back to index2020-04-24 Introduction to the Gospel of Luke
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If you can turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 1, we're going to be looking at Luke. 00:00:20.240 |
When he was in junior high school, I probably said that about 100 times and he loved it 00:00:30.320 |
Luke chapter 1, I'm going to be reading from verses 1 through 4. 00:00:37.160 |
As much as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among 00:00:41.680 |
us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses 00:00:46.720 |
and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything 00:00:51.040 |
carefully from the beginning to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent 00:00:55.960 |
Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. 00:01:01.480 |
Gracious Father, we pray for your continued mercy. 00:01:06.320 |
Help us, Lord God, to glean from your word what you have intended, that your word that's 00:01:11.680 |
living and active would cause us, Lord God, to be judged in our heart, to find encouragement, 00:01:18.360 |
to find strength and greater hope, to know Christ, his crucifixion, his resurrection, 00:01:25.280 |
and the hope that we have in all the promises that he's given. 00:01:29.000 |
I pray that as we begin this new series, help us, Lord God, to understand the proper foundation 00:01:34.920 |
so that it would help us, Lord, to see what it is that you have for us here. 00:01:41.920 |
And I've been kind of sharing with you, I've been going back and forth on which book to 00:01:45.760 |
cover, and I've always kind of leaned toward Luke, and the reason why I couldn't commit 00:01:51.240 |
is because Luke's writing in the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts covers about 25 00:02:02.240 |
So I knew that once we started this that we're going to be here probably until I retire, 00:02:07.640 |
So it's going to be a while, so I wanted to make sure that we're going to jump into this. 00:02:11.920 |
And I haven't decided that after we finish this book that we're going to jump into Acts. 00:02:19.700 |
I'm not sure exactly how many years we'll be here in the book of Luke, but I wanted 00:02:23.800 |
to give you some background information, and today is going to be a little bit more informational 00:02:28.400 |
than you may be used to, but I think this background information is necessary so that 00:02:34.280 |
once we start jumping into the text and going to the narrative in Jesus' life, it will make 00:02:39.160 |
more sense to you and you know what to catch and what to look for. 00:02:44.240 |
Just to kind of give you a background on Luke, Luke was Paul's very close companion. 00:02:51.520 |
Typically when we think of Apostle Paul, we think of Timothy, but Luke, according to 2 00:02:56.280 |
Timothy 4, 9-11, at the very end of his life when he was waiting to be executed, Paul says, 00:03:06.840 |
"Make every effort to come to me soon, for Demas, having loved this present world, has 00:03:13.920 |
Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 00:03:18.560 |
Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service." 00:03:21.680 |
So we know that Luke was not just any companion. 00:03:27.120 |
Not that anybody that's mentioned here is just anybody, but as people were beginning 00:03:31.560 |
to drop out from his companions, and these are very faithful men that are mentioned, 00:03:37.040 |
many of them mentioned in the book of Acts, he says Luke was with him to the very end. 00:03:41.360 |
Now you have to understand, Luke being with Paul to the very end meant that he himself 00:03:48.680 |
Because knowing that they claimed Paul to be an insurrectionist, that anybody who was 00:03:54.080 |
tied to him, they would have also considered to be dangerous. 00:03:58.260 |
So the fact that Luke was with him to the very end, we already know the character of 00:04:02.920 |
He is very committed to what he believes and risks his life and his health along with the 00:04:16.360 |
Colossians 4.14, Apostle Paul makes that very clear, that Luke the physician sends you greeting 00:04:28.760 |
Typically when we think of the apostles and especially as they are going out and doing 00:04:33.120 |
ministry and presenting the gospel, they had ability to perform miracles. 00:04:42.800 |
He said, "After I leave, the Holy Spirit's going to come. 00:04:45.560 |
You're going to do much greater work than what you've seen with me because of the Holy 00:04:50.960 |
And we see that in the book of Acts, the power of the apostles wherever they went. 00:04:55.360 |
But having said that, we may naturally think that since they have power, that everywhere 00:05:00.560 |
they went, they just kind of knock people over and perform miracles every single day, 00:05:06.880 |
