The modern student of the New Testament is so familiar with the four brief books which we call Gospels that it is all too easy for him to forget that at first the Gospel was oral, not written. Moreover, it appears that originally the Gospel consisted of the spoken teachings of Christ Jesus himself. What Matthew, for instance, remembered of this oral Gospel and of the events and healings so closely associated with it, was not set down until much later. In the earliest manuscripts, his book is simply headed "Kata Matthaion" ("According to Matthew"), a title eventually extended to read "The Gospel according to St. Matthew," that is, Matthew's version of the original oral Gospel. Mark, who, like Luke, probably did not have the advantage of hearing the Master's teaching for himself, had perforce to record the recollections of others more fortunate in this respect. Primarily, then, the word "Gospel" had no reference to any written record, and, as a matter of fact, it was not until several decades after Christ Jesus' ascension that the earliest of the Gospels, as we know them, was written. Strange though this delay may at first appear, there are several considerations which both explain and tend to justify it.
The words and activities of the Saviour of men were of such vital significance that his immediate disciples could not but remember them, even though there is reason to believe that they were not at first set down; while the apostles could find further justification for this early lack of written records in the words of Christ Jesus, spoken shortly before his ascension, with regard to the permanency of his Gospel: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35). The Gospel was recorded in the lives of his followers, it was indelibly impressed upon their hearts, and at first they gave it to others through personal teaching and example, rather than through the medium of literature. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (II Cor. 3:3), "Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."
A further reason for the long delay in providing definite written records of the Saviour's words and works is suggested by Papias, who lived early in the second century. He states that he chose to gain his knowledge of Christianity primarily from men who had been personally instructed by Peter or John or by others of the Master's apostles; for, Papias adds, "I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice" (Eusebius: "Eccl. Hist.," Book III, Chap. 39). There were doubtless many who shared with Papias a preference for "the living and abiding voice," and it was by this means that the Gospel was first uttered and transmitted. A fragment of this oral Gospel, which is not elsewhere recorded, is found in Paul's address to the elders of the Ephesian church (Acts 20:35), in which he exhorts them to "remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."
