In this study, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the Gospel of Luke’s significance for the church. They focus on five key themes: Luke’s emphasis on outsiders, his precise storytelling, the concept of the upside-down kingdom, Luke’s unique perspective on the Passion Narrative, and his warning against self-righteousness. Each theme is explored in depth, offering fresh insights into Luke’s perspective on Jesus’ teachings.
Subscribe to our channel for more insightful discussions on biblical texts and Christian teachings.
Thank you for joining us, we sincerely help that this study encourages you in your understanding of the Bible. Please be sure to share this with anyone who you think might be interested in joining us. If you want to subscribe for future episodes, go to our website pastortalk.co.
Pastor Talk Quick Links:
- Learn more about the Pastor Talk series and view our previous studies at https://pastortalk.co
- Subscribe to get the Pastor Talk episodes via podcast, email and much more! https://pastortalk.co#subscribe
- Questions or ideas? Connect with us! https://pastortalk.co#connect
- Interested in joining us for worship on Sunday at 8:50
Transcript
00:00:00:09 – 00:00:28:43
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. As we spend a couple of days reflecting now that we’ve been through the Gospel of Luke, the text, and I think at this point really word for word, if you’ve hung in there with us, we’re grateful for that. And as we come to the end, we thought it might be helpful rather than to just walk away, to spend a little time reflecting on what Luke said to us this time through and what we see in it, what Luke offers the church.
00:00:28:48 – 00:01:01:21
Clint Loveall
As you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four Gospels each bring their own set of their own set of important points, their own tendencies, their own flare. We’ve said from the beginning that part of Luke’s drive in this not only is Luke an exceptional writer. Not only does Luke have very great command over the Greek language is a good storyteller, is a great author.
00:01:01:26 – 00:01:31:10
Clint Loveall
Luke cares about the outsider. Luke is going to write acts and is moved by the idea of the gospel going out to Gentiles. Lots of snapshots of that, foreshadowing that in this the place of women, the place and passion for the poor and ministry to the poor. It’s interesting, Michael, I would say, particularly in Matthew, maybe also in Mark.
00:01:31:12 – 00:02:02:51
Clint Loveall
John’s a little bit more all over the place. But Luke is to me the most obvious example of having some agenda points. And I know that agenda is often a negative word in our day and time. I don’t mean it in that sense at all. I mean, not only does Luke endeavor to tell the Jesus story, as do Matthew and Mark, but Luke couples that with some of his theological convictions, as do they.
00:02:02:51 – 00:02:28:43
Clint Loveall
But there’s are more, I think spiritual in nature. Luke tends to be a little bit more earthy, and I think that I’ve noticed, again, as we’ve gone through this, just how much Luke cares about what will be the church’s ministry to those on the outside, those who are left out, those who are knocked down, and how much the Jesus portrayed by Luke cares about those things as well.
00:02:28:44 – 00:02:35:28
Clint Loveall
And Luke does a beautiful job, I think, of highlighting his passion as he tells the story.
00:02:35:33 – 00:03:10:03
Michael Gewecke
I think you’re absolutely right, Clint. I think the part of Luke in this reading that did stick out to me as it connects to that is not just the people that he includes in his vision of of Jesus’s proclamation, of who this kingdom is being proclaimed to and what it means for them. All of that is here. I think I would actually point us, you know, at the risk of going back all the way to the beginning here, but chapter one, verse one, I think two things that I want to lift out is actually moving here to verse three.
00:03:10:08 – 00:03:49:48
Michael Gewecke
The orderly account shines through in this book. I think the thing that struck me in this reading, just to be honest with you, is the fact that Luke says so much with so little word count. He is so precise in the telling of these stories. We said numerous times throughout this study about look at how much Luke has gotten out of a short section or a short teaching or short of a sort of movement within the text when when Luke sets out to give that orderly account.
00:03:49:53 – 00:04:21:38
Michael Gewecke
I think that you can really see how Luke carefully and thoughtfully compiled not just the stories in their order, but the wording of how that story is told, what exact images to use in that story. Luke was exacting in the attempt to make an orderly account. I think if you read closely, you can see that order woven through and I really I respect that because a book that you might put this in opposition to, but a book that’s different in that way is Mark.
00:04:21:43 – 00:04:48:07
Michael Gewecke
Mark is also it’s just sharp. It’s got these little sort of staccato movements to it. It also is not a worthy book. It’s it’s economical, it’s short as a gospel goes. But there’s something in the tone and tenor of Luke that strikes me in how it’s been woven together with a kind of intentionality to to serve the point and I’m sorry, a monologue a little longer than I intended there.
00:04:48:21 – 00:05:11:35
Michael Gewecke
The point is in verse four, so that you may know the truth concerning the things I’ve been instructed, There’s clearly a point that Luke is not writing words because he found them. He didn’t dredge up a couple of books and then smash them together. No, this is clearly Luke wanting the believer to know a full account of the truth.
00:05:11:40 – 00:05:33:11
Michael Gewecke
Everything that the believer needs to know. And then for that to be done in a way that is structured, that it follows, it coheres and obviously it has stood the test of time. The church saw in this book what Luke attempted to do, and we talked about how it’s inspired to do that work and it’s incredible in that way.