Remember Paul says to Timothy not to neglect, to drink a little bit of wine because he was 00:05:14.560 |
He didn't just lay his hands and then healed him and went. 00:05:16.840 |
He didn't just walk down the street and people just falling out and was fine. 00:05:23.160 |
Those things were specifically reserved for a particular purpose. 00:05:27.880 |
So to have a physician who was walking with you in these missionary journeys, and you 00:05:32.960 |
can see how useful that must have been for Apostle Paul to travel with them, having stomach 00:05:38.920 |
problems and diarrhea, whatever that comes with traveling. 00:05:43.800 |
The fact that they had a physician with them was very helpful. 00:05:48.320 |
And I'm just guessing that there's a lot of things that God used that was already within 00:05:56.280 |
And again, Luke being a physician was very helpful. 00:06:01.160 |
Him being a physician, he has a unique perspective of Jesus' life and certain things that he 00:06:09.200 |
But before we do that, again, as I said, it's helpful for us to understand the distinction 00:06:22.080 |
Of the four, the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic Gospels. 00:06:26.160 |
And the reason why they're called synoptic Gospels is because so much of the material 00:06:30.520 |
and the events that are recorded in the first three books are similar. 00:06:35.800 |
Much of it is repeated in these three Gospels. 00:06:41.360 |
And then the Gospel of John, almost 80% of what's written in the Gospel of John is unique 00:06:47.680 |
And so that too, but the reason why they weren't put together is because they wanted to keep 00:06:54.320 |
Then why didn't they start with John and then say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then Acts? 00:06:58.840 |
Well the reason why they put Matthew in the front is because Matthew's Gospel clearly 00:07:03.000 |
connects Jesus as a fulfillment of the prophecy in the Old Testament. 00:07:07.640 |
So the genealogy in the book of Matthew connects Jesus to the Old Testament, so they wanted 00:07:12.320 |
to make sure that Matthew was put in the front. 00:07:14.680 |
And by doing so, Luke and Acts were separated, and John came in the middle. 00:07:21.160 |
God uses particular personalities, and you could see that specifically in the Gospels, 00:07:27.600 |
where even though the author is the Holy Spirit, their personalities and their imprint of who 00:07:38.400 |
Our point is not to get too deep into Matthew, but I think it'd be helpful for us. 00:07:51.660 |
So if he's a tax collector, what does he have to be good at? 00:07:56.520 |
Some of you are engineers who are good at spreadsheets. 00:08:06.800 |
I know that sounds weird to you, but I've opened it, but I've never used it in my life. 00:08:14.240 |
I would have been a lousy tax collector because I would have collected too much or too less. 00:08:20.360 |
But a tax collector has to be a good record keeper. 00:08:22.480 |
So if you remember in Luke chapter 2, there's a census that takes place, so all the people 00:08:28.760 |
had to go back to their hometown to take the census. 00:08:32.000 |
And that's why Jesus and Mary and Joseph would have to go back to Bethlehem because 00:08:40.880 |
But the reason why they had to be counted was for tax purposes. 00:08:44.280 |
So the person that would have kept the census or had to have a good record of their genealogy 00:08:58.600 |
And so already you can kind of tell just by who's writing this what may be emphasized 00:09:06.040 |
Matthew has more quotations of the Old Testament in that Gospel than any other Gospel. 00:09:12.920 |
And it starts out with his genealogy because the purpose of the genealogy is to connect 00:09:17.600 |
Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise that God made, the covenant that he made with Israel, 00:09:24.320 |
and that the seed of the woman is going to come, and that Jesus is that seed of the woman. 00:09:28.180 |
And so over and over again the theme in the Book of Matthew is that Jesus is that Messiah. 00:09:35.360 |
So you can already tell Matthew's emphasis thematically is the record keeping to clearly 00:09:41.360 |
demonstrate that Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophecies. 00:09:53.440 |
Mark was Barnabas's either cousin or a nephew. 00:09:59.000 |
And he was part of Apostle Paul's first missionary journey. 00:10:03.720 |
But as the persecution started rising, Mark just backslid and he fell out. 00:10:08.880 |
So by the time they get to Lystra, they're doing ministry, and Mark just disappears. 00:10:13.640 |
So Apostle Paul comes back and then they're starting to collect people for the second 00:10:19.680 |
And Barnabas and Paul had such a sharp disagreement about Mark that Barnabas ends up taking Mark 00:10:26.080 |
