Today we'll just be making some
introductory remarks on Luke and kind of be a couple weeks before we get
back into the actual exegetical study of it. Today we'll just look at some
highlights and be sort of a teaser, if you will. And I'd like to read Just the
first four verses. by way of introduction here of
Luke chapter 1. For as much as many have taken
in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things
which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered
them unto us, which were from the beginning eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having had a
perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to
write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou
mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou has
been instructed." And then he goes on and starts at the beginning
of the John the Baptist goes through the birth of Christ and
his early life and ministry and right on up to the triumphal
entry and the trial and the crucifixion and all the things that were
required for the redemption of the church. So it's the longest
gospel. And as I kind of was thinking
about studying that out, then I thought, boy, I hope I'm still
alive when we get to the end. Luke wrote this gospel and the
book of Acts, and between the two of them they comprise 28%
of the New Testament. So he's quite the author of most
of what we believe. He's called Luke the beloved
physician by Paul. He was a compatriot of Paul the
Apostle. And in Colossians chapter 4 verse
14 he's referred to as Luke the beloved physician and a couple
other names and a couple other gospels of Paul's letters. As we go through, I thought it
was interesting because the point of view that you get from the
writer, Luke being a physician, he would probably look at things
from the viewpoint of a physician. There are two instances where
Luke records what Jesus said in regards to physicians. One place they were saying, they
were asking Jesus, why don't you do some miracles in your
hometown? He says, well you know, you've heard that a prophet is
not without honor in his own country. You've heard it said,
physician heal thyself. That is from Luke chapter 4 verse
23. He's talking to some folks that
have their own self-righteousness, and in Luke 5, verse 31, he says,
they that are whole need not a physician. And we find that
recorded as well in Matthew 9 and Mark 2. Absolutely here in Luke 4 and
5. Apparently Luke was a Gentile. We learn a little bit from Colossians
chapter 4 where Paul lists some folks. He says that his fellow
laborers, he calls them, they of the circumcision, and then
he lists their names, and then there's a period, and then he
goes on and lists some other folks, aristocrats, and Luke, the beloved
physician, indicates that they were not
of the circumcision. So apparently a Gentile written
to the most excellent Theophilus. There's not much else written
about Theophilus except in the Book of Acts where he writes
that letter to again to Theophilus, and he mentions a former letter
that he had written, probably this Gospel of Luke. And when he says the most excellent
Theophilus, according to the customs of the time, that probably
indicated that he was some kind of an official person, perhaps something to do with the Roman
governorship of the area or some city official or something, but
somebody more than just your average layman type person. And he took special care to write
this in particular detail because
of the position of this person. He said, It seemed good to me
also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,
to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that
thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou
hast been instructed. So this Theophilus was a person
that had some instruction in the Lord. Luke felt it would be good to
give him some solid information that he could rely on and that backed up what he had been taught
in a narrative form. Theophilus is an interesting
name. We spent some time looking at
some names in the Book of Romans and in Luke here, Theophilus
is a compound word, theos, like we would get God and philos,
friend. A friend of God is what that
name implies. Philo says kind of the basis
for Philadelphia, Philo in the Greek there. But it could easily be applied
to any of the redeemed of God. that who once were at enmity
with God, but now are friends of God. And we actually have changed, had
our relationship changed by him. And the subject of this narrative
that he's about to give, this 24 chapters of Luke, a declaration of those things
which are most surely believed among us. And we could spend
probably the rest of our life just going over those very things
in verse one there. And his sources for the narrative,
the Holy Spirit, number one, he was moved by the Holy Spirit
to write this. And by and through them, which
were from the beginning eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. Now
there's a couple of things here that's interesting about that
sentence there. In verse two says, even as they
delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word. In my Greek interlinear that
the word is capitalized. So it's not a, just a noun, it's a name, it's
a title, it's the same word that we find in John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was more
than just the written word or the spoken word. It was the very
Christ. And These sources were, from the
beginning, it says, eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. They
had actually seen with their own eyes. They had actually preached
the very gospel that they were eyewitnesses to. And we find
that same kind of concept in his letter, the Book of Acts,
where he describes the replacement of Judas Iscariot. He said, well,
we need to find a person that was like there from the beginning.
