The adolescent years of our Lord Jesus Christ

        The Gospel’s preface: Its authenticity and purpose (Luke 1:1-4; John 20:31).

The preface to the four Gospels can be regarded as the first 4 paragraphs of the first chapter from Luke, in which the Apostle speaks of the careful study done on everything that he writes and the purpose for writing the Gospel: to know the firm basis of the Christian teachings. To this end, Apostle John the Theologian adds to this in his 31^st paragraph, 20^th chapter of his Gospel: “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

        As can be seen from St.Luke’s preface, he undertook the writing of his Gospel because by that time, there appeared fairly numerous similar type compositions, but lacking authority and unsatisfactory in substance. He also regarded it as his responsibility (from his desire to reaffirm in the Faith, one “sovereign Theophilus,” and at the same time, all the Christians in general) to write an epistle on the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, carefully checking all the data from the words of “eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word.” Apparently, as he was only one Apostle of the 70 disciples of Christ and therefore could not be a witness to all events — such as the Birth of John the Baptist, Annunciation, Birth of Christ, The Meeting — he undoubtedly wrote a significant part of his Gospel from words of eyewitnesses and also on the basis of tradition (here we can see the importance of tradition, which is rejected by Protestants and sectarians). This undoubtedly shows that the foremost and most important eyewitness to the very early events of the Gospel’s history was the Holy Virgin Mary. Saint Luke specifically notes twice that She kept the recollections of all these events, retaining them in Her heart (Luke 2:19 and 2:51).

        There can be no doubt that the pre-eminence of the Gospel from Luke over other writings that existed before his, is found in that he wrote only after a thorough examination of facts and the strict sequences of events. This pre-eminence pertains to the other three Evangelists, as two of them — Matthew and John — were disciples of Christ’s original twelve ie. they themselves were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, while the third, Mark, wrote from the words of Christ’s closest disciple and a certain eyewitness and close participant in the Gospel’s events — Apostle Peter.

        The purpose cited by Saint John is seen as particularly clear in his Gospel, which is full of jubilant eyewitness of the Lord Jesus Christ’s Divinity. Naturally, the other three Evangelists have the same purpose.