and he goes off and does his own missionary journey. 00:10:28.480 |
And then Apostle Paul picks up his disciple and then they go and they separate. 00:10:32.800 |
That's all we hear about Mark in the Book of Acts. 00:10:35.720 |
But we know throughout the rest of scripture that Mark, by Paul's own admission, says he 00:10:44.900 |
We know that Mark was a personal assistant of Apostle Paul. 00:10:49.600 |
So Gospel of Mark most likely was accounts that he heard from Peter. 00:11:13.800 |
Because sometimes the filter doesn't work here, so you got to filter over there. 00:11:22.200 |
And so most likely Mark's account, even though he was not an eyewitness, much of it came 00:11:30.240 |
So if the account that Mark's giving are things that he probably learned from Mark, Peter, 00:11:41.880 |
you can see Peter's imprint in the Gospel of Mark. 00:12:03.720 |
So he's the guy, he's like, "Oh Jesus, is that you? 00:12:14.920 |
So Mark's account of Jesus's life is filled with action. 00:12:20.520 |
In fact, Mark's Gospel is known as the Goal Gospel. 00:12:24.720 |
Because as soon as the Gospel account starts, boom, he gets into his miracles. 00:12:28.480 |
There's one miracle after another miracle after another miracle. 00:12:31.120 |
And that's a reflection of Apostle Peter that Mark was taking his things from. 00:12:44.960 |
Remember in Jesus's ministry, John and James, those two brothers are called sons of thunder. 00:12:52.200 |
They're called sons of thunders because they had a hot temper. 00:12:54.720 |
Remember they were walking through Samaria and they wouldn't help them. 00:13:02.000 |
"Shall I call out God's judgment and kill these people?" 00:13:07.520 |
And he would have been a mass murderer if Jesus didn't stop them. 00:13:11.920 |
So they were called sons of thunder because they're quick-tempered. 00:13:15.240 |
And the other thing that John and James is known for, remember when Jesus was going to 00:13:19.200 |
the cross and he repeatedly told them that he's going to be crucified? 00:13:23.240 |
Remember John and James, they pulled Jesus aside and said, "Okay, okay. 00:13:30.720 |
But can I sit on your left and to your right?" 00:13:40.180 |
So in the midst of pursuing Christ and being his disciple, in the back of their mind, and 00:13:45.040 |
all the disciples were guilty of this, but in particular these two guys went out of their 00:13:49.560 |
way to kind of like, "What am I going to get out of it?" 00:13:59.160 |
What are they known for in the New Testament? 00:14:08.240 |
This hothead, the sons of thunder meets Christ after the resurrection and he repents and 00:14:16.960 |
this hothead, this man filled with passion and that hatred and self-seeking turns into 00:14:27.040 |
So there's more mention about love of Christ, love of brothers in his gospel and in his 00:14:36.840 |
But what is also interesting was apostle John was known for self-seeking. 00:14:41.920 |
Remember at the end of his life, like, "Let me sit on the left, let me sit on the right." 00:14:45.640 |
The whole gospel of John is to rebuke the nation of Israel who was seeking Christ out 00:14:55.820 |
And so it is right in the smack dab in the middle of John's gospel is organized by the 00:15:05.120 |
I am the bread of life, I am the light, I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I am 00:15:12.240 |
the way, the truth, and I am the resurrection, I am divine. 00:15:15.600 |
And so these seven "I am" statements basically takes religious people who are seeking Christ 00:15:20.280 |
for their own personal gain that maybe if I go to Jesus I can get bread. 00:15:24.960 |
Maybe if I go to Jesus I can become somebody. 00:15:31.140 |
It is not through him that I am going to be exalted, it is Christ himself that we are 00:15:37.540 |
And it is relevant because that is exactly who John was before the resurrection. 00:15:42.300 |
So if you read the book of John, his personality and his repentance is scattered all throughout 00:15:49.040 |
Everything that he says through the book of John are things he had to learn. 00:15:53.320 |
So his personality is imprinted in that gospel where God is exalted as deity and we are just 00:16:01.960 |
Luke obviously is a physician and as a physician he emphasizes Jesus' humanity. 00:16:13.280 |
As he focuses on Jesus' humanity there is more details about Jesus' birth than any other 00:16:19.840 |
He actually comes with a bunch of stuff in there that you don't hear in any other gospel. 00:16:25.280 |
It may be the same account but he gives more detail than any other gospel. 00:16:29.160 |
It's the only gospel that has any mention of his childhood. 00:16:32.960 |
All the other gospels, Jesus is born, John the Baptist appears and he runs into ministry. 00:16:37.640 |
