June 30, 2000
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Luke 1:1-4
Luke: Physician and Historian
Luke 1:1-4
Next to Paul, Luke is the most powerful writing force in the New Testament, and yet he is basically unknown. His historical narrative spans over 60 years. It starts with the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, and it ends at the end of the book of Acts which is volume two of his writings, it ends with the gospel being preached at Rome which means the gospel has extended to the world. No other writer wrote so comprehensive a history of Jesus and His impact. No other writer goes all the way from the John the Baptist to the gospel having reached the capital of the Roman Empire.
Luke never once refers to himself so that in the 24 chapters of the gospel of Luke he never mentions his name...and in the 28 chapters of the book of Acts he never mentions his name. This is real history accurately recorded. It is sound theology logically developed. Luke identifies what he writes in verse 4 of chapter 1 of exact truth, not fantasy, or his own spiritual musings. It isn't some effort on his part to concoct a tale or to build a legend. What he is giving is history and theology that is exact.
"In as much as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the Word have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught."
It is important for Luke to write this prologue because this is the classic way of writing in the Greek world. Any philosopher, any theologian, any educator, any historian in the ancient world who was of high quality who wanted his volume to stand on the shelf with the classics would start his writing with such a prologue.
These four verses are one sentence written in the polished literary classical Greek. The rest of the gospel of Luke is written in the common Greek, but not the prologue. Luke did this because he wanted to establish the lofty literary character of this work. It is such a high quality of Greek, by the way, that it was obvious that Luke was highly educated. If it didn't tell us in the Bible that he was a physician, we would assume that he had had some kind of high level education because of his handling of the classical form of Greek.
By using this kind of Greek as he introduces his gospel, he is claiming a place for the gospel as a classic, as a serious work, as a true work of literary, historical worth to be given attention by the most sophisticated and highly educated Gentile or Greek reader. Luke is claiming a place for Christianity among the classics and on the stage of world history. And while much of the New Testament literature was written for the church and therefore the common people, Luke had in mind the world and he wanted to make sure that he included those who were at the very highest levels of education.
In this prologue he talks about sources, as any good historian would. He talks about other accounts that have been compiled. He talks about eye witnesses and servants of the Word who have handed them down. This is not something He has invented. He has carefully investigated, verse 3 says, and researched everything carefully from the beginning. He is concerned about actual history. He is concerned about precision as he says in verse 4, "exact truth." And so, this prologue is very important in establishing Luke as a legitimate writer.
Luke is never mentioned in this gospel and he's never mentioned in the prologue. And yet its clearly said it's the gospel according to Luke, how did they come to that conclusion? Let's begin, first of all, with looking at Luke the physician.
What makes a tradition is how old the tradition is. If the tradition is about the time the actual events happened, it is likely an accurate tradition. When you go back in the gospel of Luke, you go all the way back to the first century, all the way back to the second century which would just be one generation past the writing of the gospel of Luke and they're all saying Luke wrote it and they would know because they were there. It is addressed to a man named Theophilus.; Look at Acts. In Acts 1:1 it says, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach and I composed it all the way till the day He was ascended into heaven when He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen." Well, what is he saying? He's saying I wrote the third gospel...right?...to Theophilus. Again he says, "Theophilus, the first account I composed and it was all about what Jesus began to do and teach," and then the writer goes on to write the book of Acts. Whoever wrote Acts wrote the third gospel. Whoever wrote the first account to Theophilus refers to himself as having written that first account to Theophilus and then proceeds to write the book of Acts.
So this much we know. Whoever wrote Acts wrote Luke. Now we also know, going back to Luke chapter 1, that the writer was not an apostle. He was not one of the apostles because he refers to those in verse 2 "Who from the beginning were eye witnesses." And there was one characteristic of an apostle, that he was an eye witness of the resurrection of Jesus. So he says there were those who from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the Word and have handed them down to us. So he does not write as an apostle. The apostles and other eye witnesses were his sources. In verse 1 he says, "Many have undertaken to compile an account, among them would be those who from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the Word and they've handed those accounts down to us." So he says, "I'm beholding to the accounts that have already been put together. And he says in verse 3, "I've investigated everything carefully from the beginning in those accounts." So he is not an apostle. And he was not an eye witness.
Now the fact that he is the author of Luke is established then if we can establish that he is the author of Acts. How can we establish that he is the author of Acts if it never mentions him there? Well, first of all, tradition affirms that he is the author of Acts as it does of the gospel of Luke. But there's something else that I think we can follow.
Throughout the book of Acts we come across the author identifying himself with what's going on. He's not writing as a historian looking back at something he didn't experience. He wasn't there during the life of Christ. He was not an apostle. He was not an eye witness to those events. But he is an eye witness to the things he's writing about in the book of Acts and the reason we know that is because starting in chapter 16 he starts to use the plural pronoun "we" and he's right involved in the ministry of the apostle Paul which, as you know, starts in Acts 14 and goes to the end of the chapter. And we keep reading "we did this and we went there and we were here and we did this and that," and the "we" sections have become very famous because the author is saying I was there, I went where Paul went, I went where Mark and Aristarchus and these others who were with Paul went...we were doing this and we were doing that. The "we" sections start in chapter 16 and run all the way to the end of the book. He's there all the way from Paul's second journey to the very end of the book of Acts where Paul is a prisoner in Rome in his first Roman imprisonment.
