Introducing the 2nd Half of Luke

Transcript

00:00:00:32 – 00:00:27:07
Clint Loveall
Welcome back, friends. Glad you’re joining us with your life. We’re thankful. If you’re seeing this later, we’re grateful for your participation as we continue through the gospel of Luke. And it’s been a hiatus. We’ve been off for a while, took the summer off. So we find ourselves in Canada in early, middle part of Luke the 10th chapter. That’s where we will be jumping back in.

00:00:27:12 – 00:00:55:16
Clint Loveall
But before we get there, just maybe an overview, kind of a refresher course on the gospel. You’ll remember that there are four gospels in Christian New Testament. Three of them are relatively similar. The Book of John is distinctly different from the other three. So Matthew, Mark and Luke we call the Synoptic Gospels. And though they tell kind of the same basic story, they don’t tell it in the same way.

00:00:55:21 – 00:01:37:22
Clint Loveall
Matthew has distinctive asked us, Mark and Luke, And so maybe we’ll just kind of give a little reminder here of some of the tone of the Gospel of Luke, some of Luke’s writing style. It all this has been covered before, so hope it’s a little bit of a refresher. But before we get back into the gospel, we kind of want to reestablish a feel for it and one of the things, Michael, I think that we tried to make clear and we will continue to try to point out, is that really among the gospel writers, Luke is I think it would be fair to say by far the has the best command of the Greek language,

00:01:37:26 – 00:02:08:53
Clint Loveall
the the Greek writing style. This is classically written. The grammar is is very advanced. Luke is without a doubt an educated person who has familiarity with writing. I mean, he this is a well written document. And I don’t just mean in terms of Luke’s a great storyteller or anything like that. I mean, I mean, this is this is academically speaking, this is excellent work with the language.

00:02:08:58 – 00:02:35:43
Michael Gewecke
And historically, the church has understood this to be a well-researched gospel and I think that that does shine through not just in the church tradition, but I think within the text itself, you have these notes of things that the other gospel writers just don’t include, like, especially when you’re looking at medical conditions. Luke will often add a little bit of fleshed out detail as to maybe what a symptom is or exactly what a person says or does after they’re healed.

00:02:35:43 – 00:03:00:30
Michael Gewecke
There’s just an a character to the writing of Luke that not only in its grammar and form, as you say, Clint, but even more than that, some of the content included that does hearken back to a very educated, thoughtful, engaged person, and that is an interesting thing to know. And we do see that pop up occasionally in the book, but I think it’s more than just one of those interesting things to note.

00:03:00:30 – 00:03:25:36
Michael Gewecke
It’s actually a helpful reminder to us as we read this book that the details included here are not haphazard. They’re not included on accident. It’s not a thing that just kind of came together on the back of a napkin. This has been a carefully considered, carefully constructed narrative, and that was important in all of the sections that we studied up through Chapter nine.

00:03:25:40 – 00:03:45:27
Michael Gewecke
There was certainly order put together in the birth of Jesus in the telling of John the Baptist and the first miracles and healings. Some of those early stories we had, Clint, where Jesus is going around and teaching and in Gentile areas and some of those conflicts. We saw some of those details coming together, but it’s going to remain important.

00:03:45:27 – 00:04:18:49
Michael Gewecke
In fact, you might be able to make the argument it will be more important coming up as we go throughout the remainder of this book, because some of the ways that Luke has constructed this narrative are carefully made to lead us to the cross. And what that means. And Luke, with the kind of expertise brought to bear, it’s going to be become bent upon us to pay attention to the details, to zone in, to be careful in our reading, because if we do that, we’re going to discover a great deal of richness we would miss if we just breezed through it.

00:04:18:53 – 00:04:41:45
Clint Loveall
I think there’s a sense in which we could also talk about Luke, particularly among, you know, Matthew, Mark and Luke, what we call the Synoptic Gospels as the most universal. And what I mean by that is Luke is the most interested in stories outside of Judaism. Matthew doesn’t spend much time there. Mark for different reasons, doesn’t include a lot of that.

00:04:41:45 – 00:05:10:39
Clint Loveall
Partly that’s just the brevity of Mark. Mark is the shortest and the simplest gospel, or at least in writing style. But Luke is very interested in those places where Jesus mission as the Jewish Messiah overlaps into the broader world of the Gentiles. And we know that the person. Just another reminder. We know the person who wrote Luke also wrote the Book of Acts that’s really not contested at all, that that’s essentially a fact.

