* These following sites are referred to create this chart:
- About Four Evangelists:
Faith, Hope, Belief, Prayers, Miracles: Saturday, March 24, 2012: Why are they called "Evangelists?
- About Keirsey Temperament:
Keirsey Temperament (Google Image Search)
The following describes the difference among the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
--- Matthew: Rationalist ---The author of the first gospel thought of Jesus Christ as the messiah whom the Old Testament predicted that God sent to our would, and retains so many elements of the old testament. In his book, Jesus Christ is described as an offspring of Abraham, the legitimate messianic king, and his story is shown as the continuation of the old testament. Matthew's theory regards of Christianity as the reason for salvation.
The way he wrote his book is like the contract between individual human beings and the divine beings, and put emphasis on the conditions to be saved. Some readers may think Matthew's evangelism is the most traditional and conservative among all these four variations of the evangelism. The style of its messages is very identical to the old testament which is very rigorous to follow the contract and logically explains the condition for humans to be saved.
Unlike Luke's commandment, it affirms that it is dependent upon each individuals' own choice, effort, and will to decide weather or not this person can be saved or not. Because of his pragmatical personality, which comes from his previous occupation (tax collector), he seemed to think that the bible needs to preach humans based on what works to make them understand and follow Christian way.
Like Luke's, Matthew's testimony is intensive and powerful. Matthew's ressentiment against all anti-Christian Jewish whom he saw as the ultimately evil heretics who betrayed their promised messiah. He always insisted on Christ as a chosen king appointed by God, and chosen individuals who are destined to follow Christian life. He enthusiastically pursued the reason behind actions and words of both God and his master Jesus Christ.
Unlike Mark and Luke who rather focused on what human-beings can sense, Matthew focused on the meaning of what God and Jesus Christ have done. Like John, he attempted to draw the map of our present world related to the world of God which is quite abstract to imagine and show. In addition, his writing style is analytical because it frequently indicates the sequence of past and future events in relation to the miracle of God and Jesus Christ.
All in all, Matthew is the Rationalist who is individualistic, puts priority on what works, thinks abstract, and frequently refers to the analytical method.
--- Mark: Artisan ---The author of the second gospel thought of Jesus Christ as a messianic servant. Mark was a disciple of Peter, one of Christ's disciple. Also, Peter did not understand his master Jesus Christ so much. Therefore, theologians and the other academics still debate about whether or not Mark could have understood Christianity. His gospel is actually the shortest among the four variations. Nevertheless, Mark's evangelism is still an interesting and worth off reading because of its objectiveness and based on the third person perspective and its relative clear and simple style of writing.
In his book, the image of the aggressively preaching John, the baptist, is strong enough to be well remembered by bible readers. The remarkable point of Mark's work is that it expresses the characteristics of not only Jesus Christ but also his surrounding individuals. Unlike the other evangelists, Mark is like a story teller who attempts to show a colourful story of Jesus Christ and his fellows. This gospel is useful to learn to remember the basic flow of Christ's missionary life.
Mark seemed to be a wanderer who keeps making efforts to try understanding Jesus. His attitude and struggle encourages sympathy from not only devout Christians but also those who are seeking their Christian way and those who are less interested in Christianity.
Mark should be called Artisan who like expressing things with a clear, observable, and sensing way. His style also offers readers the highest degree of freedom to become familiar with Christianity. Mark's gospel is the least preaching and the least restraining so that Mark's gospel should be the first one to read for those who persist to be free as much as possible and seek a familiar staff.
--- Luke: Guardian ---The author of the third gospel thought of Jesus Christ as a universal saver as well as a doctor/healer and a martyr. He saw God gave so many good things and saved humans so many times that human beings must obliged to give God back with our self-sacrifice. Luke's evangelism is the most generous and the most passionate among all the four versions. He has an invincible will to establish Christianity as the universal religions and the salvation for all those human kinds who are suffering from the pains in this world. Thus, he claimed that, God will unconditionally save those deprived ones and have sent Jesus Christ as a revolutionary to help all victims of oppression.
