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I remember as a kid visiting an Art Museum in Chicago with my Grandmother. I will freely admit that it was not my favorite place to go. I much preferred our trips to the dunes or to the shore of Lake Michigan or best of all, the Museum of Science and Industry. However my Grandmother knew what was best for us so occasionally she would take us to see some art.

I have only a few distinct memories of those trips, but I do remember one trip when we spent most of our time is a big room full of late Renaissance masterpieces. (I have no idea what they were.) In the room that day were Masters students from the University of Chicago Art School. They were all set-up with easels and paints copying the old paintings. Since my Grandmother never understood that you weren’t supposed to talk to strangers, she began to ask them questions. And since she was asking the questions for our benefit she made us stay by her side and listen.

I don’t remember any specific details but I remember the gist of what they were doing. They were attempting to exactly duplicate these old masterworks. They had studied painting techniques and brush types. They had researched old paints and colors and tried to understand the original methods of production. They had chosen a painting to duplicate and then had studied the painting. Some were still in the looking phase. One student I remember very clearly was doing nothing but sitting there all day looking at the painting and taking notes and drawing little sketches of how it appeared in different light. Another was reading an art book on the development of painting techniques.

This is something like what it means to read a gospel carefully. Christ is our model. We want to understand his culture and background and interests, because we want to know his life and pattern our lives on it. By knowing his culture we can see how he confirmed and confronted the world he lived in and we will find clarity about how we should both confirm and more often confront our culture. I suppose that in the world of art, there is a danger that someone could become so fascinated with the study of brush technique that they never actually painted. On the other hand, someone committed to painting will eventually study brush technique.

I hope that together we can bring one another balance. Let us not be too hasty to assume how we should live until we have studied how Christ lived. But let us also never forget that the reason we study the master is so that we can live as he lived.

That is how I hope to read the gospel.

-Ethan

If you have the time I would suggest that you ignore the rest of this post and right now read the entire Gospel of Luke. Don’t worry about the details, just try to get a feel for the general outline of the book. It is easy to loook at a gospel (or any bbiblical text) one verse or one section or one chapter at a time and miss the forest for the trees. I certainly don’t want to ignore the details – and there will be plenty of details – but we also need the big picture.

To that end I will offer this simple outline for the shape of Luke’s Gospel. There is nothing special about this outline and if you read it and craft your own and it is a bit different, that certianly doesn’t mean that yours is wrong. In fact If I were you I would just assume that mine is wrong. This one is intentionally broad. We may find further divisions that interest us as we go but for now this will give us a very rough sense of the shape.

Introduction and Childhood- 1 and 2
Prelude to Ministry – 3 – 4:1-13
Ministry in Northern Israel – 4:14 – 9:50
The Road to Jerusalem – 9:51 – 19:27
Passion Week – 19:28 – 23:56
Ressurection – 24

As with most of the gospel I am always fascinated how much of the gospel is focused on the death. Mark’s gospel is often described as a Passion narrative with a brief introduction. Luke certainly has a more well-rounded picture of Jesus ministry than Mark, but there is a lot of truth to that description even for Luke. It is a good reminder for me.

Without the cross, the Sermon on the Plain means nothing.

- Ethan

People are often curious about the multiplicity of gospels. Even in the early centuries of the church, there were some negative reactions. The early heretic Marcion rejected all the gospels except the gospel of Luke. (Believe me this was the least of his problems.) Others produced gospel harmonies that attempted to combine the gospels and resolve the details that differ between the various accounts. [Of these, Tatian's Diatessaron, is the most notable.]

I’m sympathetic with these concerns. Having four does present some difficulties. They differ in order and in detail. They differ in focus and theological outlook. These differences can cause trouble for those looking for an excuse not to believe. Occasionally the same event is narrated in ways that are different enough that reconciling the accounts is quite difficult. If your into that kind of thing you can check out the two versions of Judas’s death as recorded by Matthew in 27:1-10 and by Luke in Acts 1:18 and 19. By my reckoning this is by far the most challenging of these differences.

Despite these difficulties, I am so glad that we have four gospels. I have at least two broad reasons for this gladness: The reliability of the witness and the fullness of our understanding of Christ.

1. I think that the multiplicity of witnesses supports their reliability.

If there were a grand conspiracy to concoct false tales of a false Lord, they certainly could have managed to get a detail like how Judas died correct. Anyone who has watched enough crime dramas knows that when multiple witnesses have identical stories, one can be sure they have concocted a mutual lie. But when witnesses tell basically the same story – but each from their own perspective – then reliability is more likely.

I think that this is the kind of situation we have with the gospels. We know that at least some of the gospel writers knew of other accounts of Jesus life, so they could have manufactured artificial agreement if they had wanted to. Instead they chose to report the stories they knew from the witnesses they trusted. The first century church who knew the stories from independent sources validated these stories. The importance of these texts is demonstrated by the reality that the church trusted the texts even when it complicated the story.

2. Having four gospels helps me devotionally and theologically.

The second reason I like having four gospels is pretty different. I think that these four gospels each give us a distinct lens with which to examine Jesus. Certainly all the same information could have been contained in one book, but since I have trouble getting all of Jesus in my head at one time, I appreciate being able to think about a few aspects of Jesus at a time. Often in my devotion I find it very fruitful to read a gospel as a gospel (rather than one little story at a time) to let myself get a full-scale encounter with a picture of Jesus. For these purposes I am regularly blessed by making sure that I spend time in each of the gospels.

I hope that as we read through Luke we can recognize and enjoy his beautiful and unique reflection of Jesus. We will be noticing how his record is in sync with the rest of the Gospel and the ways in which he offers us a unique glimpse into the values, ministry and purposes of Christ.

Remember we just have two days till we hit the text. So get ready.

-Ethan

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this issue, but since we are about to read this book together, it might be nice to have some common idea of who wrote it. The book itself is anonymous. So it cannot be an article of faith who wrote the book. (This means that if you meet someone who thinks that the authors name was Fred and he was a fisherman from Egypt, you should not question his faith – just maybe his sanity.)

We can know a few things from the text of scripture itself. The author is the same as the author of Acts, and it was written for Theophilus. We will talk about that name when we reach it in the text. The text of acts includes some first person accounts so our author either used a first person account as a source text or the author was a companion of Paul. The author was not an eyewitness to the events of the gospel but rather was a researcher and a historian who gathered sources and interviewed witnesses to prepare this text. Many scholars are convinced that the author had access to the Gospel of Mark among other sources when the gospel was written.

Nevertheless, I feel no hesitation calling this the gospel of Luke. The tradition of Lukan authorship is very early and is affirmed by both orthodox and heretic teachers. It is hard for me to imagine that this authorship idea could have been concocted with such universal acceptance within only a generation or two after the composition of the book unless it were true. In addition, Luke was a companion of Paul and so the shift into the first person for some sections of Acts would be readily understandable if the tradition is correct.

Consequently, although I will not make it an article of faith, I am quite confident to call Luke the author of this book and when appropriate to make use of what we know about his background and his ministry context to help us understand this gospel better.

If you have got questions or want to put forward your argument for Fred the fisherman from Egypt, let me know.

-Ethan

Welcome to Blogging Through Luke. I hope that you will join me as we study and post my way through the Gospel of Luke. In May I will be figuring out how this blog things works and posting some background to the Gospel of Luke. The study of the gospel will begin in June.

Welcome to the ride.

-Ethan