00:05:33:16 – 00:05:54:49
Clint Loveall
If you don’t know, if you don’t know, particularly the Gospel of Matthew, well, you might not notice this in Luke because it would be you would have to notice it in its absence. I’ve been reminded as we’ve gone through this how much less and forgive this is loose language, but how much less Jewish.
00:05:54:54 – 00:05:55:23
Michael Gewecke
Yeah.
00:05:55:28 – 00:06:23:58
Clint Loveall
Emphasis is placed, you know, in Matthew, there’s all the fulfilled prophecies and in it all has to do with Jesus as Jewish Messiah. Because Luke has a broader perspective and because Luke sees Jesus not only as the Messiah of the Jewish people, but as the deliverer of the Gentiles. That stuff is largely written out of Luke. I mean, it’s it’s certainly in there.
00:06:24:03 – 00:06:48:01
Clint Loveall
But but by and large, it’s not one of Luke’s emphasis. And so it’s interesting. I’ve been wrestling with the question is Luke the gospel? You start with if someone comes to me and says, I’ve never read a gospel, which one should I read first? I there would be some real upsides to say, Luke, because you’re going to get bogged down in some of the cultural, religious stuff of the first century.
00:06:48:01 – 00:07:25:48
Clint Loveall
Less in Luke. Luke has a plainer storytelling style. As you said, Mark is short, Mark is simple, but Mark is messy. And that’s not a that’s not a that that’s not an insult against the way Mark is written. It’s just Mark isn’t concerned with wrapping things up in the way that Luke is. His style is very different. The one exception and and I was if I’ve known this I mean I feel like I hope I’ve known it, but I think maybe I had forgotten it, or at least it struck me again.
00:07:25:48 – 00:07:52:19
Clint Loveall
This time through. I think I had forgotten that in the places where Jesus says harsh things, I have subconsciously known the Matthew version of the passages. So there were there were several moments in this where I thought, Luke is right. Luke is harsher in the, you know, bring that servant to me and have him cut in pieces.
00:07:52:19 – 00:08:22:14
Clint Loveall
What before me. And some of those some of those are in parables, some of those are in the woes that are given the business about hope. You’re not pregnant when the day comes because people are. There’s a heaviness to Luke that I think I have now I’ve been less aware of, because in those passages I think I’ve leaned on other gospels and not on the harsh version, and I forgot some of that was in Luke, to be perfectly honest.
00:08:22:19 – 00:08:26:30
Clint Loveall
So I was surprised to be reminded of that.
00:08:26:34 – 00:08:55:42
Michael Gewecke
Some of the individuals too, who make appearances or if not appearances, they’re given a certain amount of emphasis in the text have struck me You’re not going to find anything akin to like Mary’s song. In the other gospels, there’s a kind of highlighting of that or Joseph of Arimathea or that, though there’s not a lot told about that or those on the road to a mass.
00:08:55:42 – 00:09:23:21
Michael Gewecke
Those are sort of towards the end of the book. But you have sprinkled throughout these characters who Luke wants to introduce us to and wants us to know, because in many ways they speak to the Gentile church that is going to receive this letter. They’re going to both give a kind of personal connection within Jesus’s story teaching that it’s going to exemplify where they fit within the Kingdom of God.
00:09:23:25 – 00:09:48:07
Michael Gewecke
But I think it’s even deeper than that. I think that ultimately Luke, his vision is that in God’s economy, all of this time is is bound together. That in other words, there’s nothing that Jesus does for either the Jew or the Gentile or Jesus does prior to his birth, throughout the prophecies of the prophets all the way through his death and resurrection and beyond.
00:09:48:07 – 00:10:10:01
Michael Gewecke
Of course, we’re going to see that in the Book of Acts. When you see Luke part two, essentially you’re going to see how in the midst of all of this time, God’s redemptive power is at work. And it’s it’s happening in unsuspected places. It’s happening in unsuspecting people. The the kind of reversals that happen over and over again.
00:10:10:01 – 00:10:40:26
Michael Gewecke
Jesus keeps coming back to this idea of the upside down kingdom. And I think Luke, in the way that he tells it, if you’re going to look for the pros of it being one of the first gospels a person would read, I think you could say whenever Luke discusses something that is by its nature, religious in the sense of being Jewish, looking backward before Jesus, Luke generally takes a lot of care to define those terms or to explain exactly what the religious observance is for all those kinds of things.
00:10:40:26 – 00:11:10:03
Michael Gewecke
There’s a kind of awareness and accommodation to the fact that this text is going to be read by people who may not have a significant amount of knowledge or experience with the Old Testament and the practices of the Jewish religion. And I think that that that makes Luke not entirely unique. Other gospels also do some of that work, but it makes it accommodate and it recognizes its place in in sort of the timeline of salvation.
00:11:10:03 – 00:11:14:42
Michael Gewecke
And I think that that makes it a really interesting gospel in its own right.
