Daniel Kirk discusses the synoptic problem: trying to harmonize the differences between the four gospels to figure out what “really happened”. But each author wrote his own voice in order to highlight the differences, not to have us smoosh them all back together into one undifferentiated meaning.
Once upon a time, I thought that listening to multiple voices was a way of telling us what the “one meaning” really was.
You know what happens when you do this?
…Luke’s “blessed are you who are hungry” is muted by Matthew’s “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
You see what happens if we don’t allow the multiplicity of Biblical voices to speak? The concern for worldly poverty and starving kids in my city gets “spiritualized”–and the next thing you know, the church begins to think that having a quiet time is more important than feeding our starving neighbors.
Of course, we must not allow Luke to mute Matthew, either. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness are states of the blessed citizens of the Kingdom.
But we can only allow both voices to speak if we are willing to allow the Bible to be what it actually is. We can only listen to both Matthew and Luke if we are open to see that they shaped their messages in accordance with robust theological agendas that situate Jesus within the world and the story of Israel in unique ways.
via NT Scholarship and the Starving Poor | Storied Theology.
Emphasis mine.