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.

Jude 22-25 - Be merciful

1:22,23
Jude has been very direct and “unforgiving” in his treatment of false teachers, and rightly so. However, we now see that there is mercy as well. All too often we go from one extreme to the other, either being very harsh with people, or being way too soft. As always, the Bible gets it right! Sin, in all its forms, needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness, but the hope is always to lead people to repentance. We do not achieve this by saying that sin doesn’t really matter, and definitely not by saying that sin is actually good. Sadly, this is what a significant part of the church is doing. Nor do we achieve this by unremitting harshness. Instead we act with grace that leads to repentance. This is the heart of God (2 Pet 3:9).

We are to be merciful to those who doubt. We need to distinguish between false teachers, mistaken teaching and doubting. All humans struggle to believe the truth. Where I do understand, the understanding is a result of God’s grace. There are many areas where I still do not understand. So we are to recognise when people are genuinely struggling.

At the same time there will be those who are in grave danger, meddling with sin. Even such people can be saved as one snatched from the fire. But this needs to be done with great care. We do not appreciate how serious sin is, and we need to have fear. There is a real danger that we could end up being caught in the same sin. We need to make sure that we are not naive.

1:24,25

Jude closes with a great doxology, a pean of praise.  Note that the praise is to God’s glory, and to His ability to save us. He is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us on the last day without fault. He will complete the work that He has started in us. The situation is very serious and very dangerous, life is a serious business, but our God is able to keep us, able to save us. And we will be presented with great joy. There is great joy in store. All power, majesty, power and authority belong to our God. They belong to know one else, they belong to nothing else. When we are under pressure, when the world is seeking to crush the truth, we need to remember who is who. We serve the one to whom the glory belongs, it always has done, and it always will do. Those who know their God shall be strong and do exploits (Dan 11:32).

Jude 17-21 -Building yourself up

1:17-19

Now Jude turns to the teaching of the apostles. The way that Jude refers to the apostles seems to imply that he was not counted as an apostle himself. The apostles clearly warned that false teachers would come, in fact, Jesus warned as much. Paul, Peter and John all talk about false teachers. False teachers are not a surprise! A distinguishing feature of false teachers is that they follow their own ungodly desires. So if you want to become a false teacher the way to start down that road is to follow our own ungodly desires! Conversely, the way to avoid it is to follow the Spirit, to let the Word of God be our guide and rule.

These people who are false teachers divide the body of Christ, and they are led by natural instincts, not the Holy Spirit. If something is based only on human wisdom then it is worthless and will eventually lead to a dark place.

1:20,21

So what are we to do? We are to be aware of the dangers and realities of false teachers, as Jude has spent most of the letter warning them about, but there is something more positive that we can do as well. We are to build ourselves up in the most holy faith, and to pray in the Spirit. We must be wary of becoming too obsessed with weeding out falsehood. If that is all we do we will actually find ourselves falling into error. Instead, we need to build ourselves up in the faith. We need to dwell on the word of God, and not just to convince ourselves of what is wrong with false teachers or false teachings. We need to do so to meet with God, to worship Him, to let Him teach us and change us. We are also to pray in the Spirit. This may include praying in tongues, but it is much more than that. We pray in line with the Holy Spirit, in line with the word of God. We are to keep ourselves in God’s love. Well, I thought God kept us in His love? Indeed He does, but we are to do so as well. This is a constant feature of the Bible. If God does something we are to do it as well. We are not saved to be helpless babes, we are saved to be more and more Christlike, growing in maturity.

What will happen when Christ returns? In His mercy He will give us eternal life!

Jude 14-16 - Enoch

1:14,15

Enoch is mentioned in the Bible in Gen 5:18-24. In 1 Chronicles 1:3 he is listed as seventh in the list. The prophecy that Jude refers to is from 1 Enoch 1:9, one of the apocryphal books.  In early church history Jude’s use of Enoch was variously seen as lending credence to Enoch, and as detracting from the credence of Jude. It is important that we look at how Jude uses the prophecy. He is using it as an apt description of what would happen to the false teachers. Moreover, the sentiments of the prophecy is entirely in line with Biblical teaching. So even if the words themselves are treated as an actual prophecy, it does not necessarily mean that Jude considered the book 1 Enoch to be authoritative. People will be judged for ungodly acts and speaking against the Lord.

1:16

The false teachers are again described in stark terms. They are grumblers and faultfinders, following their own evil desires. They boast about themselves and flatter others. In short, there is nothing to be admired about them. Likewise, there is nothing to admire about false teachers today.

Jude 11-13 - Woe to them!

