I had a discussion with a protestant and I was shocked to find out that he believed that the gospels were not written for Chrisitians. He seemed to indicate that the gospels were written for the Jews only.
HUH!!!
I thought this quite unusual and quite heterodox at least compared to other protestants I have talked to in the past. I hadn’t heard of protestants who believe this way.
I know he is a dispensationalist. Is this a common belief?
Perhaps some of you could give me the the origin of this belief.
Based on my reading and understanding, your Protestant friend is not that strange, and is correct that the Gospels were not specifically written for Christians, but is wrong about them being written for Jews only. Or you could say he is partly right about both. Here is why I say that.
As has been mentioned in prior posts, the Gospels were told to and written for different groups and emphasized different aspects of Jesus, His message and purpose. They were not written for a general audience but for specific audiences (See beginning of Luke). Some were Jews, and some were gentiles; some lived in Palestine, some lived outside of that area. This is generally recognized today and is discussed in most contemporary Bible commentaries, including the one for the New American Bible (NAB). We see the same thing very clearly in the Epistles of Paul.
Matthew and Luke, for example, include the birth and genealogy of Jesus. That would have been important to a Jewish audience, but not to Gentiles. Matthew is the only Gospel author that mentions “fulfilling the law”, another idea that would connect the words and deeds of Jesus to the Jewish scripture, but mean little to pagan converts.
Much of what is in Matthew and Luke comes from the Gospel of Mark, and a comparison shows how each later author revised some of the material to fit their particular audience and the message they wanted to impart. Again, some of it is directed at Jewish followers of Jesus, and some at Gentile followers.
The Gospel of John is the one most clearly directed toward Gentiles, and presents the most negative statements about Jews. This may be due to the fact that it is the last Gospel and by that time the real future of Christianity was in bringing Gentiles into the fold, not converting Jews. John does not include the nativity story nor a genealogy, because in this Gospel Jesus is and was the Son of God from eternity. John also starts out by saying that the Baptist was rejected by his own, and continues on that theme with Jesus. The NAB intro to the Gospel of John goes on to say:
The polemic between synagogue and church produced bitter and harsh invective, especially regarding the hostility toward Jesus of the authorities–Pharisees and Sadducees–who are combined and referred to frequently as “the Jews”.
The other point that should be made is that the Gospels were not directed toward “Christians” per se, since that idea did not yet exist. The first disciples were almost all Jews who saw Jesus as the Messiah. They were still part of the Synagogue. They were Jews first, followers of Jesus second. The change to a non-Jewish Christian faith took a few decades to happen, as it spread beyond Palestine and incorporated more non-Jews.
The Gospels were directed toward communities of followers who would later be called Christian, some mostly Palestinian Jews, some Greek Jews, and an increasing number of Gentile followers. And the Gospels, particularly that of Luke, were written to convince new and potential converts of the validity of the stories they had been told about Jesus, and that **“God’s promises to Israel have been fulfilled in Jesus and how the salvation promised to Israel and accomplished by Jesus has been extended to the Gentiles.” **(from NAB introduction to Luke).
So your Protestant friend has some valid points, but is incorrect in making those blanket assertions about the Gospels as a whole.