So whoever the author of Acts is he was Paul's traveling companion from chapter 16, his second journey when he had a vision from God to go to Macedonia and preach the gospel. He's there from that time all the way up to the end of the book of Acts. He's there when Paul was a prisoner in his first imprisonment in Rome, and follow this, later on, Paul years after that had a second imprisonment in Rome referred to in 2 Timothy and there he was beheaded and martyred. And at that point 2 Timothy chapter 4 at the very end of Paul's life during his second imprisonment after the first one, the first one's at the end of Acts, a later imprisonment referred to and indicated in 2 Timothy, Luke is also there. So really Luke was with Paul from the time of his second missionary journey, the time when he was at Philippi and Troas, the time recorded in Acts 16, to the end of his life, a Long-term companion of Paul who was even there in Paul's final imprisonment and martyrdom.
So in much of what is recorded in the book of Acts, certainly the dominant part of the life and ministry of the apostle Paul, he was a witness to a lot of it. While not an eye witness to the gospel account, he was an eye witness to much of what he is recording in the book of Acts. When you sift through, sort out all of Paul's companions, Luke is left as the only one who really does fit. The early church knew Luke wrote it and the story in Acts support it. And if Luke wrote Acts then he also wrote Luke because in Acts he says, "The first account I composed to you, Theophilus," that has to refer to Luke. So he wrote the third gospel and he wrote the book of Acts.
Matthew and John then were apostles. The gospel of Matthew, the gospel of John written by apostles. Luke and Mark were not apostles but they were companions of the apostles. Luke was Paul's companion and Mark was Peter's companion. And all four of those accounts God inspired to give us the fullest and richest understanding of the glory of the life of Jesus Christ.
Now all that brings us down then to Luke the physician. What do we know about him? Well, first of all, look at Colossians chapter 3, let's just take him for who he was. We don't know anything about what he did. All those years traveling with Paul never tells us what he did, doesn't tell us whether he preached a sermon or taught a class or arranged travel arrangements, I don't know what we would just have to speculate on that because there's nothing there. But in Colossians 4 and verse 14 this is the only...this is the only real personal characteristic that we know about. It just says this, "Luke the beloved physician sends you his greetings." So all we know about him in terms of his own life is that he was a physician, not just a physician but a beloved physician.
If you go back to verse 11, we'll take it a little further cause we're going to dig into his medical background, at least as far as we can. Back in to verse 11 of Colossians 4 it mentions in the middle of the verse "those who are from the circumcision...those who are from the circumcision." Paul had some companions who were Jewish. He names them, verse 10, Aristarchus, Mark, a man in verse 11 named Jesus Justus, but he says there, "These are the only fellow workers for the Kingdom of God who are from the circumcision." That is they were the only Jewish ones, so we therefore conclude that the rest are...what?...are Gentiles. And he names them, verse 12 is Epaphras who would have been a Gentile, and verse 14, Luke the beloved physician. He set apart from those that were Jewish of the circumcision as a Gentile.
He was a Gentile physician. There are four other indications of that. His name is Lucas which is a Greek word indicating his Greek origin, his Gentile origin. His writing language and style, as I told you, is distinctively Greek and it is that of a Greek with a high level of education, it is a vocabulary similar to classic Greek writers. Furthermore in writing his gospel Luke does something very interesting, we'll see it as we go through it. He avoids common semitic or Hebraic expressions and substitutes for them expressions out of the Septuagint which is a Greek translation. So he's much more at home with Greek than he is with Hebrew. And even when there is a Hebrew or semitic expression, Matthew, Mark and John would use the Hebraic version where Luke would use the Greek version of that same expression.
Also, he makes a major point out of showing how God's salvation and reaches Gentiles...both in the book of Luke and the book of Acts. He reveals his concern for his people, the Gentile people. So we conclude then that he was a Gentile, he was therefore a Gentile physician trained in some Gentile environment. We don't know where he came from although there are some traditions back to Eusebius and Jerome, early church fathers, that he came from Antioch. And Antioch was a great center of civilization in ancient times where you remember the first church outside Jerusalem was planted in Antioch. And it may have been that when that church was planted there he heard the gospel in that church. And it was that church eventually pastored by Paul who was sent from that church on his first missionary journey. So if it is true that he came from Antioch, he might have received his medical training in the culture, the Roman/Greek culture, the Hellenistic culture of Antioch.
The beloved aspect just indicates to us that he was an endearing man, that he was a man who had charmed, as it were, the heart of the apostle Paul and come to be to him a beloved man. Obviously if he left his practice to be a missionary and travel all those years with the apostle Paul, we can assume that he continued to be Paul's personal private physician. And for the oft ill and oft injured Paul, that was some luxury. And to have a man who was not only a physician but beloved was a double blessing. And isn't it interesting that as often as Luke must have ministered to Paul, he never ever mentions that he did that? Again you see the heart of this man is a heart of humility. So he was a beloved physician. And we can surmise that he may have come from training in Antioch, he may even have heard the gospel and been converted to Christ in that place. He became the beloved physician of the apostle Paul.