1:11

Jude now lists three examples of people in the Old Testament who were deeply misguided. Cain (Gen 4:5-8) who killed his brother Abel, Balaam (Num 22:5-7) who sold himself as a “prophet for hire”, and Korah (Num 16) who led a rebellion against Moses. From each of these examples Jude draws a different point. He talks about walking in the way of Cain. Abel gave his firstfruits to God, Cain gave something as a religious duty, his heart was not really for God. If you look at false teachers it is often obvious that they do not love Jesus. They may view Jesus as an example or an idea (usually formed in the image of the false teacher), but they do not love the living Lord. Balaam sought personal gain rather than serving the Lord. This is something that can happen all too often. Note that he actually was a prophet and did actually hear from God, yet he then became a prophet for hire. This is something that is all too common. The most obvious examples are some prosperity teachers, but it can happen in more subtle ways as well. We must always seek first the kingdom of God. Then Korah is given as an example of God’s treatment of rebels.

1:12,13

A whole series of metaphors are used to describe the false teachers. It is quite clear that Jude had a very low opinion of them! The false teachers are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They live among the church, pretending to be Christians, even sharing in the church’s “love feasts”. The likely format of these love feasts was a meal, followed by preaching and then communion. True leaders and teachers in the church are there to feed and care for the flock, false teachers look after their own interests. They might promise much, but they deliver nothing. See how vivid Jude is in his language. Utter darkness is their destiny. For far too long the church has been far too tolerant of false teachers and false teachings. We are utter fools if we allow ourselves to be taken in by false teachings. We should judge everything by the word of God.

Jude 9,10 - The Lord rebuke you

1:9

In this verse Jude is referring to a tale from the Assumption of Moses, a non-Biblical source. He is not affirming this source, just using it to illustrate a point. The tale was that when Moses died the archangel Michael went to get Moses’ body. Satan argued that he had authority over the body. Instead of insulting the devil, Michael simply said “the Lord rebuke you”. Now why does Jude raise this point? The false teachers were very full of themselves, and perhaps delighted in pouring abuse on angels and demons, think they were being very clever. Jude warns that far from being clever, they are being stupid.

1:10

The false teachers claimed to be clever, but were actually fools. They slandered what they do not understand, ie they actually knew very little about angels and demons. The things they actually did understand were only their own fleshly desires. They followed their desires just as animals live by instinct. In the end doing this would lead to their destruction. We have a very similar situation today. The concept of self-control in matters of sexual morality is given very little weight by the so-called experts. They think that because someone has a desire for something then it must be good to fulfil that desire. In doing so they reduce humans to level of animals. But we are not animals, we are made in the image of God. An animal is guided by its natural instincts, we should be guided by the Spirit, by the word of God. We are to have self-control. Secularism, humanism and atheism are all actually demeaning to human beings.

Jude 7,8 - Sodom and Gomorrah

1:7

This is a very important verse in today’s climate. Now, in the West, society’s view is that homosexuality is good and to be celebrated, as is transgenderism, and to even mildly question the validity of this view is to invite oneself to be labelled as a bigot. Along with this there are those who seek to claim that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was not because of homosexuality, but because of her arrogance and lack of concern for the poor, based on Ezekiel 16:49. This verse in Jude clearly shows that such revisionist views are wrong. Sexual sin was one of the causes of the judgement. However, there is a useful lesson to be learnt. Sin rarely comes alone. One sin will usually bring several others with it. A sexually immoral society will have plenty of other sins as well. Likewise a decadent uncaring society will quickly accumulate plenty of other sins.

“They serve as an example ...”. The attitude of many, including some in the church, is to see the clear examples of judgement in the Old Testament as at best an embarrassment, and at worse as an excuse to reject God. The consistent attitude of the New Testament, including Jesus Himself, is very different. These incidents of judgement are seen as real, and as a warning for us, demonstrating that judgement and the subsequent punishment are very real. We should adopt the same approach.

1:8

The false teachers put great weight on dreams. On the “evidence” of this they polluted their own bodies, meaning they used their dreams as an excuse for immoral behaviour. They rejected authority and heaped abuse on celestial beings. Today there are people, usually in charismatic circles, who will claim that God has revealed certain things to them in dreams. Now we need to be careful here. The Bible contains many instances of God speaking to people in dreams and visions, and there is no reason in Scripture to believe that He has stopped doing so. So God may well speak to someone, or even to you and I, through a dream. However, if we believe a dream is from God we measure what we think He is saying against the Bible. Likewise, if some preacher or prophet says that God has spoken to them in a dream that is absolutely no reason whatsoever to give any extra credence to what they say. We are to test all things, and we are to test what the preacher says against what the Bible says.