New Testament letter composed under the guise of a presumably lost letter of the Apostle Paul, the Epistle to the Laodiceans. The books of the New Testament were all or nearly all written by Jewish Christians—that is, Jewish disciples of Christ, who lived in the Roman Empire, and under Roman occupation. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, is frequently thought of as an exception; scholars are divided as to whether Luke was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew. A few scholars identify the author of the Gospel of Mark as probably a Gentile, and similarly for
First Baptist Church in the City of New York Him as the Sun of Righteousness. The five upper circles depict the writers of the New Testament Epistles, while the bottom four circles represent Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospel authors. In the sanctuary, the Hebrew text is the essence of Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God..." The Greek text is the essence of John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word (Jesus Christ)." In the upper right are the Greek symbols of Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Jesus refers to Himself as the Alpha and Omega in Revelation 1:8 and 22:13.