The Gospel of Luke

Luke. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

The Gospel of Luke is one of the four brief biographies of Jesus’ earthly ministry found in the Bible. Each gospel has a different tone and focus, though Luke and the other Synoptic Gospels cover many of the same events. Luke takes on the tone of a journalist or biographer, setting out to write an “orderly account” of the life and ministry of Jesus. Luke doesn’t claim to have been a follow of Christ during the time covered in this book (unlike other gospel writers Matthew and John). He does indicate (in his other book, Acts) that he was a member of the early church and at different times a companion of Peter and Paul. He based his gospel on the eyewitness accounts of the Apostles and other early disciples he knew.

It’s hard to give Luke or other Biblical books a fair treatment in a few hundred words. Some characteristics of book distinguish it from the other accounts that are noteworthy to me.

Jesus as a person. More than the other gospels, I think Luke brings out the personality and character of Jesus. Luke shows Jesus to be wise, kind, patient, loving, generous, faithful and humble. Jesus is also strong, direct, determined, forceful, bold, tough and uncompromising. These may seem like incongruent sets of characteristic today, but Luke was presenting Jesus as the perfect man. The soft side of Jesus is attractive, but it would have done little good if he lacked the hardness to do what he did and demand what he demanded.

The place of women. All the gospels acknowledge that women were the first to witness the resurrected Jesus. Luke seems to give special attention to recognizing women among Jesus’ disciples both during his ministry and in the early church (in Acts).


Comprehensiveness and modernity. Luke set out to give a careful and reasonably full account of Jesus’ life. As you might expect, it covers Jesus’ teachings, but it also give a lot of attention his early childhood and throughout foreshadows, through Jesus’ own prediction, his death and resurrection. In these regards, it is more reads more like a modern biography than the other gospels.

The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

More than the other gospel writers, John emphasized the deity of Jesus--that Jesus is God. The other gospels contain this part of Jesus’ nature, but John stated it explicitly in his opening statement, which mirrors the opening of Genesis, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (NKJV).

After this introduction, John starts his biography of Jesus shortly before He started His opening, with the witness of John the Baptist to who Jesus is. Mark’s gospel begins at this point, too. This would have been an important testimony to John the Apostle because he was probably a follower of John the Baptist before he became a disciple of Jesus.

As Matthew lays out prophetic demonstrations that Jesus is the messiah predicted in the Old Testament, John presents a number of Jesus’ claims of deity. Other witness, most importantly God the Father and John the Baptist, a prophet, corroborate these claims. Other supporting testimony comes from Jesus’ disciples, His family and, surprisingly, evil spirits. His miracles and, ultimately, His resurrection provide additional support for His claims. In John and the other gospels, He is called the “Son of God” and this is clearly understood as a claim of equality to God; it was one of the charges against Him when He was sentenced to death.

Like the other gospels, John gives a lot of attention to the days leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. The crucifixion is the central act of Jesus’ ministry, in which He suffers all the punishment and death we deserve so we no longer have to pay it and can become recipients of God’s mercy; it is the central act of God’s mercy.

John gives more attention to Jesus’ post-resurrection ministry than the other gospels. His death and resurrection becomes the basis of our reconciliation with God, and this is symbolized especially well in Jesus’ restoration of Peter, which ends the book. Outside the courtroom where Jesus’ was tried, Peter denied being one of His disciples. After His resurrection, Jesus sought out Peter and said, “Follow me,” just as He did when He first called he disciples.


The other gospels are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because they offer synopses of Jesus’ life and because of the similarities in the material they cover. John covers some of the same material, chooses many episodes that aren’t covered elsewhere.

