You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts.

Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2020.

This week, we are detectives.

We've already talked about the difference between knowing the facts and knowing Jesus Christ.

And yet, we are continuing on this quest to gather the facts and to confirm that Jesus was a real person.

And today we will look at whether we can truly trust and believe the Gospels.

And just as a spoiler, I want you to know that, yes, we can trust the Gospels.

Many scholars, some of whom weren't even Christian when they started out, have really tested the Gospels to see if we can trust them.

And they have concluded that, yes, these are trustworthy and that we can know that what is written here is true. Okay, but how

did they get to this decision? Well, if you've read through the Gospels, which of course are Matthew,

Mark, Luke, and John, the first part of the New Testament in the Bible, then you know that it's a little different than a history

book. There are things left out that if we were to write a historical account of something,

we would include. So, for example, sometimes the chronology or the order of events in these four

gospels are a little different. In one gospel,

Jesus goes in and cleanses the temple in Jerusalem pretty early on. And in another gospel,

he does that right before the crucifixion. So there's some confusion. And we might think that

confusion means that they're not reliable sources.

Let me assure you that's not true. So first of all, we need to know that the Gospels were not

written to be a history book. They weren't written to have this exact timeline of Jesus's life.

We can kind of piece that together.

But the Gospels are written with one intention so that we could believe in and follow Jesus Christ.

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