DIVISIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
The general divisions of the New Testament
are well known. The four Gospels are biographical; Acts of the Apostles is
historical; the Epistles, as their name indications, are epistolary, and the
Revelation, or the Apocalypse as scholars generally prefer to style it, is
descriptive and prophetic.
The Gospels do not pretend to give a
complete biography of Christ; but only a few such facts in his career as
serve to establish his claim to be the Christ the Son of God; and a few
specimens of his teaching and his predictions. One of them declares the
first to be its purpose (John xxx: 31), and the contents of the others show
that the same is true of them. John also shows the fragmentary character of
his narrative by saying, in hyperbolical terms, that if all that Jesus did
should be written, he [91]
supposes that the world itself could not contain the books that would be
written. (xxi: 25.)
The book of Acts is a general history of the
church for about thirty years from its beginning; the Epistles are
communications from certain of the Apostles, that is, from Paul, James,
Peter, Jude, and John, all addressed to churches or to individual
Christians; and the Apocalypse sets forth in the main the destiny of the
church.
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