to replace it. Here's the basic qualifications
for one. They had to be from the baptism
of John, they had to be there for certain events, and so kind
of a similar set of circumstances. I'm not going to go into too
much detail today because we're just kind of an introductory
view today and a few highlights and so things that we might pay
attention to as we go through. It's also interesting that as
I was looking through this in my concordance that not only is the word capitalized,
the ones from the beginning and then he says it seemed also good
also to me to have in my Greek interlinear it says, it seemed
good to me also having investigated from their source all things
accurately in order to write, in order to write to the most
excellent Theophilus. So he paid special attention
to the accuracy and to investigate everything to make sure that
it was true. He was like the Bereans. They looked those things
up to see if they were true. So he must have, he probably
got a lot of information that was, and you could find the same
thing today. You could probably go home and
get a lot of information today that is rubbish. It's worthless. So we have to weigh that. Another interesting term that
we find in there in verse 3 is from the very first. It says,
it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of
all things from the very first. From the very first is one unit
of word in the Greek. It's anothin in the Greek and
it means, when you look that up, it says from above. It's the same word that we find
in John 3.3. You must be born in John 3.3. It's translated again in the
KJV. But if you look in your margin,
practically every Bible I think has in the margin from above.
And I think Spurgeon wrote a better translation of that is actually
from above, and that's what it says in Strong's when you look
that word up. You must be born from above. It seemed good to me also having
had perfect understandings of all things from above. That would indicate the Holy
Spirit's involvement in his writing of this gospel narrative. To
write into thee in order most excellent Theophilus. So a term
regarding inspiration that we find there. And the note that he says that he
had perfect understanding of all things. I wish I had that. And so, then we, as we get through
those first four verses there, and then we go right into a description
of detailed circumstances of the conception and birth of John
the Baptist and Jesus Christ, and compared, and they're compared
and contrasted, both divine miracles. We find that John's parents were
old and well stricken in years and Elizabeth barren. And yet the Lord promised them
a son, a son that had been promised from before the foundation of
the world, a son that was declared that would, in the Old Testament,
there's going to be a man that's going to come and prepare the
way. And lo and behold, here he is.
So we have the details of that we'll look at as we go through
there. We find that his name was commanded. The angel Gabriel
appeared to Elizabeth and Zacharias and said, You're going to have
a son, and when he's here you will name him John. In the Greek
that's Ionesi. John is kind of an anglicized
transliteration of that. We find in the Gospel of John
chapter 1, there was a man sent from God. So he just didn't happen
by happen chance. He didn't happen accidentally.
There was a man sent from God named John. And we find Jesus' name also
commanded the angel when he appeared to them said, thou shalt have
a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. We've all been familiar with
that for quite a long time. He shall be called the Son of
the Highest. And that's from Luke chapter
1 verse 32. Both births supernatural. John's
parents that were past the age and Elizabeth was barren, unable
to have children and yet through a miracle of divine grace, she
brought forth this son that was there for a specific purpose. And then Jesus, by superimposition
that the word is, the Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee. That word
is an interesting word. It describes a brilliance so
intense that there's a shadow, kind of self-shadowing involved.
