Bible Lecture – Luke

  1. According to tradition Luke was a physician, and is probably the only writer in the New Testament who was not Jewish in origin.
  2. His Gospel was intended for Gentile converts to Christianity. Luke is part of a two work set, the second being Acts, the book that follows the Gospels.
  3. Luke was the travelling companion of Paul. He probably never met Jesus.Luke begins with the statement that he is familiar with many gospels, but would like to add his account to them. (1:1-4)
  4. Luke and Matthew relate different events in giving their accounts of the Nativity.
  5. Matthew states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but doesn't state how Joseph and Mary got there.
  6. The reader assumes that that's simply where they lived. Luke tells that Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, but went to Bethlehem to take part in the census. Because Joseph's ancestors belonged to the tribe of David, Joseph needed to go to David's natal city. (This would seem to have made the census very difficult, since Jews had consolidated their tribes a thousand years before).
  7. Luke is the only Gospel to mention the Annunciation: the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she shall give birth to Jesus.
  8. Luke is also the only one to tell of the birth of John the Baptist, and to identify him as Jesus's cousin.
  9. Luke goes into more detail about the Nativity than the other Gospels.
  10. Most of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus told in churches at Christmas- the full inn, the manger, the shepherds--are taken from the Gospel of Luke.
  11. Another incident not found in the other Gospels is the Disputation with the Doctors (2:41-50).
  12. When Jesus is twelve, Mary and Joseph come to Jerusalem for Passover, and on the way home leave Jesus there by mistake.
  13. His parents go back for Him, and find Him disputing with the doctors (teachers), experts in theology. The doctors are amazed at his grasp of the subject.
  14. Although Matthew talks about the Flight into Egypt, the Disputation with the Doctors is the only event in the Gospels or anywhere else in the New Testament in which we see Jesus do anything as a child.
  15. There is an Infancy Gospel attributed to Thomas (the famous doubter), but it is pseudepigraphal, not part of the canon.
  16. In it we see young Jesus strike one of His playmates dead for tattling, so it is small wonder that the Fathers of the Church did not include it in the New Testament.
  1. There was a process of canonization for the New Testament similar to that of the Old Testament.
  2. During the Second Century a Church Father named Marcion promulgated the belief that the wrathful God of the Old Testament was not the merciful God that Jesus spoke about in the Gospels.
  3. Accordingly he, Marcion, wanted to exclude what he considered the Jewish books of the Bible. Marcion's canon consisted of the Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul's letters, which he purged of Jewish references.
  4. The faction which won insisted on including the Old Testament with the New, and adopting Matthew, Mark, and John along with Luke.
  5. After the Disputation Luke picks up the story when Jesus is thirty, and about to begin His ministry.
  6. At this point Luke gives a genealogy which stretches back to Adam. Luke's genealogy differs from Matthew's. In Matthew Jacob is the father of Joseph; in Luke it is Heli.
  7. Like Matthew (but not Mark and John), Luke includes Jesus's great sermon, the one traditionally called the Sermon on the Mount, although Luke recounts that He was standing on a plain (6:17).
  8. Matthew and Luke's accounts of the sermon are very similar, but there are a few interesting differences.
  9. In the Beatitudes Matthew says "Blessed are the poor in spirit," while Luke says "Blessed be ye poor," (6:20) and then adds a few lines later, "woe to you that are rich!"(6:24)
  10. Luke is the apostle who has social as well as moral concerns.
  11. Matthew has Jesus teach the disciples the Lord's Prayer during the Sermon on the Mount; in Luke Jesus does this later, and records a slightly different version. (11:2-4).
  12. One of the most difficult passages in Luke is 14:26: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The question as with passages in Matthew whether Jesus means this literally or as a moral marker, something to point the way without being taken literally. Obviously today most Christians in America do not take it literally.
  13. Three famous stories found only in Luke are those of the Good Samaritan (10:30-37), the Prodigal Son (15:11-32), and Lazarus and the rich man (16:19-31).

BREAK INTO GROUPS TO DISCUSS THREE PARABLES AND THEIR MEANING

  1. Samaritans were the descendants of the Assyrians brought in to replace the Tribes of Israel. (See the lecture on 2 Kings).
  2. They practiced a form of Judaism, but were not on good terms with the priests who ran the Temple in Jerusalem.
  3. The point of Jesus's parable is that the Samaritan was an outsider, and Jesus uses his kindness to answer the lawyer who asks "And, who is my neighbor?" (10:29)
  4. The Prodigal Son is a parable about the joy in heaven about sinners who were lost and now are found.
  5. The Prodigal Son's older brother finds his father's behavior unfair, but point of the story has to do with the doctrine of atonement.
  6. The rich man in the parable about Lazarus became known as Dives although Luke never gives him a name.
  7. In acquiring a name in post-biblical tradition he is like Salome, the nameless daughter of Herodias, and Zuleika, Potiphar's wife in Genesis.
  1. Luke's account of the Last Supper, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection is similar to Matthew's, but does differ in some details.
  2. Luke tells us that Satan entered into Judas, causing him to betray Jesus.
  3. Jesus sweating on Mt. Olivet is peculiar to Luke's account (and reminiscent of David's suffering in the same place).
  4. Jesus heals the ear of the servant of the high priest only in Luke.
  5. Jesus's last words on the cross, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (23:46) indicate that He dies in peace, a contrast with His agony in Matthew.
  6. In Luke's account of the Resurrection Jesus appears to two of the Disciples in Emmaus, and the rest in Jerusalem, details also unique to Luke.