Lecture 9: Luke: Two Volumes, One Design, and the Shape of the Third Gospel

The lecture, section by section

1. One design in two volumes

   Unlike Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles, divided later by others, Luke himself planned two volumes, likely constrained by scroll length, and the parallels prove the second was in view as the first was written. Both open with a preface, Acts with a resumptive preface that carries volume one's purpose forward. Both begin with a visible coming of the Spirit, the dove upon Jesus, the tongues as of fire upon the apostles; in both, the filling of the Spirit issues in proclamation stressing fulfillment and met with rejection, the Nazareth sermon and Peter's Pentecost call to be saved from a perverse generation. Both ministries heal a man lame from birth, clash with the leaders, answer a centurion's request, raise the dead for a widow, endure Pharisaic criticism, and send out commissioned messengers, the twelve and the seventy, then Barnabas and Saul set apart at Antioch.

2. The parallel roads to Jerusalem, and the open endings

   Both volumes turn on a last journey to Jerusalem from which nothing can deflect the traveler: Jesus sets his face, and Paul, purposing to see Rome, must go to Jerusalem first. In Jerusalem the echoes multiply: a good reception, the temple, seizure by a mob, a slap at the high priest's command, the resurrection dispute with Sadducees, and four hearings each, two Jewish and two Gentile, Jesus before Pilate and Herod, Paul before Felix and Festus with Agrippa. Yet Paul, a Roman citizen, is not crucified, and both books close on the same triumphant note: Scripture fulfilled and the message going forth, from the risen Lord's commission to all the nations to Paul preaching in Rome unhindered. The order is Luke's own, Spirit-directed: consecutive order means a logical, graspable arrangement of true events, not a strict chronology, and no other gospel, read blind against Acts, would be picked as its companion volume.

3. Luke the Gentile, probably a God-fearer

   Colossians 4 settles Luke's background: Paul lists Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus as the only fellow workers from the circumcision, then sends greetings from Luke, the beloved physician, among the rest, a Gentile, and by implication never circumcised. Yet his instinctive command of the Septuagint, his quotations, and his narrative patterning after Samuel and Kings suggest not a raw pagan but a God-fearer, the kind of Gentile Paul reached in synagogue after synagogue, won by reasoning from the Scriptures that Jesus is their fulfillment. Only Luke and Titus, of all Paul's named companions, never appear by name in Acts, and the tradition never wavered from Luke; had the church been guessing, the more prominent Titus was there to choose.

4. The beloved physician, and the date

   Hobart's old case from medical language has been largely debunked, the vocabulary belongs to any educated Greek, but a few touches remain suggestive: the precise diagnosis of dropsy in chapter 14, and the woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage, of whom Mark says she suffered much at the hands of many physicians and only grew worse, while Luke reports simply that no one could heal her, a colleague's discreet edit, perhaps. The gospel's date sits shortly before Acts' AD 62: either sent from Caesarea about 58, or from Rome in 60 or 61, since nothing was getting mailed from the shipwreck in between.

5. The classical preface, and the drop into Scripture's idiom

   Luke 1:1 to 4 is one exquisitely balanced Greek sentence in the classical manner, rivaled in the New Testament only by the opening of Hebrews. Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative, resting on what the eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down, it seemed fitting for me as well, and then the fourfold credentials, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out in consecutive order, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Such prose assumes a highly literate reader, Greek his first language. And then, at verse 5, Luke deliberately drops into the Semitic, Septuagintal idiom of the sacred narratives, assuming Theophilus knows that voice too: the story he is about to hear sounds like Scripture because it is Scripture's story continued.

6. Themes: parables, the Spirit, angels, and the mission that must be

   About half of Luke is unique to Luke, and the parables carry much of it: the good Samaritan and the prodigal son, perhaps the two best-known parables in the church, appear only here, scattered through the Galilean ministry and thick along the road to Jerusalem. The Spirit's ministry saturates the opening: Jesus full of the Spirit, led in the Spirit, returning in the power of the Spirit, announcing from Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Angels attend the story from Gabriel's two announcements to the host over the shepherds. And the redemptive mission sounds the dei of God's plan: what is written must be fulfilled in me, he was numbered with the transgressors; the Christ had to suffer and rise, that repentance for forgiveness of sins might be proclaimed to all the nations.

7. History you can date, and readers on the margins

   Alone among the evangelists Luke anchors his story in datable secular history: Herod the king; the census under Augustus when Quirinius governed Syria; John's ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, under Pilate, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the deposed priest the Jews still honored and the priest Rome recognized, one high priesthood with two faces; even Pilate's slaughtered Galileans. The point for Theophilus: this is not once upon a time in a land far away; these things happened among the persons and dates of the world he knows. And through it all run Luke's special company: women and children, tax collectors and the poor, and the Gentiles whom Simeon already names as the ones this light will reach, all under the Lordship of Jesus, kurios, the Septuagint's own name for Yahweh.

