Did
Gospels.
Because people think of gospels as Jesus-biographies, they regularly miss the fact Acts is also a gospel: It likewise proclaims God’s kingdom has come, with Jesus its king; how we’re to live, with examples from the apostles’ behavior; and the aftermath of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Acts was written as a sequel to Luke, and arguably they oughta be read together as one giant two-part book. Still, people’s confusion means a lot of New Testament booklists have Acts in its own standalone category of “history.”
GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. A gospel of Christ Jesus, written particularly for a Jewish audience. Hence all its Old Testament quotes,
Jesus’s commentary onthe Law, and other things first-century Jews would consider relevant;gentiles not so much. (A popular theory is it was originally written in Aramaic and translated to Greek, but we’ve no proof.)GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO MARK. Probably the first gospel written, and
one of the sources for Matthew and Luke. It’s short and to the point.GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO LUKE. With Acts, a gospel that more resembles ancient Greco-Roman histories, particularly in Luke’s attempt to determine the dates of things, and quote multiple sources. (Including, likely, Jesus’s mom.) Luke tried to include all the reliable Jesus stories he could track down, making it the longest gospel.
GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO JOHN. And John apparently filled in all the blanks in Luke, giving a firsthand account from one of Jesus’s first students about some of the things Jesus taught and did.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. After
Jesus was raptured, how his new church got its start. Its first persecutions,first council, the origin of Paul of Tarsus, and how it was spread across the Roman Empire.