But this is the only gospel where we see a preteen Jesus at the temple and we get a small 00:16:43.360 |
glimpse of what it was like to raise the son of God. 00:16:47.960 |
And the gospel of John is the only gospel that has any mention of his childhood. 00:16:54.840 |
There is more interaction with lost people in the gospel of Luke. 00:17:00.120 |
Meaning that if you look at the other gospels it's thematically organized so it tells us 00:17:04.680 |
this is what Jesus does and then it proves his identity. 00:17:10.040 |
And so those things are emphasized but because Luke's gospel emphasizes his humanity there 00:17:16.160 |
is more detailed information about his interaction with them. 00:17:23.680 |
There's a lot of conversations that take place. 00:17:25.280 |
There's people that he interacts with that's not mentioned in the other gospels. 00:17:29.080 |
So there's more detailed interaction with lost people in the gospel of Luke. 00:17:35.280 |
When you remember the story of Gethsemane, this is the gospel where it's emphasized where 00:17:39.960 |
Luke the physician describes his prayer as his sweat turning into blood. 00:17:47.480 |
There's more specific descriptions of his suffering on the cross in this gospel than 00:17:54.240 |
Which makes sense because he was a physician. 00:17:55.920 |
There's more medical terms that are used in the gospel of Luke in the book of Acts than 00:18:03.000 |
He's an educated man and as an educated man his Greek was much more advanced than the 00:18:11.240 |
In fact most of the New Testament is written in Koine Greek. 00:18:18.360 |
The common use of Greek at that time in the secular world was classical Greek. 00:18:25.560 |
Koine Greek was unique to that period and particular regions where especially for the 00:18:32.600 |
I think the best way for me to describe Koine Greek is some of you speak two languages, 00:18:39.200 |
and if you speak Chinese and English and you have some maybe at home you speak Chinglish, 00:18:44.520 |
or if you're Korean and English you speak Conglish, and so there's unique words that 00:18:50.080 |
you kind of jumble up that's unique and only people who can speak Conglish understand certain 00:18:56.360 |
So I think the best way to describe it is Koine Greek isn't scholarly Greek. 00:19:05.320 |
It's not the kind of Greek that you would use to have scholarly things written. 00:19:12.760 |
Majority of the New Testament is written in the Koine Greek. 00:19:18.280 |
Luke writes the Gospels in classical Greek, majority of it in classical Greek, because 00:19:28.300 |
There is a debate whether Luke is Gentile or not, and most people believe that he is, 00:19:34.320 |
but whether he is or he is not Gentile, everybody agrees that the book of Luke was most likely 00:19:40.080 |
written for Gentiles, that this is the gospel that you probably don't need to have a rich 00:19:45.800 |
history of Old Testament prophets and things like that to understand everything that's 00:19:50.320 |
going on in the book of Luke, because he's writing it for a Greek audience, Theophilus, 00:19:56.640 |
and so he's known as the Gentile writer for the gospel of Luke. 00:20:02.800 |
Whether he is or he is not, at least the audience is, that's clear. 00:20:09.060 |
It doesn't mean that the other parts aren't helpful to us. 00:20:11.880 |
The other gospels are helpful because it connects us with the Old Testament and the prophets 00:20:17.720 |
The gospel of Luke is written specifically for people who may not have understood all 00:20:22.280 |
the customs and traditions and the Jewish laws, and he's trying to explain to them historically 00:20:31.080 |
Luke's gospel has more details about his female disciples than any other gospel. 00:20:37.800 |
In today's age, okay, that's helpful, but you have to understand at that period, it 00:20:54.100 |
Remember when Jesus is going through Samaria, that he ends up talking with a Samaritan woman, 00:20:58.600 |
and the Samaritan woman is actually concerned for him. 00:21:02.740 |
He says in John 4, 9, "Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, being 00:21:06.680 |
a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?'" 00:21:10.840 |
Not only is she a Samaritan, she happens to be a woman, and even as a Samaritan woman, 00:21:26.600 |
In fact, a Jewish rabbi wouldn't be seen in Samaria. 00:21:30.120 |
But the fact that he was there, a Jewish holy man, talking to a scandalous Samaritan woman, 00:21:37.920 |
would have been a cause of a lot of rumors and finger-pointing, maybe even disqualifying 00:21:45.440 |
That's why she says, "You're a Jewish man talking to me in broad daylight?" 00:21:51.040 |
Now compare that to John chapter 3, when Nicodemus comes to see Jesus. 00:21:55.480 |
Nicodemus comes to him at night because he's concerned what his friends are going to think 00:22:00.680 |
