The main mode that many, especially Protestants, read the Bible in is the lesson for my life approach.

The deep level assumption is the Bible is like a moral handbook and each story is giving me

me a life application lesson that I can apply to my life. And I think the gospel authors,

that's not what they're trying to do.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. This is the final episode in this short series on how to

read the gospel. The four books in the New Testament, the gospel,

Quain Matthew, Quain to Mark, Luke and John, collectively known as the Gospels.

Now, if you're like me, out of every part of the Bible, these Gospels are the easiest to read.

And the most fun to read. They're all about Jesus and Jesus is a really inspiring character.

We hear his teachings, we see how he interacts with people, and it's easy to draw conclusion that

reading the Gospels is all about trying to figure out how I should live by looking at how Jesus lived.

Jesus says to love our neighbors, so should I. Jesus says, bless people who hurt me. Okay, maybe I

should do that too. But is there more to the Gospels than just good moral wisdom?

Every story is not trying to give you a life application. Every story is making a claim about

the identity of Jesus. So the question that I should be asking when I finish each episode

of the Gospels is what's the unique claim about Jesus being made from this episode?

So if the Gospels aren't merely trying to inform us of some new moral ethic, what are they trying

to tell us? So I took it for granted because when I was introduced to it, yeah, Jesus died. So

of course that's what these books are going to be about. It's like, no, it's very careful design.

They're tying Jesus' story in as the fulfillment of Hebrew scripture storyline, which is the story of

Israel and of all humanity. And then all of them are saying the story leads up to the moment of

a Jewish wonder workers' execution. It's a simple point, but that is their main point.

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