8. Resources for Luke

   Marshall in the New International Greek Testament Commentary remains the preeminent exegetical work; Stein largely echoes Marshall's exegesis for English readers while adding real value on Luke's themes and their development paragraph by paragraph. Hendriksen, completed by Kistemaker, blends exegesis in the footnotes, interpretation in the text, and homiletical hints at each chapter's end, and the set has just been republished; Bock's application volume thinks through Luke for the contemporary church, his larger two volumes largely incorporated in what Marshall covers. MacArthur's Luke volumes are still to come.

9. The prologue: John great, Jesus greater

   The infancy narratives balance John and Jesus, announcement against announcement, birth against birth, always to show John's greatness and Jesus's superiority. John is born to a barren couple, and Zacharias, though a priest, answers Gabriel with Abraham and Sarah's incredulity and is silenced until the promise stands; John will be filled with the Spirit from the womb, the forerunner in the spirit and power of Elijah. But at Nazareth the Spirit is not filler but conceiver: the Holy Spirit will come upon you, the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God, and Mary, no barren wife but a virgin, submits, accepting with the highest honor a Jewish woman could receive the deepest shame she could bear. The unborn John testifies to the unborn Messiah; Zacharias prophesies his son the prophet of the Most High; angels announce Jesus's birth, and Simeon holds God's salvation, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel; and the boy of twelve already knows he must be in his Father's house.

10. Preparation, and the ministry in Galilee

    John prepares the people and points beyond himself; at the baptism Jesus is praying when the Spirit descends; the genealogy runs back not to Abraham but to Adam, for this is the last Adam who, in the temptation, stands where the first Adam fell, and so can be the Savior of all men. The Galilean ministry then opens, deliberately, on rejection: at Nazareth the townsfolk marvel at his gracious words yet see only Joseph's son, demand the Capernaum signs, and, when Jesus reminds them that Elijah and Elisha were sent to Gentiles, fill the synagogue with rage and try to kill him. Capernaum's reception proves the authority Nazareth refused; the disciples are called and the twelve appointed; the sermon on the plain is taught; chapters 7 and 8 display his authority to the multitudes; and the twelve are commissioned so all Galilee will hear.

11. The road to Jerusalem

    From 9:51 Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, with journey notices at 13:22 and 17:11 and arrival at 19:28, and the travelogue holds most of Luke's unique material: little miracle, much teaching. It too opens with rejection, a Samaritan village refusing him because his face is set toward Jerusalem, and James and John rebuked for wanting fire from heaven. Against that backdrop each stretch has its burden: first the call and duties of disciples, following at any cost, the seventy sent, Mary at his feet, the teaching on prayer, the warnings against the Pharisees' love of place and money, humility now and riches hereafter; then, from the question, are only a few being saved, the identity of the truly saved, not national heritage but repentant faith, penitents over Pharisees; then, from the ten lepers of whom one returns in faith, the future of the faithful, sharpened in chapter 19 against the crowd's assumption that the kingdom would appear immediately, it will come, in the future, and the faithful will share it.

12. Jerusalem, the plan accomplished, and the word to Theophilus

    In Jerusalem the acclaim of the entry gives way to the leaders' rejection and the Lord's rejection of them, and Luke's Olivet discourse does what Matthew's and Mark's do not: verses 20 to 24 of chapter 21 foretell Jerusalem's destruction in that generation, the near judgment that anticipates the ultimate coming described from verse 25. Chapters 22 to 24 then narrate the plan of God accomplished, the Passover eaten, the arrest among criminals, the death, the resurrection, the commission that repentance for forgiveness be preached to all nations beginning from Jerusalem, everything as it stands written. The whole gospel says to Theophilus: Jesus is the Messiah of God's plan, rejected by his generation, and his disciple is whoever responds to him in faith and follows at any cost; you are such a one, and every assurance Jesus gave his disciples is assurance given to you.

1. Luke told Theophilus the story in datable history, among governors and censuses, because faith rests on things that happened. How does the historical anchoring of the gospel steady your own assurance when doubts press in?

2. Zacharias the priest doubted like Abraham; Mary the virgin submitted, accepting shame with the honor. What do the two responses to Gabriel teach about how to receive a word from God that costs something?

3. The road to Jerusalem teaches that the true disciple is marked by repentant faith and costly following, not heritage or proximity. Which of the travelogue's demands, following, praying, humility, treasure held loosely, presses hardest on you right now?