00:05:10:44 – 00:05:38:58
Clint Loveall
And given that it’s not surprising, the Book of Acts is all about the expansion of the church into the Gentile world. And so we see remnants of that. We see previews of that really in this gospel. Whenever there’s a story that can be told about a Gentile person encountering Jesus. Luke is very interested in that, and we get the most of that in the Gospel of Luke.

00:05:38:58 – 00:06:18:28
Clint Loveall
And I think Michael, that really that gives Luke a very interesting flavor. And in some ways maybe that makes Luke among the more readable gospels, or I guess what I would say is the easiest to access because that broader story doesn’t bring up the questions, say a matthew where Jesus seems disinterested. Luke presents a Jesus of a picture of Jesus, which we’re probably more comfortable with because it includes that broader calling, that broader context that we see in the Book of Acts.

00:06:18:42 – 00:06:56:01
Michael Gewecke
Now, that’s an interesting way to phrase it, and I’m interested to see if you push back against this. I would only add to that, Clint, that there’s also a way in which we might miss from our time in perspective, the challenge of the Book of Luke. Because if you put Luke in conversation with acts, as you mentioned, what we discover is that Luke is telling us how the gospel starts from a deeply Jewish context and how it is ultimately God’s intention and plan for that to be relevant and available and accessible to the Gentile world.

00:06:56:02 – 00:07:26:07
Michael Gewecke
This is a scandal within Judaism and a book like Matthew is very interested in telling us the Jewishness of Jesus, how Jesus Jesus fulfills all of the prophets and prophecies of the Old Testament. But here, Luke, by interweaving the stories of the the Gentile centurion, the gentile woman, the Gentile healing, all of these are stories in which Luke is leading us to the point where we have Peter’s vision.

00:07:26:07 – 00:07:52:38
Michael Gewecke
And then ultimately Paul’s ministry enacts where the church itself becomes open to the entire Gentile world, that the witness goes from Jerusalem out, as we see in the Book of Acts, will Luke is showing us how Jesus’s life is itself a portrayal of God’s intention to get there, and that is to offer first century Jew reading this, an educated person.

00:07:52:39 – 00:08:16:22
Michael Gewecke
This is an incredibly challenging account of Jesus. It requires an openness to understand how Jesus’s Lordship is bigger than the Messiah had ever thought to be by the people of Israel or the people of Israel thought that the Messiah would be. And and here Luke makes it clear that this was constructed this way from the very beginning. And and there is a scandal to that.

00:08:16:37 – 00:08:35:51
Michael Gewecke
There’s a point in that. And we’ve grown up with this idea that the church is open to all that, that this is God’s intention. But Luke is one of the gospel writers writing intentionally to make that possible, that we understand that that was part of Jesus’s plan from the beginning. And it is distinctive in that.

00:08:35:56 – 00:08:58:21
Clint Loveall
And we’ll see that fairly early just here in the 10th chapter when we get back into the text beginning either tomorrow or Thursday. You know, Luke is the one and only gospel that gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan. And those aren’t those aren’t words good and Samaritan aren’t words that the Jewish context would have been particularly comfortable with occupying the same space.

00:08:58:21 – 00:09:29:40
Clint Loveall
And so in Luke, you often have a character that does the right thing, that is a non-Jewish person, and that that’s a challenge for some of Luke’s readers. I also think maybe, Michael, that connects to a broader theme. We see it expressed in the the idea of the Gentile, but there is a maybe a bigger sense in which Luke just has a heart for the outsider, whether that’s the poor, whether that’s a female person, or whether it’s a non-Jewish person.

00:09:29:45 – 00:10:01:36
Clint Loveall
Luke really has an interest in the ways in which the Gospel touches the lives of people who are broken, who are hurting, who are socially outcast, those who struggle in the world, particularly the poor. Conversely, Luke has a deep challenge for those who are wealthy, who are healthy, who, you know, go through life without too much strain and struggle.

00:10:01:40 – 00:10:29:28
Clint Loveall
But Luke loves the underdog. Luke loves the kind of left out and story after story, particularly in this back half of the gospel. We’re going to see that expressed. We’ve already seen some of it, but I think it will be on pretty clear display when when you get that kind of story about, you know, woe to a rich person and lift up a poor person, you almost always know you’re in Luke.