Though he left his medical practice, when you study the gospel of Luke you see Luke's interest in those matters that are physical, those healings that Jesus did. Those miracles that Jesus did in the physical real he views them uniquely. In fact, just one illustration and I won't get in to too many of these, just one I'll give you. There was a woman who came to Jesus with a disease and it says, one of the other gospel writers says, "She had suffered many things at the hands of many physicians." Luke leaves that line out. So that will give you the idea that he viewed things maybe a little uniquely. But he gives high profile to Jesus' healing ministry and how he viewed that. And as I said, he must have been a marvelous help to the apostle Paul.
Now Luke is mentioned there in Colossians. That is...that's the first time he is mentioned in our little look at this. Go to Philemon. This is the second time he's mentioned and there's only three. He's only named three times and the most that is ever said about him you just read. In Philemon, Philemon is a...was a man who had a slave who had run away and Paul wrote him a little letter to take him back because he had become a Christian and he wanted the man to embrace him as a brother and not a returning slave. But in the letter that he writes, at the end of the letter, he just says this, verse 23 he mentions Epaphras, he always had these guys with him, Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers. That's all we know. That's it. He was a fellow worker.
Now when Paul wrote that letter, Philemon, and when he wrote Colossians where he calls Luke the beloved physician and says he's not of the circumcision, when Paul wrote both Colossians and Philemon, he was a prisoner in Rome. He was in that first imprisonment in Rome which sort of ends the book of Acts. He was there in Rome writing these letters. This was on his third missionary journey and Luke was with him. He had been with him since the second missionary journey and he would be with him all the way to the end of his life with a six-year hiatus, and I'll mention that in a moment. But all we learn from it here, the text here, is that he was a fellow worker, he was just one of the guys who worked alongside Paul in Paul's ministry.
The third and the only other time he is mentioned in Scripture is in 2 Timothy 4...2 Timothy 4 and this is at the end of Paul's life. This is the last thing Paul ever wrote. He was about to be martyred for the cause of Christ. He was executed in Rome. And this is wonderful, verse 11 of chapter 4, "Only Luke is with me." Boy, that's sad. Down in verse 16 he said everybody deserted him, everybody. Why? Nero had cranked up the persecution to a high level and Christians were paying with their lives. And frankly, many believers had fled from Rome. And, you know, they might have had a reasonable motive to do that, to carry on the preaching of the gospel. It's not that they were all just cowards. But Luke didn't go. Everybody left. And there was a lot of desertion. Demas left him because he loved the present world, verse 10 says. And you do get the idea that some of the rest left in desertion from verse 16, but he says, "May it not be counted against them." But not Luke...loyal, faithful, brave, long-term friend, fellow worker, companion to Paul, been with Paul over years and years and years, been with Paul over hundreds and probably thousands of miles of walking. He was with Paul at Troas in Philippi on that second journey. And Paul, you'll remember, I don't know if you think back to this, but Paul left him at the end of the second journey, he left him at Philippi for six years to be with that new church. He left him there to help that new church in Macedonia. And then joined him six years later on his third missionary journey and then he was with him to the end of his life. He was with Paul when Paul returned after his third journey to Jerusalem, remember. He went to Jerusalem and he was arrested. Luke was there. That's part of the "we" passages. He was with him when he was then transported by the Romans to Caesarea which was on the coast which was the Roman garrison right on the Mediterranean just west of...just right where Tel Aviv is now, a little north of Tel Aviv. Paul was a prisoner there for two years in Caesarea and Luke was there too. Luke was there, never left him.
Finally Paul appealed to Rome because he wanted to get his case settled. He couldn't just keep him in jail, there had to be a trial and he was a Roman citizen, he had a right to a Roman trial. So they put him on a boat and they shipped him to Rome. You remember the story in Acts 27? Well Luke was on the boat too. Remember the terrible storm, and the shipwreck in Acts 27? Luke was there. And when he finally got to Rome, Luke was there and Luke was ultimately there when he became a final prisoner in Rome and when he was just about to be martyred here in 2 Timothy, Luke is still with me, he says...still with me.
Quite a remarkable man, this Luke. And we didn't know much about him when we got here this morning, but all of a sudden he sort of comes alive, doesn't he? This beloved physician, Luke the physician, that's all we know. Those are the only three places he's mentioned. That's all we know specifically and directly, but there's so much more about him. He was a physician. He was a Gentile, perhaps from Antioch in Syria. He was a medical practitioner. He was a companion of Paul. He was a missionary with a kind, loyal, brave, sympathetic heart.
But secondly, and I'm just going to introduce this, I want you to look at Luke the historian. We don't know all about the features of that part of his life. We don't know much about Luke the physician. We know a lot about Luke the historian because of the two volumes of history that he wrote. He was an exceptional historian with a brilliant mind...careful, thoughtful. Verse 1 of this gospel that we now know he wrote, it says, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us..."
What's he doing here? He's saying, "Look, folks, I'm speaking to you as a historian. I'm writing as a historian." He uses, as I told you, that high-level classical literary Greek to establish the fact that this belongs on the library shelf with the classics. I am writing a true and legitimate history. And he starts by identifying his sources. This is sort of like putting your footnotes in general at the beginning rather than at the bottom of the page or at the end. The events of Jesus' life, he said, have become the subject for many writers. Many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us.
