the reason for John, Mark, Luke, and Matthew writing their gospels? Why did it take 35-40 years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to begin to write the gospels or the rest of the New Testament? Answer: As for the purpose of the gospel accounts, see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}