# I have read all the Gospels and this question never came to my mind.



## dudley (Mar 13, 2010)

I had a non christian friend ask me this week the following :"Why didn't Jesus leave any writings of his own?"

I was not sure how to answer, any PB members that could offer me a suggestion or answer would be appreciated.

I have read all the Gospels and this question never came to my mind.


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## au5t1n (Mar 13, 2010)

I imagine it has to do with the significance of interacting directly with people when teaching. Which is better, for Jesus to write teachings down in a study alone, or for him to go out and interact with people, healing and teaching in the synagogues and among the crowds; and most of all, teaching his own disciples? The advantage of this is that our record of Christ shows not only his teachings, but his life and actions as he taught and lived out those teachings.


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## dudley (Mar 13, 2010)

austinww said:


> I imagine it has to do with the significance of interacting directly with people when teaching. Which is better, for Jesus to write teachings down in a study alone, or for him to go out and interact with people, healing and teaching in the synagogues and among the crowds; and most of all, teaching his own disciples? The advantage of this is that our record of Christ shows not only his teachings, but his life and actions as he taught and lived out those teachings.



Austin, thank you. That is somewhat the way I answered my friend.


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## DTK (Mar 13, 2010)

dudley said:


> I had a non christian friend ask me this week the following :"Why didn't Jesus leave any writings of his own?"



I Think Augustine answers this question very appropriately by challenging the basic presupposition of the question itself...

*Augustine (354-430):* Accordingly, He who sent the prophets before His own descent also despatched the apostles after His ascension. Moreover, in virtue of the man assumed by Him, He stands to all His disciples in the relation of the head to the members of His body. Therefore, when those disciples have written matters which He declared and spake to them, *it ought not by any means to be said that He has written nothing Himself*; since the truth is, that His members have accomplished only what they became acquainted with by the repeated statements of the Head. *For all that He was minded to give for our perusal on the subject of His own doings and sayings, He commanded to be written by those disciples, whom He thus used as if they were His own hands*. Whoever apprehends this correspondence of unity and this concordant service of the members, all in harmony in the discharge of diverse offices under the Head, will receive the account which he gets in the Gospel through the narratives constructed by the disciples, in the same kind of spirit in which he might look upon *the actual hand of the Lord Himself*, which He bore in that body which was made His own, were he to see it engaged in the act of writing. _NPNF1: Vol. VI, The Harmony of the Gospels_, Book I, Chapter XXXV, §54.


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## Idelette (Mar 13, 2010)

I also think it has a lot to do with the potential weight that might have been placed on any specific writings by Christ Himself. We already see such an emphasis placed on the "Words of Christ written in red" as superior to the rest of Scripture. I believe the Lord chose very wisely to leave no physical writings Himself but instead chose to operate under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through prophets and men throughout history. (Hebrews 1).


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