At the very outset he alerts the reader to the fact that he is aware of others who have provided records of the story of Jesus. He is aware that there are many others who have written about Jesus. He doesn't say who the many were, but he does say he investigated everything, in verse 3, carefully from the beginning. Every resource he could find he investigated. All those early documents, by the way, have been long ago lost. We don't even have the original autographs of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, or any other original manuscript of a biblical book, we only have copies. And those other documents that were floating around have long since disappeared. So we don't know what the sources were. But there were the apostles and no doubt many of them had written down accounts of various aspects of the life and ministry of Jesus. Many of them had taken record of memoirs, things that they had remembered. There were many followers of Jesus, disciples of Jesus. There were the women who followed Jesus. There were the 120 in the Upper Room. There was Barsabas and Matthias, you remember, who sort of vied for the slot that Judas left vacant by committing suicide. They were considered eye witnesses of the resurrection and they must have had things they knew about Jesus.
There may have been many, myriads of things that had been written about Jesus and, of course, Matthew and Mark were both most likely written before Luke's gospel. They were likely among the many sources that Luke had carefully, carefully investigated. So perhaps...and because he knew Mark, I mean...Mark also was a close companion of Paul. Mark traveled with Paul. Luke traveled with Paul. Mark and Luke must have discussed many times the issues in the life of Jesus. And, of course, Mark knew Matthew because Matthew was a part of the early church as an apostle, and the early church it says met in Mark's home. So Matthew and Mark knew each other, and Mark and Luke knew each other. And Matthew and Luke likely met and got acquainted in the two years that...that Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea when Luke would have had easy access to go to Jerusalem and there, no doubt, would have met Matthew. And they perhaps shared their accounts and shared their experiences with the life of Jesus. And he was exposed to many sources.
This is very important so that people realize, the reader realizes this is not a fanciful thing. But he is basing this on other written narratives, as well oral stories and accounts that have been passed down to his time. But Luke was personally acquainted with apostles, personally acquainted with firsthand eye witnesses of the events of Christ's life. One writer suggests that he must have known Mary cause, after all, when those two years when he was in Caesarea there right near Jerusalem, he must have interacted with the church in Jerusalem and he would certainly have met this wonderful Mary, the mother of Jesus, and could well have heard the birth of Jesus story from her. Then as I said, there were the apostles and the disciples and the 120 and the women and Matthias and Barsabas later, and many others who could have known things about Jesus. There must have been a lot of folks whom Jesus had healed, right? Or who had been there at some of the moments of His teaching and His miracles. And so there were all kinds of accounts, it doesn't say just exactly what they were but there were many and they had undertaken to compile an account of the things. Those are technical terms. "Have undertaken" is a frequent used Greek word for a literary writing and "to compile an account" is a frequently used phrase for historical works. Lots of histories of Jesus were sort of happening. They weren't, of course, all inspired by God, but there were various things being written. Two of them were inspired by the Holy Spirit by the time Luke wrote...the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Mark.
And so, Luke writes, basing his writings off the research he has done, humanly speaking, with these others who have compiled accounts. Look back at verse 1 for just a minute and ask yourself the question...why did Luke feel like he needed to add another gospel? I mean, after all, there is a lot of repetition. Sixty percent of the material in Mark is in Luke. Well why does Luke have to write? Because he's finding fault? No, certainly not finding fault with inspired writings. I'll tell you why he wrote, just one simple reason, because he was prompted by God to write. Does that make sense? It was God who prompted him to write and God wanted him to write one great narrative from the start...the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Christ, all the way to the gospel having reached Rome through Paul. Such a comprehensive history had never been written in one inspired, precise, reliable, logical, persuasive account in two volumes and that's why God wanted him to write it. And by the way, Luke's is the longest gospel, the largest gospel, therefore it's the more thorough gospel.
One last thought and we'll leave the rest till next time. Verse 1 says, and this, I think, is interesting. These people had undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us. It could have said "the things concerning Jesus." They're writing the life of Christ but he doesn't. This is so important. He goes to the goal of everything and he says the story is not a story about Jesus as if that's the end of the story. It's a story about what God accomplished among us through Him. That's the issue. Luke emphasizes the issue of divine accomplishment. Luke's story is about what God accomplishes in the lives of sinners through Jesus Christ, that's what it's about.
The verb "accomplish" has an intensive flavor, it's an intensive compound Greek word. It indicates the complete fulfillment of something and in this case, the plan of God. These other people were writing not just about the life of Jesus, they were writing about what God had accomplished in human history through Jesus. They chronicled how God accomplished salvation among people. Literally, to put it simply, they were writing salvation history. And that, my friend, is the heart of the gospel...the gospels, all four of them, are salvation history. And the book of Acts is salvation history, isn't it? As the church begins, three thousand people are saved and thousands more are added and pretty soon there are twenty thousand. And the gospel leaps beyond Jerusalem and it goes into Judea and then it finds its way into Samaria and it finds its way into the uttermost part of the earth. It's salvation history. So he doesn't say they're compiling an account about Jesus, rather they're compiling an account of the things accomplished among us, "us" being believers. This looks at the end or the goal, the mission of all the events recorded. It is the story of God saving sinners. That's why it's the greatest story ever told. It's not just a story to bring your emotions out because of the sad things that happened to Jesus, it's not just Jesus Christ superstar, a poor, nice guy a little bit misguided. It's not just Jesus the ethical teacher. It's not just Jesus who set us an example of humility and selflessness. It is a history of salvation, that's what it is. It's redemptive history. And that's what Luke wrote, he wrote redemptive history.
