besquared.org Blog

Today’s Text

I love the way Luke’s gospel begins. As we will see, there is long introduction before Jesus arrives. But even before the narrative introduction we have this preface of sorts where Luke speaks directly to the reader and answers two very important questions. He tells us why he wrote and how he wrote.

There isn’t much we can know about this character. There are two basic possibilities. They are pretty different. He could be a person – a noble most likely because the term “most excellent” was a specific honorific for a particular noble class. [A less lazy blogger would go look up the specific class.]

If this is the case, then he is certainly a Christian and probably the person who is sponsoring the publication of this book. It would be an expensive project to write and distribute a book of this length. Scribes would be needed and piles of paper. It was common in those days for a noble to fund the publication of an important work and be honored in an opening dedication. [This explains the hilarious pun - "a word from our sponsor."]
A second possibility is that this is an attempt to generically personalize the book. Theophilus means “lover of God” and could be a generic term for any Christian. In either case the first audience for this book was Christians and that will have signifigant implications for the stories Luke chooses and the whole feel of the gospel. I find myself favoring the first possibility these days, but I forget why. If you are passionate about this issue, we can schedule a cage match.

Now on to our main points.

Why did Luke write this book?

Well, In verse 4 he tells us, “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” In the Message this reads, “so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.” Wouldn’t it be cool it Luke actually said that? Of course he didn’t. That is an entirely unreasonable standard of belief. Luke actually said, “That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.” Which is obviously easier to read in modern English, and these all mean basically the same thing.

Luke wrote to give a confidence boost. He knew that it was easy to forget that our faith was grounded in history – in events that really happened. So he decided to do the reasearch and checks his facts so that we could be confident in the stories we had been told. (Kinda like the Lee Stroble of the early church.) I find this very comforting. Luke recognized that the stories of Christ are remarkable. (In any other context we might even call them “unbelievable.”) Therefore it is important that an extra measure of care is taken to validate these dramatic claims. It is to provide this assurance that Luke writes. This reason for writing is intimately connect to how Luke wrote.

How did Luke write this book?

Luke acknowledges that he is an investigator. He is not an eyewitness. These are not his memories. He is a second generation Christian, and so like us he has to take someone’s word for it. And he is no fool, so when asked to believe such dramatic tales, he investigates. He describes three sources: Other writings, eyewitnesses and stewards of the word.

We can’t know eactly what other writings Luke knew. It is commonly thought by most scholars that Luke knew Mark and by a growing minority that Luke knew Matthew. Others suppose that both Matthew and Luke had access to a non-narrative “sayings source.” I think that these suggestions are all likely. It is expecially likely that Luke knew Mark. In every case however I think that we should be careful to draw conclusions from such speculation.

Luke’s second category is eyewitnesses. If Luke was writing in the Late sixties or the seventies – something like 30 to 40 years after Jesus death – then eyewitness would have still been available but they would be rare. I think that it is safe to say that this is a big part of why the gospels were written at this time. The people who saw it happen were dying. So Luke writes at an important time. In twenty years there will be no eyewitnesses to consult.

Luke’s third category is the stewards of the word. This reminds us that in an oral culture stories mattered and communities treasured and kept their important stories. The transmission fo story was not a great game of telephone. The word steward speaks to their great care for the word. These stewards would have told stories in community and the consistent retelling in front of a consistent audience would have kept the stories sound. (NT Wright has some great stuff to say about this that I will scan in later.) So Luke can visit these communities, and hear these stories 20( for Acts) to 40 (for the Gospels) years after the fact.

That’s why and how, but who cares?

Understanding how Luke wrote is very important to me. I worry about Christians who imagine that Luke and the other scripture writers went into a room, prayed for inspiration and wrote down their book. Instead I hope that we picture Luke waking up and praying, “Lord, help me find the right people to talk to today.” And then getting up and visiting the old folks in the churches or the grumpy old men sitting outside a Nazareth barber shop and asking them. What happened, What was it like?

I picture Luke going through his texts and organizing the stories, and going to the aging Christians in Jerusalem, and asking, “Do you remember when Jesus told this story?” They might respond, “Oh he told that one a lot. I heard it for the first time here.”

The details of this picture aren’t important. What is important is that we recognize that these memories are not the product of one man in a closet with God, and when this book was published, Luke could honestly say, “Dont’ take my word for it, go meet these people and check for yourself.” That makes a ton of difference.

So my hope is that you will experience Luke not as a mystical moral tale, but as a life changing piece of investigative journalism. Luke has gathered the evidence, not merely to write a good story, or to secure his place in history, but for this purpose, “that you may be certain of that which you have been told.”

Amen.

-Ethan