So he has to sneak around and ask him in private because he's concerned about his reputation. 00:22:05.960 |
There's a reason why chapter 3 and chapter 4 are right next to each other. 00:22:09.920 |
Because it was introducing, like, Jesus humbles the proud and he raises the humble. 00:22:15.260 |
And so the Gospel of Luke, there's an emphasis and exposition of the female disciples that 00:22:25.200 |
Whether there's Mary Magdalene or Joanna or Susanna, they're mentioned in the Gospel 00:22:32.360 |
In fact, the genealogy that is placed in the Gospel of Luke, whose genealogy is that? 00:22:39.540 |
You have to understand, at that time, they didn't even count the females. 00:22:43.620 |
So when they took a census, when they said there was a certain number of people, that 00:22:48.640 |
was the certain number of men in that society. 00:22:50.880 |
So when we typically think about, there's Jesus fed 5,000, we'll always qualify that 00:22:57.060 |
in our cultural context as most likely 5,000 men, which means the typical number that you 00:23:03.760 |
kind of see thrown around in the commentaries is somewhere around 20,000 plus, even though 00:23:08.640 |
it says 5,000 because women and children were not counted in this. 00:23:12.560 |
So when they said 5,000, or when they fed 4,000, it could have been 20,000, it could 00:23:16.760 |
have been 25,000, the way we would count numbers. 00:23:20.280 |
So again, it may be sexist or however our generation may call that, that's how it was 00:23:26.960 |
That was the culture, that was naturally what they would have accepted. 00:23:32.300 |
So to have a genealogy to go through the mom would have been unheard of. 00:23:37.960 |
We understand genealogy in Matthew, but the genealogy in Luke itself, a Jew would read 00:23:44.440 |
that and say, "Ah, this guy could be the Messiah." 00:23:48.640 |
And there's more details about his interaction with females and his disciples in this gospel 00:23:56.080 |
More interacting with outcasted people, downcast, who had no voice. 00:24:05.880 |
He was a guy that even after performing all of these miracles would have shook the ground 00:24:12.560 |
of the Pharisees and Sadducees and other religious leaders and the scribes simply because he 00:24:22.200 |
He spent a lot of time with them, healing them, had them as disciples. 00:24:25.040 |
In fact, when Jesus is headed toward the cross and when all the men scatter, where are the 00:24:36.200 |
They're at the cross, at the foot of the cross. 00:24:38.720 |
When Jesus is resurrected, who are the first ones that run over there? 00:24:43.840 |
See, to us that may not mean much, but for people at that time, if you're trying to make 00:24:50.240 |
up something and validate something, that would have been the worst thing to do. 00:24:53.760 |
Only reason why you would even record that is because that's exactly what happened. 00:24:58.360 |
So when they come back and they tell the disciples, remember the disciples? 00:25:01.800 |
It's like these women are saying that they saw the resurrected Christ and Christ is not 00:25:10.520 |
They have to go check for themselves because women's testimonies at that time were easily 00:25:21.240 |
But Luke's gospel blows that out of the water. 00:25:25.320 |
Typically in our generation, people have accused conservative Christians, Bible-believing Christians 00:25:30.160 |
of being sexist, misogynist, because we believe in male headship in our church because that's 00:25:39.880 |
But in reality, if you look at Christianity, Jesus is the one who kicks the door open to 00:25:48.380 |
The reason why the whole culture in Judeo-Christian culture has changed is because of what Jesus 00:25:56.300 |
Exactly the opposite of what they are accusing us of today. 00:26:03.200 |
Jesus is presented to us in the gospel of Luke as a sympathetic high priest. 00:26:07.880 |
Jesus has three offices, the king, the prophet, and the priest. 00:26:13.240 |
So obviously Matthew's gospel is specifically emphasized in Jesus as the king. 00:26:30.060 |
And so Jesus is presented as the king of a new kingdom, his kingdom. 00:26:38.880 |
Jesus also is a prophet, and a prophet is sent forth to represent God. 00:26:46.720 |
So when you have a righteous and faithful prophet, you have revival. 00:26:56.800 |
But a priest makes a house a home because he's the one who stands in between the sinner 00:27:04.480 |
and a holy God, who is sympathetic to those who are weak, who represents a holy God, and 00:27:14.160 |
And that's why the Bible says that we have a sympathetic high priest who understands 00:27:22.280 |
And so he invites us, because he is sympathetic, and he's opened the door to come to the throne 00:27:27.120 |
of grace with confidence so that we may find help in time of need. 00:27:31.600 |
