Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, December 26, 2012 Read - Luke 1:1-4 We are going to take a step backward now and think a bit about how we might approach our study of the Gospel of Luke. It is important that I share with you some of my own convictions about this gospel and how I intend to approach this study. The first four verses of Luke’s gospel may not seem to be very important. We are tempted to just skip over them and get to the real story. But these four verses are some of the most important verses ever written for those of us who seek to understand all of the gospel – and maybe the whole Bible. What do they tell us? First of all Luke tells us that he is not the first person to attempt to write a gospel. Luke is aware of others who have come before him in this endeavor. Why is that important? It is important because Luke tells us that he has other sources that he is using in the writing of his gospel. By telling us this Luke is confessing that his is not an original story – he is dependent upon others – but he is also telling us that he thinks some things need to be changed, added to, or subtracted from his sources – why else would Luke write his own gospel if he was satisfied with what he received? Luke also tells us that there were eye witnesses who stand behind the story. Luke is not one of them – and it is likely that all of his sources do not represent eye witness accounts either – more about that later. Finally, Luke tells us that his attempt is to tell the truth. So from this picture we can imagine Luke sitting down with the writings of others and attempting to construct an orderly account for his readers that proclaims the gospel to them. What might those sources have been? Anyone who has read the gospels for any length of time cannot help but notice that Matthew, Mark, and Luke sound a lot alike. In a previous congregation I had encouraged families to read through the New Testament during Lent. One mother told me that her little son protested one day as they were listening to Luke, “Mommy, can’t we just fast forward through this part, we’ve already heard it twice before.” He had been paying attention – listening to Matthew and then to Mark and by the time he got to Luke he thought he didn’t need to hear it again. What we discover is that both Luke and Matthew use almost all of Mark – in fact at least 95% of Mark is in one or the other of these two gospels and most often in both! So it is very likely that Mark was one of the sources for Luke – as he was for Matthew. What we also discover is that there are passages in both Luke and Matthew that are not in Mark. How might we explain that? It is likely that a second source for Luke as a document he shared with Matthew. That document no longer exists on its own – and we should rightfully say that while we can be quite sure that Mark is a source this second document is a matter of speculation and cannot be demonstrated as conclusively. I think this second source did exist and will proceed from that conviction – it’s the best explanation I know for why Luke and Matthew share some passage not found in Mark. There were likely some other sources, probably only short stories that Luke had gathered. And finally Luke is a creative writer on his own and likely constructed at least part of the story with the purpose of proclaiming his gospel. We need to back up one more step and talk about Mark as one of Luke’s sources. It is most likely that Mark was the first person to attempt to write a gospel. He had no models to go by. Mark only had a whole bunch of stories about Jesus and it was up to Mark to give them the order that he did. It is my conviction that the “storyline” of Mark’s gospel is Mark’s creation and does not necessarily represent the order in which things “really happened” except in a very general sense – the call of disciples logically comes early and the crucifixion and resurrection logically come at the end. In between Mark is responsible for the ordering of things. And Mark ordered them with a very distinct purpose. I have written a great deal about Mark previously and if you haven’t read it and are interested I can provide it to you. What becomes apparent once we understand Mark in this way is that Luke chose, for the most part to simply follow Mark’s ordering of things – we will notice that he does make some changes and the making of those changes is important but in general Luke was satisfied with Mark’s order. As far as the second source shared with Matthew is concerned it is harder to get a handle on what that source may have been like. A quick observation is that this second source appears to have been mostly the sayings of Jesus and was less about telling the events in the life of Jesus. Since we do not have this second source it is impossible to determine the original order but it is also less important since it is not events that make up this source but sayings. Luke an Matthew treat Mark a lot alike –not changing Mark’s order a great deal but they do use their second source in much more diverse ways – Matthew tends to gather things together in blocks and Luke tends to disperse things throughout the rest of the story. One last thing is important to be said about Luke and all the other gospel writers as well as the writers of the whole Bible. All of the writers were more concerned about evangelism and theology than they were about history. That is not to say that these writings do not tell history accurately – but it does mean that at times theology or evangelism trumps history. And it does mean that the writers were likely far less interested in historical accuracy that we are – that is a characteristic of our age where we have come to understand truth mostly in terms of facts. I am very thankful that Luke chose to write the first four verses of his gospel! Those verses help us to approach the Bible with both a better understanding of how the writers may have proceeded and to be struck by the genius of their enterprise. Mark, Luke, and all the other writers were simply brilliant! We need to give them credit for their effort and we do that best by letting them be responsible for what they have written. If we think of them simply as vessels through which the Holy Spirit did all the creating we steal from them their importance and their creative genius. If we understand that they, as human beings, stand behind what they have written, shaping it for their purposes, then we can appreciate their message. God worked through them – that’s what the inspiration of scripture means. God speaks today through their creations – that too is the inspiration of scripture. But, unless we are willing to allow the reality of human hands in the work we are likely to be led off course. So, we are going to listen to Luke’s gospel in light of what Luke has done with Mark and in light of his connections to what he shares with Matthew and finally in light of what he contributes on his own. We are in for a fascinating journey with Luke, this author God used to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.