What may be most striking is that John expresses focuses on Jesus’ highest attribute, His deity, while at the same time presenting the most private and affectionate view of Him. Jesus showed his power over death by raising Lazarus, but He wept because his friend had to suffer death. John showed us Jesus writing on the ground with His finger before showing mercy to an accused adulteress. The apostle who explicitly called Jesus the creator of all things referred to himself as the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” as if they were best friends. It is a radical thing about John’s gospel, and about the teachings for Christianity, that the all-powerful, perfect, sovereign God, creator and judge of the universe, could love us with such tender affection that he could take on humanity and suffer a horrible death to save us and reconcile us to Himself.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Matthew
Mark
Luke
Other books of the Bible

Mark

Mark the shortest of the four gospels. The book is attributed to the Mark who became a point of contention between the apostle Paul and Barnabas as described in Acts (Mark and Paul were later reconciled, as indicated by Paul’s comments in 2 Timothy). It is widely thought that this gospel was written under the imprimatur of Peter, and reflects his style and viewpoint.

The first nine or ten chapters are a summary of the teachings, miracles, and events in the life of Jesus. It seems to me that Mark is much more loosely organized than the other gospel writers. Some of the major events are presented in what is probably a loose chronological order, though chronology does not seem to be the organizing theme.

It seems to me that a section on events will be followed by a section of Jesus’s miracles that is followed by a section on His teachings. Perhaps this is how Peter organized his own recollections or presented a series of sermons. Scenes or teachings in Mark tend to be short and to-the-point.  Perhaps the strength of the book of Mark is that it can be taken in bite-sized chunks. Because of the overall brevity of the book, it is also easy to take in the scope of Jesus’ earthly ministry in a few settings.

Where the first several chapters are a breathless run through the public ministry of Jesus, the last few chapters are a more leisurely stroll through the days leading to and through His crucifixion and resurrection. These events had a profound effect on Peter. Though still broken up by sections on Jesus’ teaching (probably during the period of the last chapters), this section seems to be a fairly chronological depiction of events.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

the other Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John)

Genesis

Deuteronomy

Exodus

Mark. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

The Gospels

The Bible has four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. “Gospel” comes from an Old English word meaning “good news.” The gospels are the good news of the incarnation of Christ, the coming of God to save us from sin and death, to redeem us to Himself, and give us a new, eternal life. They are also biographies of Jesus, summarizing his deeds and sayings.

It may seem redundant to have four biographies of Jesus. Each Gospel emphasizes different aspects of Jesus, and together they give the reader a fuller picture of Him.

-Matthew, traditionally recognized as being written by that apostle, gives particular attention to demonstrations that Jesus is the Messiah, frequently referring to the Old Testament. Jesus had a masterful understanding of the Old Testament, as shown in Matthew’s record of the Sermon on the Mount.

-Mark focuses on Jesus’ miraculous deeds, proofs of His deity. It is the shortest of the four books.

-Luke pays particular attention to Jesus’ character and teaching ministry. It is thought to have been written with a Greek audience in mind, and that may make it more accessible to modern readers than the other gospels.

-John expresses a high Christology, showing Jesus’ claims to deity in His teaching and actions. John devotes more attention to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion than the other gospels.

The gospels corroborate each other. In theological terms, this is referred to as the harmony of the gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke, collectively called the Synoptic Gospels, track together particularly well.

Some have supposed that Matthew and Luke draw from Mark as a source, or that all have a common source in some unfound book. The more straightforward explanation is that found within the Bible that witnesses of Jesus’ life or their close associates authored the gospels. Matthew and John were followers of Jesus during his earthly ministry. Mark was a member of the early church and new the apostles and others who personally new Jesus. Luke claims to have been closely associated with the apostles and to draw on eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. Luke indicates that there were many written accounts of the life of Christ. History (supervised by God) preserved four books that were as authoritative very early by the church.

Calling the gospels biographies of Jesus may set up some false expectations for readers of modern biographies. Ancient biographies were often collections of a famous person’s sayings or a summary of their deeds (Mark is a good example of this); they were not necessarily chronological accounts of a person’s life. The gospels are somewhat chronological, but their middle parts may also be organized along other lines: teachings, miracles, deeds of high character, and other concepts.


