The Shape of the Gospel of Luke
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
One Response to 'The Shape of the Gospel of Luke'
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on May 31st, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Given how central “death” (crucifixion and dsicipleship as call to die to self) is to the Gospel of Luke (and Mark) AND how central it is to the rest of the NT (Paul in 1 Cor 15 or Rom 6 or Philippians 3 or …) what does that say about the centrality of “death” in our speech and action?