I don't know that we can probably grasp that too much, but anytime
that we find people that have been in contact with divinity,
Moses, just being near them, they glowed. The Mount of Transfiguration,
we find the brilliance, the light described. that kind of thing that we've
discussed before in some of our other Bible classes. God is light. I think that is kind of brought
out in that context there. Then we have the Son of God,
the Son of Man. His lineage is through Mary is
traced back all the way back to Adam in chapter 3. And I don't know if I'm going
to read all of those. It's kind of one of those things
like our pastor Norman has described in Leviticus. and so-and-so was
the son of so-and-so was the son of so-and-so was the son
of so-and-so. It's interesting though to read
through them if you want to read through them at your leisure
and look at them. A lot of the names are very familiar
to you from just reading of the scriptures. Then we have parables. There's more parables
in Luke, I think, than any other gospel. 24 parables, 18 of which are unique
to Luke. And, of course, parables generally, it's an analogy, it gives a spiritual
truth. But there has to be a revelation
about it. In Luke chapter 18, verse 10,
he says, unto you it's given to understand the mysteries of
the kingdom of God, but to them it is not given. Therefore, we
speak unto them in parables. And so a little commentary on
parables. And when we have 24 of those
to examine as we go through, and you're probably familiar
with a lot of them, the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the mustard
seed, the two debtors, the 10 virgins and their oil, the leaven,
the lost coin, the good Samaritan, the unjust steward, just to name
a few that probably get the most attention. That reminds me that one of the
reasons I wanted to maybe go through Luke was that often times
we just go there for a tidbit here or a tidbit there. Christmas will be rolling along
and we'll be picking a few nuggets out about the birth of Christ
there. And often we go to that two on
the road to Emmaus and such as that. So anyway, a lot of interesting
parables to examine and try to pick the spiritual truth. Most
of the time the Lord says, the disciples will say, well, explain
this to us. And he says, okay, I'll explain
it to you, but to them, it's still in parables that seeing
they might not see and hearing they might not hear. So, you
know what you would find? Explaining it to them wouldn't
do any good without being a believer. Many times we find that the people
saw Jesus do all these wonderful miracles, and we're going to
see in the book of Luke that he raised two people from the
dead. Now wouldn't you say that that would call for some kind
of serious thought? It didn't really cause many people
to believe. It takes a divine change. It
takes that being born again from above to believe and to make
these things understandable. Then we have the appearance of
angels in Luke. There's five times that the appearance
of angels are described. The angel of the Lord appeared
to Zacharias and Elizabeth regarding the birth of John and his mission
from God. Zacharias said, I'm not believing any of
this. So the angel says, since you
don't believe, you're not going to be able to speak until the
birth happens. And then you'll be able to speak
again. And that occurred. Then we find
further on in Luke chapter 1, the angel Gabriel to Mary regarding
the conception and birth of Jesus. Thou hast found favor with God. The Lord is with thee. It's like the name Emmanuel,
God with us. Then we find angels appearing
to the shepherds to announce the birth of Christ. I imagine
they were somewhat alarmed at that and said, oh boy. Then we have an angel that was
with Jesus strengthening him. Angels at the tomb announcing,
who are you looking for? He's not here. He is risen. Then from a physician standpoint,
there's a lot of healing goes on in the Book of Luke. Descriptions
of a lot of people being, multitudes being healed. Masses being healed. There's some 24 times that the word healed
or healed is used in a description of something that Jesus did and
various ones that he healed. We have the most use of the terms,
the good news, the good tidings. I bring you good tidings. in the book of Luke. Ten times
in Luke, and that exact term is only used once in Matthew,
and that's the only other time that we find it. Then we have
a description of the Lord's transfiguration on the mount in Luke chapter
9. There is a list of people that
he has interactions with, and people that are listed in Luke
with whom we've become familiar. Theophilus, John the Baptist,
who was a prophet after Elias. Levi, or Matthew the Publican
as he's known. A certain centurion. That was
a fascinating one. I've read that I don't know how
many times. I was just kind of going through
it again the other day and I was reading it. He had the servant
that was sick, really sick. He sent some servants to Jesus
to ask him if he would heal this servant of whom he was particularly
fond. Jesus agreed to do that, and
then he was on his way, and the centurion sent some other servants
and said, you don't need to trouble yourself
to come. If you just say the word, it'll happen. And he says,
I'm not worthy that you should enter my house. And I thought,
he says, I'm not worthy. Isn't that the Isn't that typically
what we find when a person that's been redeemed talks about themselves? Jacob said, few and evil have
been the days and years of my life. And Norm read from Isaiah
chapter 6, I saw the Lord. I fell at his feet like I was,
I said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. And
so on it goes. And we find that typically when
they think of themselves and describe themselves, they say
the same thing that this centurion said. I'm not worthy that thou
should come into my house. I haven't done anything. And
then we find that he has done it all, just like he cured this
servant. And he said, you know what, I've
not seen such great faith anywhere. And if we remember back from
our study in Romans, that faith was nothing less than total reliance
on Christ for salvation. I've not seen such total reliance
on Christ for salvation anywhere. He said, you don't even have
to come here and touch Him or do anything. If you just say
the word, it'll be done. What trust. We run into Zacchaeus. I remember all the kids in the
Sunday school class having to stand up on the stage and, Zacchaeus
was a weenie man. And they all went, do I really
have to get up here and sing that for about the millionth
time? Yes, you do. So you know what the Lord said? I must abide at thy house. His name was written in the Lamb's
Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, and
he had an appointment with destiny there. The widow's son, raised
from the dead, Luke chapter 7. The daughter of Jairus, raised
from the dead, Luke chapter 8. Just to name a few things that
we've come across as we've gone through. Many healed by Jesus. We talked a little bit about
that earlier. The 5,000 fed. He told the disciples to go out
and cast their net in and they caught so many fish they couldn't
deal with them all. Then they fed the 5,000. He cast
out demons. Luke chapter 11. Ten lepers healed. What a story of grace. Ten lepers
healed, and he says, you know what? Only one of them turned
around and said, thank you. Only one of them turned around
and glorified God. Only one of them turned around
and praised the Lord. The other nine just kind of said,
well, I'm glad I don't know that anymore. The blind received their sight.