Luke: Theologian and Pastor
Luke 1:1-4
"In the days of Herod," etc. That's where the history begins. But before he begins his history, like any good classical Greek writer, he writes a prologue in which he discusses the sources of his history. He wants us to understand that he is not writing in a vacuum. He's not musing. He's not writing intuitively or he's not writing some tale that he himself has invented, but rather he is writing a valid history and he wants us to know something of his sources, something of his intentions, his purpose and the direction that he's going to go in the history that he will write.
We begin to see something of his appearance in the fifteenth chapter of Acts where he is writing about Paul and he uses the word "we" and "us" indicating that he was there. From the fifteenth chapter of Acts, verses 9 and 10, we have the first "we" passage all the way to the end of the book, chapter 28, where Paul is a prisoner in Rome and he's still talking about "we." So Luke really was a partner of Paul, as we noted last time, for a great many years of Paul's ministry. He never names himself in the book of Luke, he never names himself in the book of Acts, but he was a long-term companion of the apostle Paul, first appearing in Acts 15 in the "we" passages, all the way to the end of the book he is with Paul. And even at the end of Paul's life, recorded in 2 Timothy 4:11 in one of the three passages in the New Testament where Luke is named, Paul says Luke is still with me...only Luke. So at the end of Paul's life, in his final Roman imprisonment, Luke was still there.
He was the only Gentile to write any Scripture. We know he was a Gentile in Colossians chapter 4, verse 11, Paul introduces his Jewish companions, his Jewish fellow workers. He says they are of the circumcision. And then after having introduced those who were Jewish, he refers to Luke who therefore is understood to be a Gentile. This Gentile who never names himself was only mentioned three times in the New Testament, and about whom really nothing is known in terms of Scripture explicitly. This unique Gentile wrote more of the New Testament even than Paul, or any other writer. So we need to know a little bit about him.
And we can discover some things in just looking at his writings. First of all, because he uses "we" we know that he was a companion of the apostle Paul. He must have been faithful. He must have been enduring. He must have been brave because of all the things he went through with the apostle Paul. But what we learn in the gospel of Luke about him in this prologue is that he was educated. He was well bred. He was skilled in language because the prologue is done in classic Greek.
And so, he is writing for people of culture. He is a man of culture himself. And he takes the gospel, as it were, and elevates it beyond just the common people. As you know, the apostles were very common. The people who were known as apostles to us in the New Testament and those who were associated with them were common people. The majority of the early church leaders were, of course, the apostles and their associates who were equally common people. The unsophisticated Galileans, they were known as, and the populace basically identified them as ignorant and unlearned men. But Luke doesn't fit into the category of ignorant and unlearned, neither does Paul. Paul was educated in the Hellenistic culture of his day. He sat at the feet of the greatest Jewish teacher of his time, a man named Gamaliel. And when Paul came into the apostolic ranks it became apparent at that juncture that the gospel was not just for the weak and the ignorant, the gospel was not just for the common people, it was not just for the lower classes of people, the gospel was for people of learning. And Luke's writings make that fact more established. Luke starts with a very formal high-brow introduction. The gospel is not just for the untutored.
Luke was humble. We know that because he never mentions himself. Proud people talk about themselves. Humble people don't. Luke never did. He never mentioned himself in Acts. He never mentions himself in the gospel of Luke.
He was also a careful scholar, very careful scholar. You notice in this text words like "carefully, investigated, and exact truth." That's characteristic of Luke. He's very precise. When it comes to the geography, as we'll see as we go through the gospel of Luke, when he's talking about geographical locations, he's very precise. He's very conscious also of the right titles for political rulers and he is very exact in the way he uses those titles.
He is going to give us exact, historical details that he has himself done great research on. In addition to that, of course, the Holy Spirit will reveal things to him that he didn't know, a combination of which, as we'll see in just a moment, comes together in the gospel of Luke. Tradition says that Luke died at the age of 84. So he lived a long life and no doubt was immensely respected by people for this marvelous historical account that he provided of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. As well as the gospel, he wrote the book of Acts.
There were other apostles, of course, who probably had written down memoirs of the experiences and the teaching of Jesus. There were other disciples, associates of the apostles, who had written. There are many, he doesn't tell us who they are. Here, Christ is the main character, but the main subject is salvation. The four gospels are the saga of salvation...they are the saga of redemption...the story of God saving sinners through Jesus Christ. Again, Jesus Christ is the main character, but the story is the story of what God accomplished through Christ in us by way of salvation. He says there were many of these accounts...many of these.