So this sympathetic high priest is presented to us in the gospel of Luke, standing between 00:27:37.800 |
people who feel like they are not worthy, people who don't have a voice, people who 00:27:41.920 |
feel like they've been discounted, people who've suffered. 00:27:47.960 |
He stands in the middle, and he represents a holy, holy, holy God, and invites us into 00:28:02.520 |
I'm not saying that any other gospel is not powerful. 00:28:06.100 |
But the more we understand the details of what it said, we can easily read the gospel 00:28:15.920 |
But the more superficially we read it, the more superficial the application. 00:28:20.800 |
And part of the reason why I'm giving all of these details is because when we start 00:28:24.500 |
to jump in and go through, dissect all of this, that you don't read it like, "I know 00:28:33.960 |
Luke himself describes why and how he wrote the gospel in the first four verses. 00:28:39.880 |
So let me, again, read a couple of verses here so that we can highlight, again, and 00:28:45.560 |
this will help us explain the background information, Luke chapter 1, 1 through 4, "Inasmuch as 00:28:50.240 |
many have undertaken to compile an account of things accomplished among us, just as they 00:28:55.640 |
were handed down to us by those who are from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants 00:28:59.780 |
of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from 00:29:05.220 |
the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus." 00:29:10.720 |
Just the first three verses alone is radically different than the other gospels because he 00:29:14.920 |
presents it like a term paper, right, like a historian. 00:29:21.240 |
He's not just getting a bunch of facts and information that he heard and just compiling 00:29:25.720 |
He says, "Systematic, consecutive investigation that I'm presenting to you." 00:29:34.340 |
Now you have to remember, he says he went and investigated eyewitnesses. 00:29:40.800 |
You have to remember, at that time, by the time that he was writing this, all these eyewitnesses 00:29:48.620 |
So if he's making this up, and we're not talking about two people, we're not talking about 00:29:55.600 |
In 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 8, it says, "For I delivered to you as a first important what 00:29:59.520 |
I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that 00:30:03.440 |
he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scripture and that 00:30:10.540 |
After that, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time." 00:30:17.660 |
Remember how they counted people at that time? 00:30:27.720 |
The number 500 is used here, and that's a number we normally repeat, but the way they 00:30:31.840 |
took census, it could have easily been more than that. 00:30:35.080 |
He says, "He showed himself to them, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen 00:30:42.240 |
Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, 00:30:49.880 |
So if Luke is commissioned by a Roman official, a Gentile, a physician to go and accurately 00:30:59.720 |
report and he says, "I'm going to find all these eyewitnesses firsthand, and I'm 00:31:06.120 |
going to jot it down in consecutive order to present to you exactly what has happened." 00:31:14.800 |
If he's making this up, there's, again, I think the accurate number may be in the thousands. 00:31:25.520 |
Anybody could have said, "Well, where are these eyewitnesses?" 00:31:32.080 |
I mean, he walked around for many, many days. 00:31:36.640 |
And that's exactly what was said, a bunch of them. 00:31:46.680 |
Now you have to remember at that time, in order for you to travel and find all these 00:31:51.440 |
people, you have to have time, you have to have money, you have to have resources. 00:31:57.660 |
If Luke was commissioned by a high Roman official under his protection, possibly with his support, 00:32:15.220 |
And if the office says, "Where do you need to go?" 00:32:17.960 |
And he said, "Well, Apostle Paul just got beheaded. 00:32:25.280 |
So I don't know exactly if that happened, but if Theophilus commissioned him to do that, 00:32:30.720 |
and he said, "I'm going to take a careful account to get the record of the eyewitnesses 00:32:42.400 |
In fact, people who have tried to discount Christianity targeted specific Luke's writing 00:32:50.280 |
because Luke himself says that everything he says is historically accurate. 00:32:56.560 |
So people throughout the centuries who were hostile toward Christianity said, "If I can 00:33:01.000 |
disprove Luke's writing that historically it's made up, that it doesn't exist, there 00:33:06.200 |
are certain places that he mentions that only is mentioned in Luke's writing, and if I can 00:33:10.880 |