the 12 apostles named from Luke chapter 6, the 70 sent out. He sent out 70 disciples to preach
the gospel and he gave them power over disease and serpents and
whatnot. And they came back and they said,
boy, this is really cool. Even the devils are subject to
us. And he said, you know what? Rejoice not that you've got all
this power. That's nothing. Rejoice that
your names are written in heaven. That's what you should be rejoicing
in. We have the healing of the high
priest servant's ear after Peter whacked it off with a sword.
That's something. If it had been me, I probably
would have said, Well, there's one left. So we have all these things that
we've listed that the Lord did. And then in relationship to John
the Baptist, John was preaching around and his disciples came
up to him and said, boy, we went to see this Jesus guy. You should
have seen all the stuff he did. And they kind of told him what
they'd heard and seen. And he says, well, I'm sending two
of you to go over to him and ask him, are you he that we've
been looking for? Or is it someone else? And his
answer was, Go your way and tell John what things you've seen
and heard, how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor
the gospel is preached. That's the answer to John, and
John would understand because that's what the scripture said
in the Old Testament. In Isaiah chapter 29, 32, 35,
42, 42, 61, all those references made that that was what was going
to happen. And then Probably one of the most telling
verses of the entire gospel is found in chapter 24 at the close
where he's resurrected and he appears to these two on the road
to Emmaus. And they're all sad. He wanted
to know why they were sad. They said, where have you been?
Have you not watched the news? Don't you know anything that's
going on? And they kind of told him what's going on. And they
said, and it's been three days since all those things happened.
And they were on their way to Emmaus, which is It says 20 furlongs,
I think, from Jerusalem. It turns out to be a little bit
shy of eight miles west toward the Mediterranean from Jerusalem.
So a little bit of a walk. He was with them. beginning at
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself." And that's one of the
things that we've always stressed here, and our pastor has always
stressed here, that in some way, shape, or form, all the scriptures
testify to Christ. Something about him, and we may
not see it all, We may never see it all in this lifetime,
but there's no other purpose for them to be there. All those
names that we read about, the tedious list of names that we
find here in chapter 3, they're there for a purpose to let us
know that He's the Son of Man, He's the Son of God. There's
a purpose in every, even the smallest utensils that Norman
described in in Leviticus. Somehow they pointed to some
attribute or mercy of Christ and redemption of the church. There's no point in them being
there if not. Throughout the whole thing, the
gospel is preached. The gospel of salvation So sit back and enjoy. I don't know how long it'll take
us to go through this. Sometimes there's blocks of scripture
here that you have to read most of a chapter to get the narrative
in context. We probably won't go through
it line by line. we'll just do it as it's needed.
But when we find an interesting thing, we're going to explore
it, for instance, as we were talking about, from above. It just helps, it just sheds
a light on things that you wouldn't normally get from just the English
translation there. So again, thank you for your
attention and see you next time. as we continue on in Luke. So,
as always, be free.