A person who comes to church for divine services often hears the mention of the names of the evangelists in the sermon. Four holy men who wrote the gospels. Each has its own characteristics and they are all called the Church of the Evangelists. Where did this name come from and what is the meaning of this? This is revealed in a deeper understanding of the subject of research …
Whom the Church Calls Evangelists
The Holy Christian Church in its existence is guided by Divine revelation, which spreads through the transmission of the Holy Tradition to people. One of its forms is inspired books. The complete collection of sacred Christian texts called Holy Scripture is called the Bible. It includes the books of the Old and New Testaments.
The central books of the New Testament corpus are the gospels. They talk about the earthly life of Jesus Christ, his miracles, public service. There are four canonical gospels - Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. They were holy apostles. To the extent that they are the authors of the gospels, the Church calls them holy evangelists.
According to the history of the Church, Christ had the closest disciples - the apostles. At first there were twelve, then seventy. The New Testament also speaks of the five hundred disciples. The holy evangelists were apostles from twelve and seventy. Thus, the evangelists Matthew and John were among the twelve chosen disciples. John was even called by Christ His beloved disciple, Luke and Mark believed in Christ as God and the Messiah later, and were from among the seventy apostles.
The life history of each of the evangelists is different, but we can say that they all worked hard to spread the Christian teaching. Almost all the apostles suffered martyrdom, and the evangelists were no exception. Only about the Apostle John the Theologian was the tradition preserved that he did not suffer a martyr's death, although he took upon himself persecution under the emperor Diocletian.
Features of evangelists
Among the four gospels found in the canon of Christian sacred books, three are called synoptic and one spiritual. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke are similar in their composition, they describe some of the same moments from the earthly life of the Savior. The Evangelist John has a different text. He talks more about things that have not been said by other evangelists. Therefore, his gospel, which seems to be a model of the spirituality of the word, is considered to be written last.
Evangelist Matthew wrote his gospel for God's chosen people (Jews). It is the longest and the main idea of the text was to show Christ as the Messiah, which the Jews expected. The Evangelist Mark in his work presented all the royal greatness of God. He tells about the miracles of Christ. This text is the shortest and most understandable for ordinary people. Mark wrote his gospel for the Romans, so it was important for him to show the miracles of Christ.
Luke wrote about the salvation of all mankind, pointed to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, which he made for all people. It is no coincidence that the last Evangelist John was nicknamed the Theologian by the Church. In his gospel one can see the main points of the theology of the Church, the teaching about Christ as God, eternally born of the Father.
The holy evangelists, through their labors, have made an enormous contribution to the spread of Christian preaching. Their gospels are permeated with the grace of the Holy Spirit and will at all times be considered relevant to humanity.