The first five books of the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts — record the narrative history of the lives of Jesus and the early church. They explain the foundational facts behind the Christian faith, and present lasting and binding interpretations of those facts.
But why should history that is thousands of years old have any bearing on our lives in the modern world? And even if we believe that these books are useful to us, how can we engage literature that comes from a place and time so different from our own?