His messages and the passion in them are intensive and powerful than any other evangelists', and then enticed many Christians into his story writing. He insisted on what shall really be right for humans under God's will, and aspired to eliminate all unfairness and inequality. He also argued that all of human-beings have the unavoidable duty to compensate for the generosities and the aids the lord of mercy Jesus Christ and the only one God have provided humans with. Unlike Matthew and Mark, individuals' choice and will are irrelevant to the salvation because it is unconditional that all humans will be sanctioned by God and have to accomplish their duty for Jesus Christ and God.
Luke frequently introduced the stories of Jesus Christ healing sick and injured people. He preferred showing the observable actions and benefits of Jesus Christ demonstrated and provided in front of people in real to explaining abstract and analysis. This method has been easy for majority people to understand and become familiar with Christianity, and then successfully attracted them with his passion.
At the same time, Luke's testimony seems to be the most subjective among the four versions of the evangelism because all his statements are highly judgmental. The way he explained all things are certain, determined, and straight forward. Unlike Matthew, there is no individuality influencing their life, and the contract is less emphasised than Matthew. Obviously, Luke's story is more clear and based on what human-beings want Jesus Christ and God to do. This aspect significantly differs Luke from John who described Jesus Christ as something distant from humans. Both Mark and Luke wrote the story based on the perspective from what they and the other people observed. But, Luke was far more judgmental and big picture focus than Mark.
Luke was, and expected Jesus Christ to be, the Guardian who is generous and strict, and firmly assists and commands people by following rigorously established rules.
--- John: Idealist ---The author of the fourth gospel thought of Jesus Christ as an angel, the holy son of God. His gospel is very mythological as he frequently referred to angels and eternity. Meanwhile the other evangelists explained what human-beings ought to do to follow Christianity, he focused more on how special Jesus Christ was. His story indicates Jesus Christ came down to the earth to demonstrate how higher being behaves and thinks. Moreover, his gospel tells about Jesus Christ resurrection longer with more details than the others.
The interesting characteristics of John is that humans are already divided into those who can be saved or not. Meanwhile, Matthew and Luke precisely that particular kinds of individuals are saved owing to their effort and self-sacrifice, John did not mention the categories introduced by both Matthew and Luke. John put high priority on the spirituality and something not measurable in the substantial world. So, his expression was high abstract as well as mystical. It can be suspected that he intentionally did not clarify who will and not in order to avoid the hypocritical judgement. He attempted to reduce the sensible pain for those who suffer from pains in the substantial world by telling that events in the substantial world does not matter for their well being in their promised after life in the heaven.
Like Luke, John focuses on the big picture and the universality of Christianity. Like Mark, John created Jesus Christ's story based on his own creative interpretation and offer reads flexibility to learn Christianity. Like Matthew, John put emphasis on the sequence of the stories, and used an introspective method to induce reader to understand the deep meaning of the story. The unique characteristics of John's gospel is that it is far more abstract than any others because it connects Christian story to the heaven, the kingdom of God.
Moreover, in his story, he described Jesus to be remote from all the other humans unlike the other evangelists. Jesus Christ demonstrated something the ordinary people cannot easily do and commanded humans to do something. So, like an Angel, he presented himself to be like an angel, a mystic creature who is abstract to describe and difficult to contact with.
His expression style is less masculine than the other evangelists because his method of writing is less logical, less aggressive, and more emotional and mystical. His story is full of passion and mysterious fantasy which are more understandable with feeling approach more than thinking approach. The beauty of mysticism and spontaneously created emotions are the remark of John's evangelism. This characteristics may have attracted more female fellows to his gospel. This can be the reason why John was successful to write about the story about Mary Magdalena 's relationship with Jesus Christ.
The most interesting part of John's gospel is Christ's relation with Mary Magdalena in his last chapter. Because he wrote about after Christ's resurrection, there is a more hidden story regarding to the relationship between Jesus and Mary then.
Without a doubt, John should be categorised as the Idealist who supports what is right, equality among all, mysticism, and spontaneously created emotional expressions. Females also tend to be more feelers than thinkers so that the idealist characteristics matches with John's relatively more feminine style of gospel writing.
