Luke 1 :: At Home With Luke

Luke 1

Luke makes special note to his motivation for writing his account of the Good News.  He explains to Theophilus that his desire is to present a detailed account of the "harvest of history" or the fulfillment of things that were promised.  Luke is the third book of what we call the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Mark being the other two, which share many of the same stories.  He is clear that others had written before him and that he was taking their writings into account, as well as his own investigation.  His plan is to start at the very beginning.  His preface is more formal than that of the other writers.  He uses phrases that are not used anywhere else in the NT, but are used by other classical writers of his time.  Luke is an educated and well-read man.  His account of the gospel can be read with a great deal of confidence behind it.  Claiming to write a detailed account of this history would have brought scrutiny to his writings.  Critics would have ripped him if they thought anything he said was untrue.  They would have tweeted about his errors, blogged about his discrepancies and probably destroyed any credibility he might have had.  That did not happen, and we have copies of his writings still today.

Presuming Luke to be a doctor (historical assumption), we discover brutal honesty and straightforward accounts of the physical liabilities that faced Elizabeth and Mary.  Elizabeth is old and Mary is young.  Elizabeth has tried for years to conceive and Mary has never been with a man - in the "biblical way."  Luke doesn't sugar-coat their situation, but simply states the facts of the situation.  Luke is the only one of the synoptics to tell of the angel visits to Elizabeth and Mary.  I find this fascinating because if they were simply legend and not actual events, of all people, Luke would have not included them in his account.  But he does.  Luke has no interest in the inclusion of fable into his narrative.

So as we kick off our reading through Luke today, we can approach with confidence and understanding that what we read is what happened, to a degree that we might not have other accounts.  Luke is the most like us and is an ardent defender of the outsiders.  His passion for "all people" is contagious and seen from the very beginning.  It often feels like Luke is writing to people who don't believe or who are critical of the story being told.  I feel at home listening to his story.

(Family Questions will come in another post today)