dig up enough of that and prove to you that it doesn't exist, wouldn't that prove that 00:33:16.920 |
other things that Luke is saying is also false?" 00:33:21.480 |
The most famous of these antagonists was a guy named Sir William Ramsey, was a historian 00:33:28.400 |
And he set out to disprove Christianity as a whole, but his method was to target Luke's 00:33:34.920 |
writings, especially in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. 00:33:40.520 |
After a lifetime of digging and trying to prove that it was wrong, he became a Christian. 00:33:46.640 |
And the reasoning why he became a Christian was, he said, "I can't believe that a doctor, 00:33:52.000 |
a physician, a historian would take this kind of effort to make everything historically 00:33:59.000 |
archaeologically accurate, even the sickness, to be medically accurate, and then to be lying 00:34:08.600 |
He said, "Reasonably, it doesn't make any sense." 00:34:10.920 |
In fact, most Christians and non-Christians agree that Luke's writing is one of the most 00:34:19.240 |
Whether you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ or not, they say it's one of 00:34:22.160 |
the most historically accurate documents of that period that we have, period, Christian 00:34:28.840 |
And that's exactly what Luke says that he is setting out to do. 00:34:33.200 |
He's going to take painstaking time and effort to make sure that everything he's writing 00:34:42.560 |
So because of that, he said, "Most likely, he's the most chronologically accurate." 00:34:48.680 |
Now, it doesn't mean that everything that he says happened one right after the other. 00:34:56.680 |
But one thing we do know, in my opinion, he made sure that his second book was chronological. 00:35:04.280 |
It's clear what he is saying is consecutive and it's chronological. 00:35:07.120 |
So to me, if he took that kind of time to make sure that the second book is chronological, 00:35:11.560 |
it makes sense that the first book was also, at least a strong effort was made to make 00:35:17.040 |
So whenever today we try to find out when did this happen, what was Jesus' timeline, 00:35:21.760 |
when did this miracle happen, usually the first book that we would go for chronology 00:35:27.280 |
Now, having said all of that, all of these things are what he says. 00:35:35.360 |
Why he put it together, he mentions in the verse four. 00:35:39.840 |
He says, "So that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." 00:35:46.380 |
To confirm, theophilus, we don't know exactly who he is. 00:35:50.660 |
We know that he is a Gentile, possibly a Roman high official. 00:35:54.400 |
His name means beloved of God or a lover of God. 00:35:59.240 |
He may have been a recent convert who wanted to confirm and find more information, or he 00:36:08.800 |
Christianity by this time has rocked the world. 00:36:13.080 |
In about a 20 to 25 year span, this is written somewhere, most people agree, somewhere around 00:36:19.840 |
So in about 20, 25 years of after Jesus' death and resurrection, that the whole world 00:36:27.360 |
at that time, we're not just talking about that local area, the whole world got rocked. 00:36:33.360 |
And all of a sudden you had Jews and Gentiles who hated each other. 00:36:38.160 |
They couldn't even be in the same city because they felt like it was unclean. 00:36:41.860 |
All of a sudden, Christ takes away the barrier and they become one. 00:36:46.400 |
They call each other brothers and sisters in Christ. 00:36:50.720 |
I mean, tax collectors were considered vilest of the vilest in the Jewish community. 00:37:00.340 |
He becomes one of the leaders and he's teaching Pharisees in a church, calling him brothers 00:37:08.240 |
We had runaway slaves and the former slave master calling each other brothers and worshiping 00:37:18.320 |
You had adulterers and then you had people who got treated, I mean, the whole world got 00:37:27.320 |
The Alpha is probably watching all of this and saying, "What happened?" 00:37:32.200 |
I remember Dr. Harris years ago when he was at our church, he said that you can tell the 00:37:37.820 |
power of whatever hit the earth by the effect. 00:37:43.420 |
So if you see the crater as miles and miles long, you know that whatever hit it was powerful. 00:37:53.320 |
So if the crater is tiny, you know that the rock that hit it was tiny. 00:37:56.660 |
If you know that the crater goes miles and miles and miles, that you know that there 00:38:03.740 |
You have to remember, in that short period of time, 25 years, that it would rock the 00:38:17.080 |
A blast that human beings have not seen up to this point. 00:38:21.580 |
If you only grew up in this modern generation after the internet, you have a hard time understanding 00:38:27.280 |
I remember before the internet, some of you guys in the other fellowship, fantastic six 00:38:38.840 |