Further, verse 2, he adds, "These accounts that have come to us of what God has accomplished among us come from eye witnesses and servants of the Word who have handed them down to us." This is very important for a historian, very important for any writer, I know as a writer myself, to have primary sources, to be able to go back to the original source. That is particularly true of those who are historians. If you're going to write an accurate history, you have to have first-hand source material, you have to get back to the first-hand source material. And Luke is a true historian, a true historian. Not only a physician trained in the science that had to do with the physical body and caring for it, but a historian of great care, a man who knew how to give attention to detail in the process of doing research. And he knew that his critics would shoot him down if he didn't say his sources were primary sources. So he introduces the sources in general in verse 1, and then he introduces the sources in specific in verse 2, coming down to the fact that they were those who from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the Word who have handed them down..."them" meaning the accounts...to us. We are building our gospel...he is saying...really on first-hand eye-witness-source material. This is affirming the reliability of what he is going to write from apostles, from associates of the apostles who were there with Jesus, who were there, who can give us accounts...first-hand authenticity brought the message to Luke.
And remember what I told you last time, he may well have interviewed people who were there as well. Certainly Matthew was there and he would have met Matthew most likely during the two-year imprisonment in Caesarea which is just west of the city of Jerusalem and Matthew would have been alive and in the area. He certainly knew Mark well. Mark traveled with Paul and so did he, they traveled together. And Mark had received first-hand eye-witness records from Peter and he had been exposed to those through Mark. There were other disciples and other associates that he would have met. I suggested last time that some commentators believe it was very probable that Luke himself could have interviewed Mary and gotten her first-hand account of the virgin birth. And so he had eye witnesses, critical to getting to the truth, eye witnesses who had passed the information to him.
The Word refers to the gospel. In fact, I'm not going to take the time but he uses it that way in Acts a number of places. Just maybe one or two to sort of show you how he uses it. Acts 8:4 "Therefore those who had been scattered...scattered under the ravaging persecution of the apostle Paul against the church in Jerusalem...those who had been scattered went about preaching the Word and Philip went to Samaria." That Word that they were preaching was the gospel, it was the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 10 verse 36, "The Word which he sent to the sons of Israel preaching peace through Jesus Christ," Acts 10:36. So the Word is the gospel of peace available to sinners, peace with God through Jesus Christ. And Luke uses it that way in chapter 11 verse 19, chapter 14 verse 25 and even in chapter 6 verse 4.
So he said there, very important to follow this, they were eye witnesses who were there and they saw it and they were given the responsibility by God to become servants of the gospel. That is they were to carry that gospel out, they were the proclaimers, the preachers. They knew Jesus, they watched His life and His ministry and they went about preaching with regard to that personal first-hand experience. So they were the ones out of the many who really established the truth. They were the faithful preachers. That phrase "handed down to us," you see it at the end of verse 2, is a technical term used in Greek literature for possessing something authoritative, something authoritative. They handed down the authoritative truth to us.
So, Luke is a historian. He makes no claim to be an eye witness, but he does make a claim to having eye-witness sources who were apostles and their associates. They were eye witnesses and they were the servants of the gospel. What does that mean? Well they were given by God the responsibility to care for the gospel...to protect it. It kind of works like this, God gave them the firsthand eye-witness experiences, then God enabled them to preserve those until such a time as writers could be inspired to write them down. That's part of the preservation of the truth that is involved in maintaining the message. So Luke is saying from original sources, preserved by the servants of God who both preserved and preached the truth has come to me a true understanding of the story of Jesus and the gospel. He took advantage of all the available sources. And since he had all of that opportunity and all of that exposure, he says in verse 3, "It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out."
Fitting...what does that mean? Right, good, suitable, noble. Since I had all of this information, since I had garnered it all and it was all first-hand accurate information, it seemed fitting for me as well. And then he further strengthens his case for credibility, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning.
The word "carefully" there in verse 3, having investigated everything carefully, could be accurately, that would be a synonym. A first-rate historian. He didn't just copy down his sources. It wasn't just a sort of an assembling of all kinds of source material, that's not the case. He didn't just copy Matthew, or copy Mark, or copy other things that had been written. In fact, Luke is very, very unique in a number of ways. There is material in the gospel of Luke that is not in Matthew, that's not in Mark and a lot of it that's not in John. Luke found this material through his sources and what he didn't have through his sources the Spirit of God gave to him supernaturally. And even what he did have through his sources, the Holy Spirit guarded supernaturally, so he recorded it accurately, precisely and exactly as God wanted it to be recorded without error.
But Luke's material is wonderfully unique. Almost half of Luke's material is unique to his gospel. For example, if you chronicled the gospels and you go through, you'll find about 35 miracles, 35 specific miracles recorded in the gospels. Twenty of those are in Luke. Of the twenty in Luke, seven are only in Luke. So if we didn't have Luke we wouldn't miss seven miracles that Jesus did. There are about 50 parables that Jesus taught, depending on, you know, how precisely you define a parable, about 50 parables. Thirty-five of the parables are in Luke, and 19 of the parables are only in Luke. And if Luke hadn't recorded them we wouldn't have them. And also there are about 30 events in the life of Jesus which Luke records and no one else does. Seven miracles, 19 parables and 30 events in the life of Jesus are inimitable to the gospel of Luke.