If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Genesis
The Holy Bible
John
Luke
Mark
Matthew
Proverbs

Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is, in most Bibles, the first of the four biographies of Jesus written by his followers and received by the church as scripture, and the first book in the New Testament. Matthew is attributed to the apostle of that name, a former tax collector called by Jesus.

Matthew places a particular emphasis on Jesus as the Messiah. He frequently references Old Testament to show how some aspect of the life of Jesus is a fulfillment of messianic prophecy.

I find this an interesting point of comparison between Christianity and some later religions that claim some connection to the Jewish or Christian scriptures or historic people from them. Islam and Mormonism, along with some others, claim that the Bible was corrupted over time and had to be replaced or corrected by later texts. The authors of the New Testament, in contrast, accepted, relied on, and appealed to the authority of the existing Jewish Bible.

The book is organized in this fashion:

-Jesus’ ancestry and early life,

-His ministry,

-His miracles,

-His parables, and

-the days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection.

Only Luke pays comparable attention to the nativity and early life of Jesus.  Matthew presents this as evidence that Jesus fulfilled prophecies that the Messiah would be a descendent of David, born of a virgin in Bethlehem, and spend time in Egypt.

Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism by John, himself a fulfillment of prophecy that the Messiah would be announced by a prophet like Elijah. Eventually, Jesus commissions others to carry His message. This section includes the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. The miracles He performed were evidence of His authority from God.

Jesus is known as a teller of parables. Matthew presents several in one section that relate to the Gospel and Kingdom of God. Later, Jesus uses a series of parables to prepare His disciples for the things leading up to His crucifixion.

The death and resurrection of Jesus are not only fulfillments of prophecy, but are also the culmination of His work. On the cross, He bore the punishment for all the sins of man. In his resurrection, He demonstrated the means and hope of eternal life for those who follow Him.

The other Gospels are Mark, Luke and John.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

Exodus
Genesis
Leviticus

Matthew. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Unimaginable by Jeremiah H. Johnston

What would the world be like if Christ had never come and the Christian church had never been create? New Testament scholar Jeremiah J. Johnston imagines it would be a bleak place. He describes why he thinks so in Unimaginable.

Johnston contrasts the Christian worldview, and its results, with cultures where non-Christian worldviews were dominant. The first of these is the pre-Christian era, especially Greek and Roman culture in the centuries shortly before and after the ministry of Jesus Christ. The second is the 20^th Century political regimes that opposed Christian mores if not religion altogether: Nazism, Fascism and Communism. Adolf Hitler and Bonito Mussolini imagined a return to a pre-Christian, pagan age of Aryan or Roman dominance. The Communists were opposed to any religion; the state operating on behalf of the workers was the dominant force. These movements in some ways were reversions to the morals that predated Christian influence.

The gods of Greece and Rome were immoral characters who had little concern for humanity. The Caesars, god-kings, were largely selfish and self-aggrandizing. In contrast, the Christian God proclaimed His love for people. He demonstrated his benevolence in Jesus, son of God and king of kings, who lived a humble life of service and sacrifice.

Life was cheap in ancient Greek and Roman culture. For instance, babies who were diseased or deformed, or simply girls, were often abandoned to die. In contrast, Christians believed that human life was inherently valuable.

Women were not considered equal to men in pre-Christian times. In contrast, women were present at the major events in Jesus’ ministry and were often acknowledged in the New Testament for their leadership in the early church.

Women were considered of little worth in the ancient world. In addition, slavery and racism were common in the in the Greek and Roman Empires. The superiority of some people was considered plain, and it was appropriate for them to dominate, control and enslave lesser people. Jesus taught that there was no meaningful difference between races (Jews or Greeks), free men and slaves, or the sexes.

