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1. The gospel of Matthew and john are concerned with the same thing; that is the life and mission of Jesus Christ on earth, however, they way that they have approached the subject is very different which makes them completely different from each other. In this part, we will look at the different claims that the two books make regarding Jesus Christ and his mission.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus is seen to preach around the region of Galilee and he only travelled to Jerusalem only once, however, in the book of john, Jesus preaches in several regions, which includes Jerusalem where he made at least four trips. The way that the two books have portrayed Jesus Christ differs a lot; in the book of Matthew, the divinity of Jesus is not revealed from the beginning especially to the disciples who only start acknowledging him later in his ministry. In the book of john, the divinity of Jesus Christ has been recognised which is evident by the name that his disciples use to refer to him. In addition, the account of signs and wonders which Jesus did in his ministry is different in the two books; while in the book of Matthew the miracles have been included because they happened at that particular time in Jesus ministry, john has used the miracles to show different attributes of Jesus. This explains why the miracles that Jesus performs in the book of john is completely different from those that he performed in the book of Matthew; for instance, the raising of Lazarus after four days is only found in the book of john (new king James version, john: 11 :1-57).

The difference in way the two books have portrayed the gospel can be seen to result from the type of message that they wanted to pass. While the book of Matthew was interested with general attributes of Jesus as his goodness, wisdom among others, the book of john is more interested with revealing who Jesus was including his superiority over all living things.

2. Beliefs in the traditional Christian church were important as they presented a way in which Christians could communicate with God; they enabled Christians to have faith in what they had not seen with the promise of going to heaven. However, these beliefs presented several challenges to the Christians. One of them was from the Jews and gentiles who did not believe in Jesus, this group of people always challenged Christians on their beliefs since they did not have evidence, in addition, to avoid the Christianity and their believes from spreading, they had resulted in persecution of Christians. Another problem with some of the belief that Christians had is that they took long to be fulfilled, for instance, when Jesus said he would come for his disciples soon, many believed that it would be in their lifetime, however when that did not come to pass, they started losing faith in those beliefs.

‘Believing in’ in Christian faith involved believing in Jesus Christ as the son of God and saviour of the world while ‘believing that’ means having faith that all the promises that he made would happen. In Christian faith, the importance of ‘believing in’ is that it made them have faith in God more since he had sent his only son to come and save the world while ‘believing that’ makes Christian have hope that Jesus will fulfil all the promises that he made.

3.

The first dimension of religion is rituals; these are ceremonies in Christian life, which can be taken to help a person go deeper in Christian faith. For instance, in Christianity, some rituals include baptism, dedication, Easter celebrations among others. The second dimension is narrative and mythic which are stories regarded as divine and revealed, in Christian faith narrative and mythic may include how God created the universe. The third dimension of religion is experiential and emotional which include emotions and feelings such as guilt and inner peace among others; in Christian faith, an example of example of experiential and emotional is the feeling one gets on encounter with holy spirit. The fourth dimension is social and institutional which includes beliefs and attitudes shared by a group; for instance, Christians believe that holy people will go to heaven while sinners will go to hell. The fifth dimension is ethical and human behaviour, which are the guidelines on how the members of a group should behave, in Christianity these may include the Ten Commandments and the two commandments that Jesus left. The sixth dimension is doctrinal and philosophical which in Christian faith are the bible and other church documents. The seventh dimension material in Christian faith may include things such as churches, tabernacles and crosses.

Works cited

New King James version. Nashville. Thomas Nelson. 1982. print