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Proverbs 9:6


Why Matthew is first in the gospel when book of Mark is oldest?

Created on Wednesday, 3 December 2008

Here are some reasons I got after listenning from a sermon:

  • In the early days of Christianity, many people thought that the Gospel of Matthew was the first written.
  • The early Christians rightly saw the Gospel of Matthew as important, because it has some significant portions of Jesus' teaching that are not included in other gospels, such as a fuller version of the Sermon on the Mount.
  • It was the only one of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to have an apostolic author - Matthew.
  • "Matthew's Gospel was in fact far more quoted in Christian writings of the second Christian century than any other."(France)
  • The Jewish flavor of the Gospel of Matthew makes for a logical transition between the Old and New Testaments. For these reasons, the early church placed it first in order among the four gospel accounts.

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