There was not religious freedom in the Roman Empire. The Jews were tolerated because of the antiquity of their religion, but others were required to worship the major Roman gods and to acknowledge the divinity of Caesar. Christians were considered atheists for their refusal to acknowledge Roman gods.

Johnston describes an opening of the door in the late 19^th Century to anti-Christian ideas and morals. Philosophers and scientists of the time such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Friederich Nietzche and Sigmund Freud were committed to a materialistic view of the world. Humans were not special creations; they were simply sophisticate animals that arrived from the same undirected happenstance that brought for every other thing without purpose. Religion and morals were inventions of people, not revelations from a higher authority.

These influencers, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, challenged Christian morals. They opened the door to devaluing human life, devaluing women (Nietche was explicit about his belief that women were inferior to men), justifying racism with science along with subjugation of “lesser” races, and the elimination of religious freedom, or even individual freedom. The likes of Hitler, Mussolini and Josef Stalin put these ideas into practice, leading to impoverishment, oppression, and death for millions of people.

Some would lay a lot of suffering at the feet of Christianity. Johnston argues that Christianity has alleviated a lot of suffering and paganism and atheism have much greater sums of human misery on their accounts.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Better for All the World by Harry Bruinius

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

Maus by Art Spiegelman

The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Johnston, Jeremiah H. Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be Like Without Christianity. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2017.

Philemon

Philemon.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Paul’s letter to Philemon appears last in most Bibles because it is his shortest epistle.  It stands out in other ways.  Most of the apostle letters are addressed to churches rather than to individuals.  His pastoral letters are directed to individuals who were aides in his ministry, but they focus on issues of church building.

Philemon is a very personal letter to a friend addressing a touchy subject.  The letter was delivered at the hands of Onesimus, a runaway slave who probably stole some money when he took flight from Philemon’s home.  Onesimus ended up seeking out Paul in Rome.  Under the apostle’s teaching he became a Christian.

So what is the right thing to do?  Paul wrote a lot about the importance of authority and of submitting to civil laws.  He also wrote about the essential equality of all Christians, including free people and slaves, and by extension the equality of all people.  Paul does both.  He respected authority by sending Onesimus home to his master.  He appealed to Philemon’s Christian ethic by sending the letter asking him to forgive the slave, now a brother in Christ, and to free him.

This little letter is rich with lessons in Christian ethics, firm teaching, gentle persuasion, and friendship.  It is hard to write about it without going on longer than the letter itself.

Paul also wrote

Colossians

First Corinthians

First Timothy

Galatians

Philippians
Romans
Second Corinthians

Second Thessalonians

Second Timothy

Titus

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First John

John was the youngest of the apostles and the last to pass away.  He was especially close to Christ during His earthly ministry, and John refers to himself as the one “whom Jesus loved” in his gospel.  The relationship was strong enough that Jesus entrusted the young man with the care of His mother, Mary, as one of his last acts on the cross.

In this circular letter to the churches, John drops the opening and closing introductions and greetings common to the other epistles. He launches directly into his message.  I find three themes in this book: the incarnation of Christ and true spirituality, knowing the truth, and love.

The Incarnate Christ and True Spirituality

Christianity firmly asserts that Jesus Christ is God and at the same time that He was incarnated as a man.  He lived and died and was resurrected.  He wasn’t resurrected as spirit, he was resurrected bodily.  John adamantly reiterated that this is not only the doctrine of the church, it is something he witnessed personally.

This teaching has consequences for Christian living.  We are not pure, undefiled spirits residing in sinful, depraved bodies.  We are body and spirit together.   The actions we take with our bodies have spiritual consequences.  Likewise, if we are godly in our spirit, it will show in our actions.

John’s writings on this subject may be a reaction to Gnosticism.  It seems that teachers of some form of Gnosticism or some other beliefs were attempting to infiltrate the church.  They taught a strong duality between spirit and body, so that the spirit was pure, good, and untouchable, so one could do as they pleased in the body, which was inherently bad, lesser, and corrupt.  In their view, the resurrected Jesus was as spirit and shed the corruption of flesh to become pure.

