September 8, 2024
Luke 1:1-7
“Luke: Mastering the Essentials”
Let’s pick up where we left off last week:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”
Luke 1:1-4
What does Luke mean by compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us?
The narrative of the things that have been accomplished refers specifically
to the story of God saving sinners. Luke is not writing a travelogue or a biography or an adventure story. Luke is not writing about the insight of a great ethics teacher. He’s not telling the story of good guy who was an example of humility and selflessness. It’s not a roadmap for Social Justice Warriors. No, it’s none of those things. Here’s the first thing you might want to write down:
LUKE IS WRITING A HISTORY OF SALVATION.
Some have called it redemptive history. Remember what we’ve already talked about. The Bible teaches that your name has been written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. That means all of history has been moving from Creation to the birth, life, death, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ. That’s is the trajectory of the story of redemption. That’s what Luke is writing about.
Here's what Luke sets before us from the beginning:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative.”
“Many have undertaken” can also be translated, “Set their hands.” The
difficult task at hand was explaining the trajectory of the story of our
salvation. Where do you start? What do you include? No easy task. Some
wrote things down before Luke arranged the events sequentially. But remember, we’re not primarily talking about reporting an historical flow of events, from “A” leading to “B” which leads to “C” and so on. “I got up in the morning…had breakfast…brushed my teeth,” that’s a type of historical narrative of my day. The events Luke reports on are not simply everyday occurrences. They are matters that concern salvation history. They are of the highest import.
All that matters to Luke is the trajectory. Telling the story of salvation is of utmost importance. Giving us his backstory means nothing to Luke. Did you catch his first appearance here in the Gospel? It comes in verse three… “it seemed good to me also.” That’s all we know. Luke comes out of obscurity to present the greatest story ever told.
“It seemed good to him also,” he says. In other words, others had already written down their experiences with Jesus and their understanding of what that meant. There were also well-remembered eyewitness accounts being shared through a well-developed oral tradition. The apostles were the
primary sources of these accounts. But there were others as well. Listen to
Luke 8:1-3:
“Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”
They were with Jesus. They saw, heard, and remembered. Also, there’s this from 23:55-24:10:
“The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.’ And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.”
Again, these women were witnesses to the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. They saw, heard, and remembered.
So you had all these people, with all these experiences, meeting together and worshiping together and remembering together.
Luke wasn’t one of them. He never had an in-person relationship or
encounter with Jesus. What Luke had was a curious intellect, a mind for
detail, and healthy relationship skills.
As we saw last week, in Colossians, Paul talked about his fellow traveler, Luke. They worked together. Luke was loyal and reliable. He was skilled in language arts. These first four verses of chapter one are written in what would be considered academic Greek. Beginning with verse five, the rest of the Gospel is written in a more common, colloquial form of the Greek language.
Luke listened, he observed, and then he wrote down the trajectory of the salvation history that gripped his heart. Which begs the question…to whom did Luke write? Who was the first recipient of this story?
In both Luke and Acts, originally meant to be two volumes from Luke, both are dedicated to Theophilus. The name means, literally, “Lover of God.” Some have speculated that Luke and Acts were written to a generic audience seeking to know more about God.
I don’t think that’s the case. Two things have been pointed out by Biblical
scholars.
First, Theophilus was a real name found in all sorts of secular records and writings. Granted, not a common name today, but back in the day, there was more than one. Many more than one.
Second, Luke refers to him as “most excellent Theophilus.” Luke clearly holds him in high regard. Theophilus was a known quantity, a man of culture and distinction.
You put those two together, and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Theophilus was a believer who provided the funds to print and distribute Luke-Acts. It is a beautiful thing.
Here’s another beautiful thing. We know that Theophilus was known to Luke. We know that Theophilus heard the Gospel and believed. We also know that Luke heard the Gospel and believed. Here’s the beautiful thing. What happened to bring the Gospel to different parts of the Middle East and beyond? How did the Gospel spread beyond Jerusalem?
Here's Acts 8:1-8:
“And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.”
Do you hear it? Nothing can stop the trajectory of God’s salvation history. The first church was horribly persecuted. The chief persecutor was Saul. He was smart and educated and opposed to the Gospel with every fiber of his being. People died. Lives were uprooted. Prisons were filled. Saul was a
vile, angry man who hated Christians. At one point in Acts, we’re told that
he breathed threats and murder against the church.
The condensed ending to Saul is that, in an encounter with the Risen Christ, he became who we know as Paul. Luke stuck with Paul through thick-and-thin. While Luke was not an eyewitness, he heard Paul’s story. And all the horrible stuff the church suffered at the hands of Saul brought much joy because it meant as people were scattered, the Gospel spread. And one of the beneficiaries was Luke. Another was Theophilus. The trajectory of the story of salvation could not be stopped.
Here's something else you might want to write down:
HISTORY HAS A PURPOSE AND IS MOVING SOMEWHERE.
While Luke does not claim to be an eyewitness, he takes in as much knowledge and information as he can. And then he gives a true report of God acting in history. That’s the big picture we’ll keep in mind as we read through Luke’s Gospel. What he reports is fully trustworthy and reliable. I am not preaching this series to convince you something is true. I preach this series because it is true. It is the true history of our salvation from sin
and death through Jesus Christ.
Think about it this way. How many times, when asking about or thinking about an historical figure, do we say, “Who was Abraham Lincoln? Who was Cleopatra?”
But what of our Savior? In the present tense, we ask, “Who is Jesus?” Unlike Lincoln or Cleopatra, Jesus Christ still influences and commands his subjects.
One last thought.
Theophilus was a Gentile. Luke was a Gentile. As we’ll see, Luke made it clear that salvation was for everyone. The trajectory of the Gospel…the history of salvation…extended to everyone everywhere. Jew and Gentile alike. And the way Luke makes that clear is he incorporates the universal nature of salvation throughout his Gospel. And God’s plan for the salvation of the world is expressly revealed through the cross. Which is something Luke spends a lot of time on. In fact, ten chapters…from chapter nine, verse fifty-one, all the way in to chapter nineteen, Jesus is going to the cross. As 9:51 states, Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. Ten chapters is
all about the cross…the cross…the cross.
The cross. That’s where God fulfilled His plan of redemption. Jesus moved relentlessly to the cross because that was where the history of salvation was fulfilled. Remember the trajectory of God’s plan of salvation. Nothing could punctuate that more than ten chapters devoted to Jesus moving toward the cross. All is moving toward God’s plan of salvation for the world.
Luke kicks off that journey with verses five through seven:
“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child,
because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.”
We’ll end here. Until next week:
SOLI DEO GLORIA…
To the Glory of God Alone