00:11:14:47 – 00:11:41:36
Clint Loveall
It could be because this is the material that’s fresh in mind as we’ve just gotten through the end of the book. But there were two things that struck me about Luke’s version of the passion narrative, or what we call the cross and the narrative of the cross. The first and this is generally true, I think, in the Book of Luke, I think it’s I you push back.
00:11:41:36 – 00:12:08:45
Clint Loveall
Michael I think it’s more observable in Luke. Jesus never really gets sideways with the crowd right in, in Luke in the other gospels, there are moments that the crowds, particularly in the in the late narrative, when Jesus is on the cross or near the cross going to the cross, the crowd turns on him. We don’t really see that there is a positive relationship.
00:12:08:45 – 00:12:37:10
Clint Loveall
You know how many times early in the Gospel of Luke tell us everybody followed him. There were so many people that that Luke seems to, from the perspective of the crowd, have a very positive experience of Jesus and the people. And even at the end they go home beating their breasts. There’s not this moment where they they join in hating Jesus or hating on Jesus.
00:12:37:15 – 00:13:20:22
Clint Loveall
And secondly, in the crucifixion narrative, Luke really downplays four As rough as he is in other places, he really downplays the physical assault to Jesus. Jesus hasn’t said much before the cross. He’s beaten once. Luke doesn’t really go into details. Their pilot says, I was going to have him flogged. There’s no other mention of him being beaten. He’s not stabbed in this one in the side, there is a there’s a kind of transition where pretty cross.
00:13:20:22 – 00:13:44:56
Clint Loveall
He doesn’t say too much. And then three of Jesus last seven words. Once he’s on the cross, he actually does have some things to say as he knows he’s fulfilling his mission. But there’s a there’s a little bit different slant to some of those details in in Luke’s version of the crucifixion narrative that I think stood out to me.
00:13:44:56 – 00:13:56:24
Clint Loveall
And again, it could be that that’s what we did most recently. So it’s fresh in my mind, but it’s an it’s a noticeable difference.
00:13:56:29 – 00:14:13:49
Michael Gewecke
This is giving voice a little bit to a thing you’ve already raised. But you know, for me it was around chapter 21 that I started to be reminded of some of the really tough sayings of Jesus because it felt like around there, we.
00:14:14:04 – 00:14:14:48
Clint Loveall
We dug in.
00:14:14:49 – 00:14:33:46
Michael Gewecke
We did and it was slow and there was a lot of, yeah, this is hard. This is going to be difficult. This is a really strong critique and it kind of goes back to other themes that I think I knew were in Luke. I mean, intellectually, I’ve certainly read this book before and so I’ve been exposed to it before.
00:14:33:46 – 00:15:05:39
Michael Gewecke
But emotionally, the weight of going verse by verse at this pace, just the sheer number of times when Jesus is in conflict with the very specific tribe, the the religious leaders, the Pharisees, which changes to the scribes in the Sadducees, and once he gets to Jerusalem, but just this sustained theme, Luke never lets up on it. There’s really a man, is there?
00:15:05:43 – 00:15:39:04
Michael Gewecke
the woman and his sorry, the man whose daughter was sick, generous. He comes to Jesus and asks for Jesus to come to bear. But are there other people that I’m missing? It’s almost without exception. There is exception, but almost without exception. The religious leaders are cast in a very self-righteous, arrogant, judgmental light. I mean, Luke, Luke hammers that home, and I think that it was such a consistent theme.
00:15:39:09 – 00:16:03:07
Michael Gewecke
It was such a heavy theme. It struck me as we as we went throughout the book. And I do think around that Chapter 21, when Jesus really does dig into these woes up to Jerusalem and the warnings against self-righteousness and to be on your guard or you’ll miss the good news, you’ll miss the coming kingdom. That is, it’s such an orderly book.
00:16:03:07 – 00:16:21:14
Michael Gewecke
It’s clearly these are not accidental emphasis. And I think for a person of faith and very personally a person who’s given a lot of time, effort and energy in my own life to the faith, I mean, those are very stark warnings that come from Luke and I think helpful warnings, but difficult, weighty warnings.
00:16:21:21 – 00:16:46:55
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Yeah. I think if you can join us tomorrow, again, we don’t want to overdo this, but I think maybe tomorrow we have some conversation about the unique aspects of Luke, the things that are in Luke that aren’t in other places, and what we think that means not only to Luke but to us. You, you may have been surprised during this study if we, if we were accurate.
00:16:46:55 – 00:17:13:36
Clint Loveall
And remember to tell you some of the favorite things that people know about the Gospels are only in Luke’s gospel. Sometimes people don’t aren’t aware that without Luke, we might have many people’s favorite parable or favorite story. And so we’ll have some conversation tomorrow about what it is that only Luke brings us in the Jesus story, and then we’ll wrap up with some thoughts.
00:17:13:40 – 00:17:31:51
Michael Gewecke
Friends, we’re grateful to have you with us today. I hope you’ll join us tomorrow and certainly hope that if you’ve been interested in a study like this, do subscribe. We have some really interesting content planned ahead. This will transition into another study in just about two weeks. We’ll share more about that as we go. Until then, be blessed.