Throughout the Bible, you will not find a concept that material is bad and spirit is good.  In Genesis, God called the material world he made good, along with everything, man, animal, plant, and mineral, in it.  Satan and the demons are spirits, but they are evil.  The Bible assures believers that they will be resurrected bodily, like Christ, and that their resurrected body will be everlasting, good, and incorruptible.

Knowing the Truth

Knowing the truth is a Christian’s defense against false teaching.  John writes a lot about knowing in this letter.  That knowing is founded in the revelation of Christ and in God’s Word.  We can know that we know God (Chapter 2).  We can know that we have a new, everlasting life in Christ (Chapter 3).  We can know that God loves us (Chapter 4).  We can know that God hears our prayers (Chapter 5).

Knowing the truth allows us to test ourselves, what we hear, and who we hear it from.  Do we affirm the gospel, including the divinity and bodily resurrection of Christ?  Do we strive to keep God’s commandments?  Do we recognize when we sin and repent?  Do we love others and act on that love?  Jesus Christ said we could know a tree by its fruit, and John is encouraging us to look around and see if the fruit of would-be teachers is good or not.

Love

John is sometimes called the “Apostle of Love.”  Love is a theme of all his writings preserved in the Bible (yes, even Revelation in my opinion).

God loves us and we should love Him.  If we are Christians, we will love Him.  If we love Him, we will obey Him (Jesus said if we love Him, we will keep his commandments).  If we love Him, we will love others, especially our brothers and sisters in the church (Jesus said we would be known know for our love for each other).  Love is the God’s response to us, even when we were sinful and far from him, as evidenced in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.  The appropriate response to Gods love is to love Him and love the others He loves.

John also wrote the Gospel of John.

First John.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Maxell, John C.  Be All You Can Be!  Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 1987.

I’ve read several of John C. Maxwell’s books.  He has become almost an industry in himself for the production of leadership books.  It started while he was still a pastor.  Be All You Can Be! draws from leadership lessons he gave his staff at a church where he was pastor.

Maxwell sounds more like a pastor in this book than he does in some of his later works.  It is full of homiletical mnemonics.  As a kid, I thought these methods were mainly intended to help the hearers remember the message.  Nowadays, I think it is equally intended to help pastor remember their sermons.

It is probably best to take the book as a set of lessons.  Each chapter has a focused theme on some aspect of leadership.  These themes recur in Maxwell’s other books, and entire leadership books are built around any one of them.

The downside of the focused chapters is that it is difficult to find the thread that ties them together, other than leadership.  It might be that leadership is a costly endeavor.  The potential leader will face obstacles, resistance and distractions in abundance.  Much is demanded of a successful leader, and he will need a vision, character, and commitment to carry him through.

The upside of the book is that it covers a lot of ground in relatively few pages.  Each chapter can be read at convenient intervals without much concern over the order in which you read them.  If you looking for a basic leadership book, especially one that draws on a Christian or ministry context, this may be the one.

Having said that, I think it is worth a paragraph to discuss Maxwell in a wider context.  I’ve heard evangelicals lament that recently the books most read by pastors relate to leadership rather than their faith.  Many of those leadership books are probably Maxwell products.  Be All You Can Be! is more explicitly related to a church setting than his other books, but that isn’t an especially important matter.  Maxwell draw examples from the Bible, but he might have found adequate examples from other sources.  Even the selection of an author for the forward is telling.  Zig Ziglar is a prominent Christian, but millions have read his self-help and sales books without any concern, or possibly even knowledge, of his religion.  This book might be found in the Christian section of some bookstores, but it there is little that would keep it out of the business or self-help aisles.

John C. Maxwell also wrote

Developing the Leader Within
The Difference Maker
Winning with People

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time by James L. Garlow

On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis

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