Over the years I have reviewed a few New Testament Introductions (deSilva, Köstenberger, Keown) and two surveys of the Gospels (Leithart and Schreiner). Now I can add Joshua Jipp’s volume Reading the Gospels as Christian Scripture to that list.
While this is a survey textbook on the four Gospels, this isn’t boring. With so many surveys and introductions, it’s quick to question how different these various volumes can really be. After all, how many times do we need to read about which Gospel writer supposedly relied on whichever other Gospel writer and how that can be (almost) “proven”? Clearly, that gets boring very quickly.
While Jipp does go over some of these aspects of how the Gospels are related and where they came from, Jipp, on the other hand, gives a fuller account for how they function separately and how they complement each other, together giving us a fuller account of who Jesus is as the Son of God. The Gospels are narratives about Jesus that are meant to disciple us and transform us into better followers of Jesus. To show this, Jipp leads us through the history of each Gospel, their themes, and how each teaches us about discipleship under Jesus. Jipp presents the Gospels in their literary, canonical, and theological contexts.
Part 1 establishes the nature, origins, and purpose of the Gospels.
In Chapter 1, Jipp argues that the Gospels contain elements of ancient “biographies” and “histories,” but they are not only those things. They are identified with the term “Gospel,” a theologically-loaded word rooted in the Old Testament, especially Isaiah’s “good news” oracles (e.g., Isa 40:9; 52:7; 61:1–4). This gospel language indicates divine kingship, restoration, and salvation for God’s people. Therefore, as “Gospels,” these texts declare how God fulfills his promises through Jesus of Nazareth.
Jipp does not fail to neglect the function of the Gospels: the transformation of the reader. Jesus is not just a historical figure but the risen and present Lord. Each Gospel teaches us Christology while inviting us to follow Jesus.
Chapter 2 traces the origins of the Gospel writings. Jipp writes about how the Gospels preserved Jesus’ oral teachings (as in the ancient world it was typical to memorize a teacher’s oral teachings). Jesus’s followers remembered and interpreted his life through the lens of Israel’s Scriptures, a process called “keying.” For example, the narrative of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey contains echoes of Zechariah and Psalms, embedding his life in Israel’s sacred past.
The Gospels do not present to us bare history, but are rooted in eyewitness testimony for a theological purpose: to bear witness to the risen Jesus.
Chapter 3 addresses the relationship between the four canonical Gospels. Jipp notes the paradox Christians face: while we have only one Savior, we possess four distinct stories about him. Jipp tackles three key questions: (1) Why write Gospels when oral tradition was thriving? (2) What is the “Synoptic problem”? (3) How does John relate to the Synoptic Gospels?
Jipp offers a few sidebars with tables for a Gospel synopsis, helping us notice distinct emphases on particular stories by the Synoptic Gospel writers. For us to recognize the distinctions helps us guard against harmonizing the stories too quickly and instead to reflect on the theological value of these differences. How does this difference (if at all) fit with the author’s overall theological emphases?
Chapter 4 addresses the challenges and benefits of having four distinct but overlapping accounts of Jesus’s life and teaching. These Gospels are inevitably different from each other because they come from different eyewitness traditions, oral memories, and theological emphases. While their stories and sayings do overlap, each Gospel reflects unique perspectives and styles. Jipp rightly critiques maximalist harmonization attempts that try to force every detail into perfect agreement. Instead, the church made a decision to maintain all four Gospels, which reflects an important insight: multiple perspectives are needed to do justice to the complexity of Jesus’s identity and mission.
Part 2 proposes three major principles Jipp employs to read the Gospels well.
Chapter 5 focuses on the first principle: the importance of reading the Gospels as first-century Jewish writings written in their historical, religious, and cultural context. In order to understand the Gospels, Jipp argues rightly that we must understand the ancient world—its social structures, political domination (under Rome’s thumb), economic systems (agrarian society with wealthy elite), and religious convictions (Judaism with groups—Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Hellenistic reformers, and revolutionary “sign prophets”—who had competing ideas over Israel’s future). Jipp highlights that Judaism wasn’t merely a religious system as much as it was an ethnicity and way of life, devoted to worshiping the one and true God. One thing I enjoyed here was that Jipp corrected common stereotypes about Pharisees and Sadducees and worked to offer a balanced view of a complex society.
Chapters 6 and 7 are aimed at helping us read the Gospels as literary narratives that call us into transformative discipleship. These chapters, along with chapters 8–23, are a highlight of this book. Jipp eschews source, form, and redaction criticism and prioritizes looking at the final form of the text through narrative and literary analysis. Chapter 6 focuses on the second principle: the Gospels are narrative renderings of the person of Jesus. Jipp surveys how plot, setting, characterization, and the narrator’s role function, the distinction between story and discourse, and how the narrative world invites us to engage with it by aligning or contrasting our lives with the vision of life the narrative is giving us.
Chapter 7 emphasizes the third principle: the Gospels are not merely historical or literary documents but the revelatory Word of God, calling readers into transformative discipleship. They reveal God’s identity and salvific actions through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, inviting readers into a dynamic relationship that merges the story world of the Gospels with their own lives. This relationship demands a response: acceptance or rejection of claims about Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, Savior, and Word made flesh.
Jipp lays out what discipleship looks like. This includes acts of prayer and moral purity that prepare the heart and mind to rightly interpret Scripture. It is a call for us to embody Jesus’ teachings in practical ways of pursuing peace, love, humility, mercy, and sacrificial service. The Gospels present Jesus as the model disciple, and his followers are called to emulate his life and ministry.
Part 3 (chapters 8–23) examines each of the four canonical Gospels from the perspectives of history (reception, issues of composition, dating, audience), narrative (two chapters each), and theology, emphasizing the role the Gospels play in discipleship.
These chapters are a treasure trove of information. Jipp shows how, for example, Matthew presents Jesus as merciful healer, a Torah-observant interpreter, and a teacher of righteousness. His ethics are grounded in God’s character, for he has internalized and enacts God’s commands. So far from nullifying the law, Jesus insists that it remains valid and must be fulfilled from the heart (5:17–20). As the eschatological judge and shepherd-king, he offers us a mercy that demands repentance and a grace that requires transformed lives of righteousness.
Jipp is careful as well to highlight marginal figures in the Gospels and to help bring the worldwide church into our focus. Luke shows us how Jesus embodies God’s divine hospitality by having table fellowship with sinners, outcasts, and marginalized groups like tax collectors, women, children, and the poor. These meals are sacred spaces where outsiders become insiders.
Jipp is keen at bringing the text into our personal lives. For example, he connects peacemaking with the call to practice mercy and forgiveness. Jesus, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer, commands his disciples to forgive others as they have been forgiven by God. Jipp distinguishes between decisional and emotional forgiveness. He emphasizes that forgiveness primarily involves a choice to refrain from retaliation even when our negative feelings persist.
Recommended?
This is a superb Gospels survey book that will guide you through the historical matters of the Gospels, the texts themselves, and their dynamic function in transforming us into being people like Jesus. If the other volumes in this series are this good, this will be the introductory series to get.
Buy it on Amazon or from Baker Academic!
Lagniappe
- Series: Reading Christian Scripture
- Author: Joshua W. Jipp
- Paperback: 360 pages
- Publisher: Baker Academic (March 2024)
Review Disclosure: I received this book free from Baker Academic. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html.
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