Every Day I Write The Book
Luke 1:1-4 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning. It seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Who likes to read? I love to read. In fact, last Sunday I went to the library and picked up three books – by Tuesday evening I was halfway finished with the 3rd book. I have always loved reading. Are there any other bibliophiles out there?
Today we’re looking at a prolific author. In fact, Dr. Luke wrote almost half of the New Testament. If you’re scratching your head, flipping through the book of Luke, wondering how I can say that, you have to know that Luke is only volume 1. Most scholars, in fact, don’t just refer to Luke, but to Luke-Acts. Because Acts is the second volume. In fact, the only reason that there are two books instead of one is that the scrolls were only so long… approximately long enough for… the Gospel According to Luke. And you’ll notice that Luke and Acts are approximately the same length. And if you are wondering about my reference to him as Dr. Luke, in Colossians 4:14, Paul refers to him as “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor” (as he joins Paul in sending greetings to the people of Colossia).
Today as we have already talked about Bible distribution, we look at Luke, whose scrolls have been distributed around the world, helped, of course, by most excellent Theophilus.
Luke wrote so that Theophilus would know the certainty of the things he has been taught. In all probability, Theophilus was a wealthy benefactor, one who could help spread Luke’s message to those in his sphere of influence. But Theophilus was most likely a young Christian as well, one who had been taught but still had some questions. So Luke, using his best investigative techniques, set out to write an orderly account of what really happened.
One thing that I hear all the time is that we want authors to be “objective.” Let’s be honest here. Luke was a lot of things, but one thing he was not was “objective.” Luke wrote with a purpose. His purpose is persuasion. He is on a mission to use the best techniques available to convince Theophilus (and his future readers) that what they’d been taught about God and about Jesus Christ was true.
You could think of it in other terms. We’ve all heard urban legends. Whether they’re about vanishing hitchhikers or white vans or LSD in children’s tattoos. My favorite are the ones from supposed Nigerian benefactors – all they need is my bank account information and they’ll fill it with US dollars. When I get an e-mail warning of the next horrible thing, I first check it out on snopes.com. They’ve already gone to the trouble of verifying or debunking all of those stories. To a great extent, this is what Luke has done for Theophilus. And Luke has great reason to do so.
Luke was no armchair researcher; he himself was a Christian missionary who frequently traveled with the Apostle Paul. In Acts, we often find instances where the narrator has ceased to simply narrate, but is instead an active participant.
Acts 16:10-15: We got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. 11 From Troas we put out to sea… from there we traveled to Philippi. …On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. 15When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.
So Dr. Luke is an evangelist – sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ alongside Paul. In Acts 20:7, Luke is back with Paul taking Communion. That night Paul preached until midnight and a young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in a window seat, fell out the window and died, but Paul prayed for him and he was healed. I wonder what that experience did for him! If you, as a doctor, saw someone brought back from the dead, I wonder how you might think of something like resurrection!
Because of his unique situation and his faith, Luke set himself to write the continuation, not alone to defend the Christian movement, but above all to defend God’s ways in the world. By showing that the story of Jesus was rooted in that of Israel, and by demonstrating how God kept his promise by restoring Israel, Luke assured his Gentile readers that they could have confidence in “the things in which they were instructed” (Quote from Luke Timothy Johnson in his treatment of Luke (Sacra Pagina)).
Guess what? This applies to us as well. If we love Jesus, we have an obligation to learn everything we can about him. To know how His story is rooted in Israel’s story, how God kept His promises to Israel, and how our story is rooted in God’s story. I’ve heard people say things like they don’t need to be a part of the church, their faith is private, they don’t talk about Jesus, or they don’t need to be part of a cell group. This is like a NASA astronaut saying, “I love being an astronaut. I love it so much, but I don’t need a Space Shuttle. I don’t need other astronauts. I don’t need to talk about space or to learn more about space. I just love being an astronaut.” Can you see how ridiculous this is? (this is an adaptation of an illustration from a sermon Dr. Joe Dongel’s preached in an Asbury Seminary chapel service)
Our story is no story at all without God’s story. And it is nothing without interaction with others. In fact, the Apostle Paul describes the Corinthian Christians as a letter from Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:3): You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
Luke physically wrote the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles after studying what happened, interviewing witnesses, and traveling as a missionary.
We, too, are called to study the history of salvation – we teach this under the title “The Progress of Redemption.” We also teach “Hermeneutics” (which is the fancy way of saying we’re studying to understand and classify the meaning of what the Biblical authors wrote). Just as a plug, this fall we’ll be starting a membership class, too.
If we are to be letters from Christ, we need to know what happened.
Just like Luke interviewed witnesses, we need to balance our own knowledge and experience with that of others. This is one reason why cell groups are so important; they give us a chance to learn from and to evaluate others’ relationship with Christ. I can remember times feeling like I was all alone in my walk with Christ. This has two sides: one is that it is vitally important to ask others about their walk with Christ, about their personal experiences with Him. The other is that we are all called to be witnesses. If you aren’t willing or able to talk about Jesus, then I wonder: do you really know Him? Jesus tells us that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34b).
Luke wasn’t content to simply ask people what happened. He also traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys. Likewise, if we are truly to be letters from Christ, written on human hearts, on our hearts, we have to be involved in ministry and mission work. If you’re going to be a leader in this church, it is vitally important that you are involved in ministry. Not just on a committee. Because you cannot know the heart of Jesus without being involved in his mission. It’s often been said that it is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one. But the Holy Spirit empowers us to live one and to be that letter from Christ. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
Who likes to read? I love to read. In fact, last Sunday I went to the library and picked up three books – by Tuesday evening I was halfway finished with the 3rd book. I have always loved reading. Are there any other bibliophiles out there?
