Luke - Introduction

Luke

Introduction

We now embark on Luke’s gospel. Now let me make a confession, I am much more at home with Paul’s letters than the gospels, and of the gospels my favourite by far is John. Why is this? It is because Paul’s letters are more clearly theological, and of the gospels, John’s is the most overtly theological. But the synoptic gospels are just as theological, but they “earth” the theology in the lives of real people. Not that the theology in Paul’s letters is divorced from reality, far from it, but in the gospels the focus is on the people, above all on the person of Jesus Christ, and then on His interactions with all sorts of people. God is not an abstract concept, but is the living God who interacts with real people.

As always, I will make reference here to my primary sources of influence and information (though it is not limited to these):

Luke, Darrell Bock, IVP New Testament Commentary Series (1994)

Luke, Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, IVP, (1974)

Zondervan TNIV Study Bible

The gospel of Luke does not actually explicitly claim to be written by Luke. The early church attested authorship to Luke (Muratorian Canon, AD 170, Irenaeus, AD 180). Acts and Luke were certainly written by the same person, the beginning of Acts stating this clearly, and the literary style of Luke and Acts are very similar. In Acts there are several “we” passages, indicating that the author was a companion of Paul, and Luke is by far the most likely candidate. Luke himself was probably a Gentile.

Luke state that his purpose was to give an “orderly account” of Jesus’ life, so that “you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught”. The gospel is based on truth and historical reality, and the Biblical records are the foundation of what we believe. There are always those who seek to stray, or abandon altogether, from the foundations of the Bible. Anyone who does this will always drift away from the truth, and we need always to remember that the Bible is God’s primary means of communication with us.

The gospel was probably written in Rome, with AD59-53 perhaps being the most likely time of writing. The style of Greek is very good, being close to classical Greek.

The beginning of the letter tells us that many had written about the events of Jesus’ life. There was no shortage of sources of information, though Luke does not explicitly tell us which source he used. There is overlap with the other two synoptic gospels, but obvious differences as well. Luke seems to have a particular interest in the place of women and  more generally in those regarded as outcasts. This was a particular concern because Luke seems to be concerned to assure the Gentiles that they are “full members” of the kingdom.