So he was studying and he was doing research, but he was not limited to that. He didn't just copy out of Matthew and Mark's gospel because there's so much that wasn't in those gospels. In the end he knew what was in Matthew, he knew what was in Mark, he didn't use all of it in his gospel. He didn't repeat everything that was there. He knew what was in all of the sources but in the end it was the superintending work of the Holy Spirit to pull it all together. And Luke's study and research, listen carefully to this, in no way negates Holy Spirit inspiration. What the Holy Spirit did was superintend what Luke knew, give him what he didn't know, guide his selection of material out of his personal knowledge and his personal research, add to it what he had never ever found anywhere else, bring it all together and make sure Luke wrote exactly what God wanted written, no less/no more and wrote it without error. The Holy Spirit kept Luke from error in every sense, from errors of fact and from errors of doctrine so that he wrote exactly what God wanted written.
Thirdly we meet Luke the theologian. He says, "It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for you...here's the key phrase...in consecutive order," in consecutive order, or as the New King James says, "An orderly account...in an orderly account." Now what is the mark of a good theologian? A good theologian is someone who is analytical, who is systematic, who is logical. And that's exactly what that's saying. When he says "in consecutive order," that's probably not a good translation. He probably could have a better translation then "in consecutive order," because it sort of gives the idea that this thing is strictly chronological, that he starts with John the Baptist, ends with Paul, and everything else is just a series of chronological events in perfect succession.
Generally Luke is chronological. Certainly the gospel of Luke is generally chronological, it starts with the birth of Christ, goes to the boyhood of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, moves into His public ministry, goes to the cross. And you've got ten chapters of Him traveling to Jerusalem to die, the cross and then the resurrection follows the cross. I mean, generally it is chronological. The book of Acts, of course, is chronological. It starts with the Spirit of God being promised, then the Spirit of God comes. The gospel goes to Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria, the uttermost part of the earth. So there's a flow of chronology, and there has to be in any good history.
But, it is not strictly chronological. There are times when Luke wants to make a theological point, so he gathers material thematically around that theological point. So he will not become slavishly chronological if at some point he needs to deviate from his chronology to enrich a point with issues or with discussions or events pulled from various times but to illustrate a point that he's making in that very chronological flow he'll do that. So it is both chronological and it is thematic at certain points and he'll pull things from various parts of the history of the life of Christ and bring them in to one focus in a given text in order to enhance the point that is being made there.
The way to understand the phrase "in consecutive order," is to understand it as in logical order...in logical order. It doesn't strictly mean chronological. At times, as I said, he's thematic and puts material together around a theme rather an historical sequence. The phrase helps us to understand Luke as a theologian. He is writing systematically. He is writing logically. He is writing in a progression that is intended, here's the key phrase, in a progression that is intended to persuade. A theologian's job is to persuade someone to believe, to lead you to understand a truth, to lead you to understand a doctrine by a thoughtful, logical, progressive, systematic, persuasive explanation. And that's exactly what Luke is going to do in this gospel. And the goal of this gospel is to persuade a person to believe...to persuade a person to believe. That's a theologian's desire. It is a distinctly, logical, sequential effort to bring someone to full persuasion about Christ. His goal is to lead the reader to believe the gospel, to believe the full truth of God's saving purpose in Christ, to believe the story of redemption, to believe the message of salvation. I like to think of it this way, Luke is saying this...I'm writing this out for you in logical, persuasive clarity...that's what he's doing, that's a theologian's task. Not just a historian, I'm not just dealing with linking events together in a chronology, but rather in the process of moving through this chronology focusing on persuasive, logical understanding of divine truth.
So he's going to show us the theological significance of what happens. And as he shows us the theological significance of what is happening, he'll build around that theological theme a little bit to increase that persuasion. And there are a number of things that he deals with. As you look at Luke the theologian, he was quite a remarkable theologian. The first great area of theology that concerns Luke is God's sovereignty in history. He was a believer in the sovereignty of God. Luke was a Reformed theologian, though he didn't know it. He believed in the sovereignty of God. He saw salvation history as God's sovereign plan of redemption unfolding through Jesus Christ. Salvation had come. In fact he uses the word "now" 14 times. He follows salvation history through the birth, the boyhood and the baptism of Jesus, through His ministry as God continues to work His saving plan. And then he follows him for ten chapters from Galilee as he comes down to Jerusalem, coming toward the cross and his movement toward the cross chronologically and historically is filled with theological implications as he heads for that monumental redemptive substitutionary death on the cross. The great passion week of Jesus is from chapter 19 to the end of chapter 23 and chapter 24 ends with the resurrection of Christ. All through this you see God's hand working the great work of redemption. He follows salvation history and sees God ruling in all of it.
Second thing, he not only understood that God's sovereign rule over history, but he understood the universal extent of salvation. He understood that salvation was for everyone. He was a Gentile. He was writing to Theophilus who was a Gentile. He was a part of the Gentile world and he wanted it to be made very clear that this wonderful reality of God's saving purpose, this great saga of redemption involved Gentiles. He's very concerned about what's going on in Samaria and in chapter 10 he's concerned about the rejection that occurred in Samaria. He is very concerned about salvation extending everywhere.