00:10:29:33 – 00:10:51:32
Michael Gewecke
Clint, a just a summary of things we’ve seen so that we’re all on the same page. We’ve had the miracle where two women are healed. You might remember the older woman with the issue of blood and then the younger woman who Jesus raises from the dead. We’ve had the transfiguration where Jesus is up on the mountain and, you know, joined in either side by great prophets.

00:10:51:32 – 00:11:23:26
Michael Gewecke
We’ve had great statements of faith by the likes of Peter. We’ve had demons cast out of young and old. We’ve had the feeding of the 5000 at the point. We’re going to begin again next study. We’ve already seen the Lordship of Jesus on display. The point I want to make is for Luke. Up to this point, Jesus has already demonstrated the power, the wisdom and discernment, the what we might read in theological words called the omniscience, the all knowingness of God incarnate.

00:11:23:31 – 00:11:57:56
Michael Gewecke
Luke is not trying to build up a case of Jesus’s Lordship at the very end of the book that’s already been made clear. We heard that in The Voice. Actually of the two prophets in the temple who saw Jesus right after he was born. I mean, from the get go of this book, Luke has made it clear that Jesus Christ is the son of God who’s taken on flesh, who’s come to do the work of salvation amongst the people, so that this book is not setting out to build a case for Jesus step by step, so that when we get to the end, we can finally see it.

00:11:58:01 – 00:12:27:46
Michael Gewecke
That case has already been made. We’ve already been given the evidence. What Luke is doing here is giving us the full account, a well-researched account. He wants us to know everything that we would need to know in order to be people of faith. And I think that’s what makes this book so helpful. We said this at the beginning of the study all the way back at the beginning of the year, that this is the book we have our confirmation students read, but their mentor, the reason for that is this book is so well-written.

00:12:27:46 – 00:12:54:45
Michael Gewecke
It’s so concise in its way of telling Jesus’s story that it remains today, I think, an essential primer in who is Jesus and why does that matter? And I think going through it slowly like we have, it helps us to see that Jesus is multi layered. He is a deeply nuanced character in this book, and Luke has included all of these not on accident, not by happenstance.

00:12:54:45 – 00:13:10:39
Michael Gewecke
It’s not like a patchwork quilt that just sort of got put together with all the remnants. Now Luke has carefully researched and carefully compiled these so that we get the full picture of Jesus that we need to be faithful Christians to be followers of Jesus.

00:13:10:44 – 00:13:49:28
Clint Loveall
Yeah, And I want to be I want to be careful. I want to be careful with this language, Michael. But I think there is a sense, perhaps in the broader context where we could talk about Luke as as the most applicable gospel. In other words, all of the gospels share the twofold picture of Jesus challenging people to live a certain way, and then the deeper spiritual, more mystical stuff.

00:13:49:33 – 00:14:21:11
Clint Loveall
Luke Certainly more than Matthew and John downplays some of the apocalyptic language, the heavenly language. I mean, Luke has some of that, and I don’t I’d certainly don’t mean to say that Luke doesn’t have a vision of the cosmic Jesus. He does. But as you read Luke, you’re going to be challenged again and again and again for your earthly life.

00:14:21:16 – 00:14:48:16
Clint Loveall
How do you treat others? How do you spend money? How do you deal with people who are angry or who have wronged you? And again, that’s in all the gospels. But as a matter of concentration, I almost think I would say that Luke gives us more of that. On the percentage, I think if you read the Gospel of John, you have these esoteric moments.

00:14:48:16 – 00:15:16:10
Clint Loveall
You have this cosmic Jesus who knows things, and he’s talking about angels coming and going, and Luke gives you a little of that. But what you get a lot of in Luke is just the challenging following Jesus day to day and what that demands of you and what that asks of you. And in some ways I think that does make Luke almost the most devotional of the gospels.

00:15:16:21 – 00:15:32:42
Clint Loveall
I want to be careful here because I’m not trying to segment the Gospels more than they they deserve, but I just think there’s a lot of that in Luke. Luke is a very practical presentation of who Jesus is. If if there is such a thing.