Today we’re looking at a prolific author. In fact, Dr. Luke wrote almost half of the New Testament. If you’re scratching your head, flipping through the book of Luke, wondering how I can say that, you have to know that Luke is only volume 1. Most scholars, in fact, don’t just refer to Luke, but to Luke-Acts. Because Acts is the second volume. In fact, the only reason that there are two books instead of one is that the scrolls were only so long… approximately long enough for… the Gospel According to Luke. And you’ll notice that Luke and Acts are approximately the same length. And if you are wondering about my reference to him as Dr. Luke, in Colossians 4:14, Paul refers to him as “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor” (as he joins Paul in sending greetings to the people of Colossia).
Today as we have already talked about Bible distribution, we look at Luke, whose scrolls have been distributed around the world, helped, of course, by most excellent Theophilus.
Luke wrote so that Theophilus would know the certainty of the things he has been taught. In all probability, Theophilus was a wealthy benefactor, one who could help spread Luke’s message to those in his sphere of influence. But Theophilus was most likely a young Christian as well, one who had been taught but still had some questions. So Luke, using his best investigative techniques, set out to write an orderly account of what really happened.
One thing that I hear all the time is that we want authors to be “objective.” Let’s be honest here. Luke was a lot of things, but one thing he was not was “objective.” Luke wrote with a purpose. His purpose is persuasion. He is on a mission to use the best techniques available to convince Theophilus (and his future readers) that what they’d been taught about God and about Jesus Christ was true.
You could think of it in other terms. We’ve all heard urban legends. Whether they’re about vanishing hitchhikers or white vans or LSD in children’s tattoos. My favorite are the ones from supposed Nigerian benefactors – all they need is my bank account information and they’ll fill it with US dollars. When I get an e-mail warning of the next horrible thing, I first check it out on snopes.com. They’ve already gone to the trouble of verifying or debunking all of those stories. To a great extent, this is what Luke has done for Theophilus. And Luke has great reason to do so.
Luke was no armchair researcher; he himself was a Christian missionary who frequently traveled with the Apostle Paul. In Acts, we often find instances where the narrator has ceased to simply narrate, but is instead an active participant.
Acts 16:10-15: We got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. 11 From Troas we put out to sea… from there we traveled to Philippi. …On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. 15When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.
So Dr. Luke is an evangelist – sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ alongside Paul. In Acts 20:7, Luke is back with Paul taking Communion. That night Paul preached until midnight and a young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in a window seat, fell out the window and died, but Paul prayed for him and he was healed. I wonder what that experience did for him! If you, as a doctor, saw someone brought back from the dead, I wonder how you might think of something like resurrection!
Because of his unique situation and his faith, Luke set himself to write the continuation, not alone to defend the Christian movement, but above all to defend God’s ways in the world. By showing that the story of Jesus was rooted in that of Israel, and by demonstrating how God kept his promise by restoring Israel, Luke assured his Gentile readers that they could have confidence in “the things in which they were instructed” (Quote from Luke Timothy Johnson in his treatment of Luke (Sacra Pagina)).
Guess what? This applies to us as well. If we love Jesus, we have an obligation to learn everything we can about him. To know how His story is rooted in Israel’s story, how God kept His promises to Israel, and how our story is rooted in God’s story. I’ve heard people say things like they don’t need to be a part of the church, their faith is private, they don’t talk about Jesus, or they don’t need to be part of a cell group. This is like a NASA astronaut saying, “I love being an astronaut. I love it so much, but I don’t need a Space Shuttle. I don’t need other astronauts. I don’t need to talk about space or to learn more about space. I just love being an astronaut.” Can you see how ridiculous this is? (this is an adaptation of an illustration from a sermon Dr. Joe Dongel’s preached in an Asbury Seminary chapel service)
Our story is no story at all without God’s story. And it is nothing without interaction with others. In fact, the Apostle Paul describes the Corinthian Christians as a letter from Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:3): You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
Luke physically wrote the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles after studying what happened, interviewing witnesses, and traveling as a missionary.
We, too, are called to study the history of salvation – we teach this under the title “The Progress of Redemption.” We also teach “Hermeneutics” (which is the fancy way of saying we’re studying to understand and classify the meaning of what the Biblical authors wrote). Just as a plug, this fall we’ll be starting a membership class, too.
If we are to be letters from Christ, we need to know what happened.
Just like Luke interviewed witnesses, we need to balance our own knowledge and experience with that of others. This is one reason why cell groups are so important; they give us a chance to learn from and to evaluate others’ relationship with Christ. I can remember times feeling like I was all alone in my walk with Christ. This has two sides: one is that it is vitally important to ask others about their walk with Christ, about their personal experiences with Him. The other is that we are all called to be witnesses. If you aren’t willing or able to talk about Jesus, then I wonder: do you really know Him? Jesus tells us that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34b).
Luke wasn’t content to simply ask people what happened. He also traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys. Likewise, if we are truly to be letters from Christ, written on human hearts, on our hearts, we have to be involved in ministry and mission work. If you’re going to be a leader in this church, it is vitally important that you are involved in ministry. Not just on a committee. Because you cannot know the heart of Jesus without being involved in his mission. It’s often been said that it is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one. But the Holy Spirit empowers us to live one and to be that letter from Christ. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
Comments