Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
Four accounts of one life
Read the four Gospels together and separately. This path handles the hard parts honestly: why the accounts differ, what a synopsis is for, how each writer shapes the same events, and what all four agree the events meant.
Built for the days between Sundays
The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
What you'll come away with
What this path is for
Not a reading streak. These are the things you should be able to do on your own once you have worked through it.
Use a synopsis
Lay Matthew, Mark, and Luke side by side and see what each one added, cut, or moved. You will be able to do this without panicking about the differences.
Explain the differences honestly
You will have real answers about the genealogies, the resurrection accounts, and the order of events, including the places where the honest answer is that we do not know.
Follow one Gospel end to end
Each writer has a structure and a theme. You will be able to say what Mark does with secrecy, what Matthew does with five discourses, what Luke does with outsiders.
Read the sayings in context
The Sermon on the Mount, the kingdom parables, and the hard sayings about money and enemies, read inside the argument each one belongs to.
How the tutor works
A tutor, not a search box
The same eight habits run through every path. They are what make this study rather than summary.
Questions first
Open a passage and Trinity asks what you noticed. Your reading comes first, then the explanation.
Greek and Hebrew, one tap away
Tap a word to see the Greek or Hebrew behind it. See what it can mean and where else it shows up.
Follow the thread
Pick one image, promise, or line. Follow it from Genesis through the prophets into the Gospels.
Context that clicks
Who wrote it, to whom, and why. Get the background the first readers already knew.
A plan that bends
Miss a week and nobody guilt-trips you. Your plan fits the time you actually have and picks up where you left off.
Bring your doubts
Ask the question you'd never ask out loud. Trinity takes it seriously, no judgment.
Pick up the thread
Every session ends with a short recap of what you read and what's worth coming back to.
Every side, fairly told
On baptism, the end times, and more, you get the main views and their best arguments. Disputed questions are labelled as disputed.
The path itself
What you'll study, in order
Each unit builds on the one before it. Lessons live inside Trinity; this is the shape of the ground you will cover.
Getting oriented
What a Gospel is, and what it is not
The world of first-century Galilee and Judea
Why there are four
The synoptic relationship in plain terms
How to read parallel passages
Mark
Opening at full speed
Who do people say that I am
The turn at Caesarea Philippi
The road to Jerusalem
The passion and the empty tomb
Matthew and Luke
Two genealogies, two birth accounts
The Sermon on the Mount
Matthew's five blocks of teaching
Luke's travel narrative
Luke on the poor, women, and outsiders
John
The prologue
Seven signs
The I AM sayings
The farewell discourse
Why John sequences things differently
The week that matters most
Entry into Jerusalem
The temple action
The last supper
Trial, crucifixion, burial
Four resurrection accounts, read carefully
I've led a small group for six years, and honestly I was mostly repeating Sunday's sermon. Trinity kept asking what the passage actually said before it would tell me anything. Our Thursday nights are better for it.
I was baptized in March and still couldn't find anything in the Bible. I asked what a psalm even is, which felt embarrassing to type. It showed me Psalm 13, a man complaining to God. I didn't know that was allowed.
I mostly use it for word study. When I'm stuck on a Greek term, it walks me through what it can mean without pretending the question is settled. It's told me "scholars disagree here" more than once, which I respect.
Forty years in church and I'd never finished the Bible. I'm in Numbers now. Not thrilling, but I'm still going. Most days I read it before the kettle's boiled.
I'm not sure I believe any of it yet. I came in wanting to argue, and I still do. It argues back properly. It names the best objection before I can, and it doesn't sulk when I won't concede.
I ask it what a fifteen-year-old would really ask about a chapter. It gives me the awkward questions, not the tidy ones. Twice now it's sent me off to study properly, which I suppose is the point.
I read on my phone during my eleven-minute break, and it never tries to make it an hour. Last week it caught that I'd misread who was speaking in Job. It was one of the friends, not God. Changed the whole chapter for me.
I work in two languages, so I'm fussy about words. I asked why one Hebrew word is lovingkindness in one place and steadfast love in another. I got a real answer about hesed, not a devotional paragraph.
I worried it would hand my people easy answers to hard chapters. It mostly doesn't. Someone asked it about hell, and it laid out what Christians have held and said plainly which parts are disputed. I can work with that.
I sit with dying people, so I don't have much patience for cheerfulness. I'd been avoiding the lament psalms. It walked me through Psalm 88, which ends in the dark and stays there, and it didn't rush to fix it.
I'd abandoned three reading plans before this one. I went quiet for a while, came back, and it just carried on. No lecture. I'm in Isaiah now.
Before you start
Questions people ask about this path
Some differences are summary, ordering, or emphasis, which ancient biography allowed. A few are genuinely hard, such as the order of the resurrection appearances. Trinity names those rather than smoothing them over.
Mark if you want speed and a clear plot. Luke if you want detail and background. John if you want the claims about Jesus stated up front. Matthew rewards you most once you know the Old Testament.
Christians and scholars argue about how directly. Luke says he investigated and used sources. Trinity walks you through the main positions and the evidence each rests on rather than asserting one.
It helps, but it is not required here. Trinity supplies the historical background as you hit it, so you are not switching between a text and footnotes you do not yet know how to use.
Start this path today
The first unit is free, and you do not need to know anything going in. Trinity will ask what you noticed before it explains a thing.
Join the waitlist