Week 37 Luke
I’m flying across the Pacific Ocean when the plane goes down – luckily not hard enough to kill me – and I luckily wash up on a deserted island and look in my survival-backpack and find I packed one of the four gospels. It’s Luke. So I’m lucky again.
I don’t really think that Luke is any more reliable than the others, but the way he starts out gives me an I-can-trust-this-guy feeling.
He writes his gospel to someone named Theophilus, and he says five interesting things about his project:
Luke says that: many people have written accounts.
He says that these many people: used as their source material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses.
He says that he: carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning.
Then he: decided to write a careful summary for you.
Theophilus was already familiar with the story but Luke told him he was writing: to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught.
Luke seems like a thorough reasonable studious logical thoughtful investigative biographer. He did his homework, did his research, then wrote a recap of the Lord’s life. A gospel written to reassure.
The onshore breeze is a relief in the heat as I sit checking through my other survival supplies. I’m apprehensive about whether I packed smart enough, but not concerned at all about my gospel choice. I like Luke.
Note: quotes from Luke 1:1-4 (NLT)