John the Baptist The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic chapters because they look so much alike. One of the first differences you will notice between the synoptics is that Mark is much shorter than the other two. You will also notice that Matthew appears to be written for Jews, since he commonly refers to things happening to fulfill the Old Testament. So what we believe about Mark is that someone wrote this gospel to show the Romans (especially soldiers) that Jesus was a man of action, someone the Romans could admire and look up to. Papias, an early church father, ascrib