00:15:32:54 – 00:16:12:43
Michael Gewecke
Jesus in a book like Matthew is going to make us the reader uncomfortable because of some of the sharp language that he uses against the Pharisees and Sadducees. And some of the parables are just very sharp in terms of the who’s in and who’s out. Mark is uncomfortable because of all of the question marks and all of the short abbreviated stories and the the the gaps that Mark leaves on purpose and the story that forces us, the reader, into some of those questionable dark areas of our life experience.

00:16:12:43 – 00:16:38:33
Michael Gewecke
And then John is just like the gospel fireworks show. I mean, it is it is huge, it is bombastic, and Jesus is incredible and beyond really even beyond complete imagination because of his power, because of his awareness. What Luke is going to do to challenge us is in some ways to connect with us in the deepest normal human aspect of our lives.

00:16:38:33 – 00:17:03:18
Michael Gewecke
To say, you know, those people in your life who are isolated, you know, the ones who are looked over, you know, the ones who continue to have found themselves a poor or put down or or segmented and shunned. Those are the people Jesus says I’m here for. Those are the people I’ve come to save. And in many ways, it is the daily living of our life where our faith is lived out.

00:17:03:18 – 00:17:30:40
Michael Gewecke
And that makes this book an incredible invitation for us to ask and consider. What does Jesus actually call me to do today? Who is it that Jesus calls for me to be the hands and feet of Jesus for? And, you know, if you read the Book of John, it’s easy to get caught up in to sort of feel logical musings and to say, well, what about this or this or this?

00:17:30:45 – 00:17:56:16
Michael Gewecke
It would be very hard, I think, to read the Book of Luke and to turn it into a theology one or one class. It’s ultimately demanding that we see that Jesus is active. He’s working in the lives of those who need it most. And so therefore, as his followers, we too are called to be those open and available, hands outstretched to to be doing the very ministry that Jesus came and now calls us to do.

00:17:56:16 – 00:18:16:04
Michael Gewecke
And maybe that’s a good kind of part to opening as we turn our attention to the text that’s going to come is if you’re committing to join us for the remainder of this book. It isn’t just for the sake of head knowledge, it’s for the sake of heart transformation, it’s for the sake of. So then how will we live?

00:18:16:04 – 00:18:33:38
Michael Gewecke
And I think that’s the question that hangs over Luke and ultimately whether this book forms us, it will all rise or fall on the amount of our behavior that it impacts. And Luke intends for it to change not only what we think and say, but also what we do.

00:18:33:43 – 00:19:06:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and Luke is strong on that. You will encounter some of the scariest and harshest words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke. I mean, there are some there’s some language that we will see as these chapters unfold that is very uncomfortable. Some words from Jesus mouth that are that are harsh, hard things to understand. And some of that is simply Luke’s passion and the seriousness with which he takes the call to follow the gospel.

00:19:06:14 – 00:19:27:33
Clint Loveall
And so Luke is a wonderful kind of mixture of that. On one hand, amazingly practical, on the other hand disturbing at times. And I will try to make a case that those two things are better partners than they might seem as we go through the book.

00:19:27:37 – 00:19:50:42
Michael Gewecke
All right. So just a few closing words. We’re excited to begin once again, if you would like to have up to date information about the study. If for some reason our schedule changes last minute or we maybe get caught up in technical difficulties and you would like to get information about that, would you just go ahead and go to the comments or wherever you’re watching this video and drop in?

00:19:50:42 – 00:20:21:00
Michael Gewecke
I’d like to be put on the call list. Don’t put your number there. Just say you’d like to be on the list and we will add you to it. And if we don’t have, your number will reach out to you. And also, I just make note that this is a great moment for you to grab your Bible. It’s a great moment for you to sort of get your spot so that because every time we go through this together, it’s an invitation for you to dig into your own Bible and in that encounter are to be able to not only see who Jesus was, but who he still is in his life in you.

00:20:21:01 – 00:20:42:56
Clint Loveall
So the last thing I’d add, Michaels, if you happen to be finding this study late, maybe you didn’t go through the first part of Luke with us. That’s all available. Look back through our our videos. Wherever you’re finding this, you go back to YouTube or even our website and you could catch up. And if that would be helpful, just know that that’s out there.

00:20:43:01 – 00:20:49:46
Michael Gewecke
Thanks so much for being with us. Friends. We can’t wait to keep on this journey with you as we restart again this week. Thanks.