You guys all remember, I remember in 1987, 1988, I was up in Seattle and I attended this 00:38:46.680 |
And I remember worshiping and the songs that they were singing were songs that I sang in 00:38:55.420 |
And in their English ministry, they were singing songs that we stopped singing 10 years ago. 00:39:00.320 |
And I remember coming back down, I was like, wow, it's like, you know, there's so many 00:39:03.680 |
stuff, so much stuff happening where we're at, but it took that long. 00:39:09.660 |
This was one of the biggest churches in Seattle. 00:39:12.300 |
But I remember thinking like, they're 10 years behind everything we do. 00:39:16.240 |
And those of you guys who remember, even up to the 80s, everything that happened, happened 00:39:23.560 |
And then it would gradually spread and it would take 10, 11, 12 years to get to the 00:39:29.400 |
coastal areas and then another 30, 40 years to the Midwest. 00:39:34.240 |
It would just take that long to get information out. 00:39:36.600 |
It had to be something fantastic in order for something to penetrate that far. 00:39:43.360 |
Today, you just write something on the internet and all of a sudden it goes viral. 00:39:53.520 |
Some of you guys don't know what I'm talking about. 00:40:00.880 |
I don't know what this is called, but everybody's doing this. 00:40:04.240 |
Somebody does this and then the whole world is doing this. 00:40:11.160 |
Today, in order for information to spread, it's just instantaneous. 00:40:17.240 |
Somebody, you know, 15 year old has 30 million followers and all of a sudden it goes viral 00:40:21.320 |
and everybody becomes a cultural trend and the whole world changes like that. 00:40:30.120 |
Just write a bunch of stuff and put it on Amazon. 00:40:39.020 |
You get on and start a little blog and type a bunch of things and maybe you're just talented 00:40:43.080 |
and you say something and all of a sudden he's an influencer. 00:40:47.280 |
And then people are reading this thing and people are sharing articles back and forth 00:40:50.520 |
and all of a sudden there's a trend that takes place and everybody's talking about it, even 00:40:55.960 |
And all of a sudden they have millions and millions of something that's being spread 00:41:00.920 |
But when you go back, there's a 13 year old in his basement who's taking a break from 00:41:06.480 |
playing video games and has become a mass worldwide influencer. 00:41:16.560 |
You wanted to become an author, a famous author, it usually started where you're at and you 00:41:22.600 |
had to have been tested by the group that you're with. 00:41:27.040 |
And people would test you to see who you are. 00:41:29.280 |
And then if you gain enough followers because you've been tested and your influence begins 00:41:32.920 |
to grow, you may get beyond your local area and begin to have influence maybe in the county. 00:41:40.040 |
And then after years and years of being proven in the county that you're at, it may possibly 00:41:48.040 |
So when we were younger, you didn't have authors who were 20, 25, 30, 35 year olds. 00:41:54.240 |
Usually people who are influencer were in the 70s and 80s. 00:41:59.000 |
But it didn't happen in your 20s because it took time to test everything to get to that 00:42:05.880 |
So by the time somebody writes something and it begins to spread, you know that there's 00:42:10.240 |
30, 40 years of testing of that person, testing of the knowledge, testing of information before 00:42:33.120 |
Just to get, even if a nuclear bomb went off, it may have taken months for that news to 00:42:52.200 |
And even before Paul would show up in some remote village, they heard of him. 00:42:58.300 |
Something happened that a Roman official would commission a physician. 00:43:05.640 |
I need record for this to confirm because what I'm hearing is crazy. 00:43:14.920 |
Either this was the biggest hoax in human history or Jesus came back from the dead. 00:43:22.920 |
So what Luke is reporting is a careful eyewitness account that he recorded of what was happening 00:43:34.160 |
The whole world got rocked and it's been tested for 2000 years. 00:43:39.640 |
And it's just as powerful today as it was 2000 years ago. 00:43:53.680 |
It's not just a collection of information that they threw together. 00:43:58.320 |
Christ was resurrected and he churned and the history of mankind was reversed. 00:44:04.000 |
The curse of mankind was reversed in Jesus Christ. 00:44:15.440 |
I don't know how long we're going to be in this thing. 00:44:20.000 |
As we study the careful account that we would come to the same conviction without a doubt 00:44:28.840 |
because the purpose of conviction is transformation. 00:44:32.800 |
That we would be convicted so that we may be transformed.