What I Learned: Matthew versus Mark
Evidence of my compulsion: the perfectionist couldn't let it go, but had to let it go
We’ve read Matthew and Mark so far. I wrote an outline of both as we went along, unsure of the benefit to me or anyone else. I so love the word of God. My desire is to inspire others to read it. I wondered whether creating an outline would in any way discourage people from reading it. But then I was able to put my outlines side-by-side, which I found fascinating. It helped me gain much more sense of the style, emphasis, and approach of each book. It’s satisfying that a lot of the same content is there. It’s unsatisfying because the order of some events are inconsistent.
Unfortunately, it was really hard for me to figure out how to put the side-by-side outlines in Substack. I persevered because I’m compulsive, but gave up much short of perfection (see results below) because I really could spend a lot of time at this, to unknown benefit. I wrote each outline as I read, so it’s interesting my differing descriptions of same events. I largely left this alone. I learned it’s really hard to summarize Jesus’ teaching (that’s why we’ve got to read it!). It’s much easier to summarize events. I tried to put events side-by-side if they matched in chronology in each outline, or in italics if they were common to both. I’m not sure I completed this task. What I ended up realizing is both authors really do cover a lot of the same things.
By way of background, there are four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. Matthew, Mark, and Luke (which we’re reading now) are called the Synoptic Gospels, because they have similar content, while John is written in a very different style. Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus, so theirs were eyewitness accounts. Mark and Luke were contemporaries. Luke had a very detailed, journalistic, investigative style. Mark had a very concise style. Matthew wrote to convince his Jewish brethren, referring to a lot of Old Testament scripture, that Jesus was the Christ or the Messiah.
Matthew, appealing to his Jewish brethren, opened with the genealogy of Jesus via his earthly father Joseph, a descendant of David, all the way back to Moses. In recounting Jesus’ early life, Matthew places a focus on Joseph more than any of the other Gospel writers. He tells of events around Jesus’ birth and Joseph’s faithful significance in them. After emphasizing these events, he then moves on to highlight the ministry of Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. Mark forgoes any accounting of the early events in Jesus’ life and opens with John’s ministry. Both focus on Johns’ preaching baptism for repentance from sin. Both tell of Jesus’ baptism by John, and the appearance of the triune God at this event. Both tell of Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness, John’s arrest, and the start of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, echoing John’s call for repentance and calling the first four disciples. This is where they diverge.
I’m starting to understand the differences in the content and ordering of the accounts of the Gospel writers as I get a sense of the writers’ presumed objectives: appealing to Jewish brethren (Matthew), giving a succinct fact-filled account (Mark), giving an investigative journalistic evidence-based account (Luke), and giving an intimate account (John). Differences in order seem to be largely in the retelling of the teachings of Jesus and healing events. It seems it was important to the writers to include this content, but the true chronology of these events was less important. This conclusion has helped me overcome my initial disappointment in differing chronology between the writers. Although I myself like chronology when I tell stories, I realize I often depart from chronology for the sake of making a point.
Despite differences in the ordering of their accounts, both writers have common anchor points of significant events. Although all their content is important, repetition of content across accounts gives us a sense of the importance of these events. It’s satisfying to see how much these authors’ stories agree and how much of the same content they cover, even if they write from different perspectives.
Matthew is more generally descriptive of Jesus’ initial ministry of preaching and healing, starting with a brief overview, while Mark gives early specifics. Mark does not recount Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, but Matthew chooses to highlight it early and in detail. Mark highlights early Jesus’ contentious relationship with the Pharisees, which ultimately resulted in His sentence of death.
It is obvious that Jesus taught around events in His life. The writers are telling stories of events, but trying also to include what He taught. The events are less out of order between authors than the teachings. But there are anchor points of big events and, as Jesus’ life crescendos toward His crucifixion in Jerusalem, the timeline and events become increasingly similar. The good news is that He is risen! And He’s given us work to do.
Note: I made the effort to put all of the Gospel accounts together chronologically, with more commentary than these daily readings/prayers, as I lead my church’s women’s Bible chronological study of the Gospels. If you are interested, you can subscribe for that content here.
