If you'll take your Bibles and join me in John's Gospel, Chapter 1, as we start a new book study together,

remember just by way of introduction that each of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

tell a story about Jesus from a slightly different angle. Now, none of it contradicts.

All of it complements.

But that's the beauty of having four different gospels because we can get different angles to the story about Jesus.

The early church fathers assigned a symbol.

This isn't something that here at Cornerstone we invented. The early church fathers selected a symbol. Well, this isn't something that here at Cornerstone we invented.

The early church fathers selected a symbol that would identify the major theme of each of the

four Gospels. And they chose three animals and one unfaced human being. And so we've been

using those themes as the graphic design through the

study of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and now John. And so just as a reminder, here's, here are those

themes. Again, we didn't come up with this. This is just our graphics team that made kind of a

modern version of what the early church fathers assigned to the Gospels. Matthew is symbolized by a lion because

Matthew emphasized Jesus as Messiah King. And then Mark is symbolized by an ox because Mark's

gospel emphasizes Jesus as the lowly servant, the one who came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Luke's gospel emphasized the humanity of Jesus.

His main theme was Son of man.

And so a faceless man is the symbol of the gospel of Luke.

And now we come to the gospel of John. John emphasizes Jesus as the

son of God. He emphasizes the divinity and the deity of Jesus. And so an eagle is the symbol for the

gospel of John, an eagle who soars in the heavens and comes down to earth. And so we've adopted those four ancient symbols

for our graphics through our study of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. By the way, these four

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