Evie Polsley is a member of the Bible team at Tyndale House Publishers, where she helps provide resources to people who want to better understand the Bible and apply it to their lives. She has a love for sharing stories, especially the story of Jesus. Her passion is to help others fall in love with reading God’s Word and better grasp their role in God’s beautiful story. It’s a grace to welcome Evie to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Evie Polsley of Tyndale Bibles

When we read the four Gospels together, it helps us… meet not just a fascinating historical figure, but the God of the universe…

Some of the world’s bestselling books are biographies. Know why? We are fascinated with stories—especially stories of real people who have done amazing things. We put ourselves in their shoes and hope that we would make the same inspiring decisions in the same circumstances.

Though there are thousands (if not millions) of biographies out there that have touched lives, only one has had a truly world-changing impact: the biography of Jesus. It has sparked revolutions, transformed individuals and societies, and compelled people to put their lives on the line to share his story.

Though it is an integral part of Christian theology, Jesus’ story asks us to engage with it beyond head knowledge or philosophical thinking. It forces us to grapple with who we are in light of who he is! The question Who is Jesus? has world-shaping power, but it is also an extremely personal question that we each need to ask ourselves.

People are drawn to Jesus’ life story for many reasons. He lived out values we find important, like compassion, altruism, fairness, and integrity. He was self-sacrificial, a great teacher, and unyielding in his mission. These are all great qualities—but who is Jesus? And what makes him different from other great leaders?

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NLT)

When we cherry-pick from the Gospel writers, focus on only one aspect of Jesus, or even emphasize one Gospel over another, it can distort our understanding of Jesus and the importance of his story.

This is a life-altering statement. Jesus was laying out who he is, and he knew some people wouldn’t like it. Yet nothing could limit his steadfast determination to do the will of the Father.

But how do we make sense of these words? Who is Jesus?

When we try to answer this question, we easily get stuck trying to mold him into a reflection of who we want him to be. We focus on our values, our desires, and lose track of who he truly is.

Sometimes our confusion comes from the fact that Jesus’ biography was written differently from how modern biographers would write it. We think of biographies as telling a person’s whole story from birth to death, but Jesus’ biographers thought it was most important to help their audiences connect with the truth of who Jesus is, not just who Jesus was and what he did.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John intentionally highlighted different parts of Jesus’ story because the audiences they were communicating with were different. For example, if I tell a story to my sister, the information I share will be different than if I were sharing the same story with my coworker. My sister already has context, knows the people in my story, and doesn’t need a lot of explanation, whereas my coworker doesn’t have the inside scoop. But it’s still the same story, even though I include different information and context depending on whom I am talking to.

When we cherry-pick from the Gospel writers, focus on only one aspect of Jesus, or even emphasize one Gospel over another, it can distort our understanding of Jesus and the importance of his story. By appreciating the unique perspective of each Gospel writer as well as seeing the four Gospels as a unified story of Jesus’ life, we can better answer the question they confront us with: Who is Jesus?

In the introduction to his book God with Us: The Four Gospels Woven Together in One Telling, James Barlow gives an example of how reading through the different Gospels helps us better understand them:

Whether we are reading Jesus’ story for the first time or we’ve read it many times, we can’t help but be in awe of who he is.

Why in the world would four simple fishermen suddenly leave their families and their work without hesitation to blindly follow a man walking along the shore whom they didn’t know? . . . Matthew depicts these four men willing to leave everything behind after hearing Jesus’ simple request: “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”

The answer to this question suddenly came to me as I read the Gospel of John, specifically John 1:29-51. John provides the added insights that John the Baptist had first introduced Andrew and one other disciple to Jesus, and that Andrew had in turn introduced Simon Peter to Jesus. These disciples had spent time with Jesus, thus they knew him when he ultimately called them by the seashore.

My entire perspective changed on why they left and followed Jesus. I discovered background and context to the story that was not included in Matthew’s account but could be learned by reading the Gospels collectively. That raised my curiosity level significantly as to whether there were other aspects of the individual Gospel accounts that might be confusing if not read within the perspective of the four Gospels as a whole.

Whether we are reading Jesus’ story for the first time or we’ve read it many times, we can’t help but be in awe of who he is. When we read the four Gospels together, it helps us gain a more complete understanding of the story and meet not just a fascinating historical figure, but the God of the universe, the great I Am.

[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]