Click on the image above for the video of this article or keep reading below for the text version.

When you first start reading the Bible, it’s all so new that just taking it in can be overwhelming. As you begin to read more consistently, though, you can’t help but notice that stories about Jesus are often repeated in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In fact, Jesus’ teachings are often repeated also. As you wonder why, you might be told that the gospel writers are each giving an account of the event from their own perspective like witnesses to a traffic accident. And that much is true, but the reality is a little more complicated, and it affects how you should read what they’ve written. Let me explain.

The repetition of stories and teachings in Matthew, Mark, and Luke has been a problem for students of the Bible for almost as long as we’ve had a Bible. The problem is that there is too much similarity for it to be a coincidence. The dilemma is, how do we account for the portions of the gospels which seem to be identical to each other? Specifically, 80% of the verses in Mark appear in Matthew, and 65% of the verses in Mark appear in Luke. Another 230 verses are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. Consider the following verses, for example.

Matthew 9:6 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

Mark 2:10-11 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”

Luke 5:24 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

At first, you might think that three people remembered the same event with almost the exact same words. But then you remember that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic, and the gospels were written in Greek. So, then we’re saying that three people remembered the same event with the exact same words and then translated it into Greek using almost identical words. Not likely, right? Finally, notice that even the aside “he then said to the paralytic” is inserted at exactly the same place by each writer. If three people were independently telling the same story, you wouldn’t expect them to pause and explain something at exactly the same place like this, would you?

As scholars have spent hundreds of years comparing verses like this that are very similar and sometimes different, they have come to the conclusion that Mark wrote his gospel first. Then, when Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels, they likely had Mark’s in front of them as one of the sources that they referred to as they wrote. This shouldn’t surprise us since Luke starts his gospel by saying that “many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you” (Luke 1:1-3). In other words, as Luke was writing his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, he was aware of and likely referred to others who had set out to do the same. But notice that he didn’t just say, ‘Mark’s already written a gospel, so I didn’t feel a need to write another one.’ Luke will refer to many of the same passages as others have, but he will uniquely interpret and apply them to the people for whom he is writing his gospel. In his case, a Roman official named Theophilus and the church community of which he was likely a benefactor.

So, what does all this matter when you open the Bible to read a portion of the gospel? If you know that certain passages are often repeated by the different gospel writers but sometimes have different emphases or perspectives, comparing how Luke or Matthew differs from Mark helps you to see the unique message that the Holy Spirit was trying to communicate through them. While there’s value at times in adding up the details of all three accounts to get the whole picture, what’s more important is to see what’s unique to each gospel writer and to hear each message on its own terms.

If you want to see this, most Bibles will show cross-references any time a passage in the gospels is repeated in another. If you’re reading Matthew or Luke, compare the parallel passage in Mark and take note of what they add or change in the telling of the story. All three accounts are true, but each interprets and applies those truths in slightly different ways. When you begin to read the three accounts on their own terms like this, the gospels become three-dimensional and the picture of Jesus that we see is more vivid and textured as a result. May God reveal Him to you as you seek Him today!

In awe of Him,

Paul