Are the Gospels in the Old Testament a Book of Services?

The church seems to have had a really clear sense of what were the gospels long before there was any concentration of power in rome. So it just seems like there is clarity, with the exception of a couple of books that both catholics and eventually protestants ended up regarding as not being authoritative or scripture anyway. I don't find it weird or threatening at all that people found that distillation of church practice to be useful or effective. But even the teachings there on baptism are not as neatly historically catholic or protestant as either of us would like them to be.