The New Testament Writings

One of the most prominent Christians of the second century was a man now known to us as Justin Martyr (i.e., Justin the Martyr). Justin produced a number of theological writings, but he is perhaps best known today for a single paragraph in which he provides an early description of a Christian worship service.

Christian Worship in the Second Century

In chapter 67 of his First Apology, the Christian theologian Justin Martyr (110–65) provides us with our earliest account of Christian worship outside the New Testament itself:

“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and . . . when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”

[Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 10 vols. (1885–96; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–89), 1:186.]

Most of the elements of contemporary liturgies already appear to be in place: preaching, prayers, eucharistic meal, even an offering. We want to pay special attention to one line of Justin’s remarks: “The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits.” What does he mean by “the memoirs of the apostles”?

He is referring to writings now found in the Christian New Testament (specifically, the four Gospels). These writings are being read publicly in worship alongside “the writings of the prophets”—that is, the Jewish Scriptures contained in what Christians now call the “Old Testament.”

The early Christians believed the Jewish Scriptures provided a record of God’s covenant (or testament) with Israel. But Christians also believed God had done something new in Jesus Christ, and they found language to describe this in Jeremiah 31:31–34, where the prophet speaks of God making a “new covenant” (see also Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). Christians eventually decided that the apostolic writings testifying to this new covenant should also be counted as Scripture, and it seemed natural to call these works the “new covenant writings” or, simply, the “New Testament.”

An Overview of the New Testament

We should begin by looking at a basic “table of contents” for the New Testament. There are twenty-seven books, ranging in length from the Gospel of Luke (the longest) to 3 John (the shortest). The books are arranged into seven categories:

1. The Gospels. There are four of these (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), and they are named for the individuals who traditionally have been identified as their authors. All four report on the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus; thus they provide four different versions of the same basic story, and there is a good deal of overlap in their content.

2. The book of Acts. This book is actually “part two” of the Gospel of Luke, but it has been put in its own section in the New Testament (following the four Gospels) because it is the only book that relates the history of the early church—that is, what happened after the events reported in the Gospels.

3. Letters from Paul to churches. There are nine of these (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians). If you are unfamiliar with the New Testament, the names of these books may strike you as odd or difficult to pronounce; they are geographical references to the people in various cities or regions to which the letters were sent (e.g., the “Ephesians” were people who lived in the city of Ephesus). The designated author of all nine letters is Paul, an important Christian missionary. These letters are presented in the New Testament in order of length, from Romans (the longest) to 2 Thessalonians (the shortest).

4. Letters from Paul to individuals. There are four of these (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon), and they are named for the individuals to whom they were sent. Again, they are presented in order of length. The designated author is the same Paul who is associated with the nine letters to churches, making, all told, thirteen letters from Paul.

5. The letter to the Hebrews. This one is in a class of its own. It is an anonymous work, and we do not know who wrote it or to whom it was sent, but since it appears to have been written for Jewish Christians (i.e., Hebrew Christians), it is traditionally called “The Letter to the Hebrews.”

6. Letters by other people. There are seven of these (James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude). Unlike the letters from Paul, these are named not for the people to whom they were sent but rather for the individuals who traditionally have been identified as their authors. They are often called “The General Letters (Epistles)” or “The Catholic Letters (Epistles).” The word catholic in the latter designation has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church but simply means “universal” or “general.”

7. The book of Revelation. This one too is in a class of its own. It offers an account of a visionary experience as recounted by someone whose name was John. It is sometimes called “The Apocalypse of John” (the word apocalypse means “revelation”).

Two warnings or caveats may be sounded regarding first impressions of these New Testament books. First, the books are not arranged in chronological order. To take just one example, the Gospels come first in the New Testament, but they were not the first books to be written; all four of them probably were written after the death of Paul, and thus they must be later chronologically than any letters that Paul wrote. Second, the titles that these books now bear reflect ancient church traditions that often do not hold up to scrutiny.

The first book in the New Testament is titled “The Gospel according to Matthew” (or just “Matthew” for short), but the Bible itself does not say that Matthew wrote this book, and very few modern scholars think that he did. Likewise, we have books in our New Testament called “The First Letter of John,” “The Second Letter of John,” and “The Third Letter of John,” but the books themselves are anonymous and could have been written in any order (they are numbered in our Bibles from longest to shortest).