In fact, he sees the gospel not only for all...all nations, but for all kinds of people. He's very concerned about prodigals, you know, writes about the prodigal son. He's concerned about Samaritans who are half-breed outcasts. He's concerned about women who were seen as low class in the society. He's concerned about really fallen women, sinful women, demon-possessed women, prostitutes, outcasts. He's concerned about tax collectors. He's concerned about a despicable man by the name of Zaccheus and tells us the story of Zaccheus which is nowhere else. He's concerned about lepers. He's got a lot of lepers in here, at least ten in one passage, who were the pariahs of society. He likes to talk about tax collectors and every time he mentions a tax collector who was the most despicable person in the Jewish culture, it's always in a favorable light. Though he doesn't ignore the salvation of the rich, he makes a lot out of the salvation of one rich man, Joseph of Arimathaea who gave his tomb to Jesus. Although he doesn't ignore the salvation of the gospel to the wealthy and the upper class, and I think he wrote for them in mind indicated by the prologue, but he spends an awful lot of time focusing on Jesus' ministry to the worst of the...the flotsam and the jetsam of humanity. He saw that the ministry of the great physician was to those who were desperate, that salvation was for everybody.
Luke makes a major thrust in discussing the ministry of the Holy Spirit, much more so than any of the other gospel writers. He focuses on the Holy Spirit, particularly early in the gospel of Luke. The Holy Spirit is just everywhere in the first few chapters. The Holy Spirit is involved in the birth of John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit is involved, of course, in the birth of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is there early on talking to Mary, talking to Zacharias. The Holy Spirit is leading Simeon to come and worship the Christ child. The Holy Spirit is involved in the baptism of Jesus and the temptation of Christ and we learn about the Holy Spirit.
Of course we learn about Jesus Christ. Luke has a great theology proper, the doctrine of God as sovereign over everything. He has a good pneumatology, he understands the role of the Holy Spirit. He has a great Christology which, of course, is the theme of the whole book, the Doctrine of Christ. You want to know something very interesting? Luke is the only gospel that mentions the Doctrine of Justification. The Doctrine of Justification is the heart of Christian theology, it's the heart of Reformation theology that we have been declared righteous. That Doctrine of Justification is Luke's to discuss and he does it when he writes about a publican and a sinner who went into the temple to pray and the publican who was a tax collector, again an outcast, a pariah, a despised and hated man went home justified and Luke gives us our first introduction into justification. And justification is also in the story of the prodigal because this wretched, wicked sinner comes home and he has no value, no virtue, no worth, nothing and his father puts on the robe and gives him the ring and has a feast. And that's what justification is, it's taking an unworthy sinner who belongs in the pig slop and covering him with the robe of righteousness. And even Zaccheus is a picture of God's justification, as is the sinful woman in chapter 7.
Lastly, Luke the pastor. It doesn't say in here that he's a pastor, but I'll tell you what, this never ceases to amaze me, verse 3 he says, "It seemed fitting for me having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for you in logical, persuasive clarity, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the exact truth about the things you've been taught."
You can imagine a person writing a book to be published. Can you imagine a person writing a book to be given to one person? That's a pastor's heart, isn't it? I don't know how he met Theophilus. We don't know anything about Theophilus. He has a nice name, beloved of God. We don't know anything about him. We know he was probably on the upper side of society, "most excellent." That little modifier is used in the book of Acts by Luke to refer to Felix the governor and Festus the governor. And that occurs in Acts 23 and 24 in the case of Felix and 26 in the case of Festus. So it meant somebody who was elevated, somebody who is high up...most excellent.
This was a formidable person. And what was Luke's goal here? Well, Theophilus had been taught things about Christ. Obviously we could conclude, however, that the teaching was unclear or incomplete. And so Luke says, "I want you to have the exact truth." What a pastor's heart. So he does all of this research, all of this incredible writing to give to this man, to either bring him to saving faith if he was just on the edge and didn't have a complete enough understanding of the gospel to believe, he was certainly interested and he had been taught something about the gospel. Or, that he was a new Christian, a new believer and he needed to have a greater understanding of his faith. Whatever it is, and we don't know in the case of Theophilus. Probably more likely that he was a believer and needed a more perfect understanding.
In that case, it's a pastoral work intended to teach this...this man that he had met, to bring him to exact truth. Let me tell you, anything short of that is a failure to understand the responsibility of the pastor, isn't it? My job as a pastor is not to fuss with your emotions. My job as a pastor is not to make you feel good about yourself. My task as a pastor, it's just like Luke's was, is to bring you to an exact understanding of the truth of God, isn't it? As I say, we don't know anything about him. But we know enough about Luke to know that Luke cared enough about this man's soul to bring him to the exact understanding of truth. Cared enough about him to write this long, intense, complex, monumental history and theology of salvation and give it to Theophilus. That's a remarkable evidence of personal concern to shepherd the soul of one man.
Now that fact that Luke gave this to Theophilus doesn't indicate that he didn't expect anybody else to read it. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he expected the friends and family of Theophilus to read it. But the fact that he knew the others would read it and that it might even go beyond that in no way diminishes the graciousness of his heart and his love for that one man. He knew that every soul was precious to the one who came to seek and to save the lost. And like his Lord, he had a shepherd's heart.
Isn't it wonderful that he served one man so well and God took the service that he rendered to one man and has spread it across the globe in thousands of languages? And millions of people have come to salvation through the letter that Luke wrote to this man. I've always said that through the years. You take care of the depth of your ministry and God will take care of the breadth of it. You do something as profound as what Luke did and, believe me, it will go to whatever end that God desires it to go. Millions of people have been converted by the account that Luke wrote for Theophilus.
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