Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 1.

I really like Luke’s introduction to his Gospel.  First, he acknowledges that others have written accounts about Jesus’ life and that he was not relying solely on his own observations.  Then he writes that he has carefully investigated the events and will present an orderly account of them.  In many ways, Luke’s account of Jesus life here in this Gospel and his account in the Book of Acts represent the first presentation of events in a way which we today are used to seeing events recorded.  While Luke’s theology influences what events he chooses to record, he records them in the order in which they happened to the best of his ability to determine.  In many ways, Luke answers the argument I hear many unbelievers make for questioning Jesus’ existence.  That argument is: if Jesus existed and did the things which the Gospels say He did, how come there is so little mention of him by those who were not Christians?  Luke’s answer is, if you saw what Jesus did and thought it was significant, how can you not be one of His followers?  Or, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis: if you saw the Jesus recounted in the Gospels, especially Luke’s, you could only reach one of three conclusions.  He was either a liar and a fraud, or He was crazy, or He was the Son of God.  If you concluded that He was one of the first two, there was no reason to mention His existence in anything you wrote.  However, if you concluded He was the third option, then you had no choice but to become His follower.  Luke wrote this Gospel in order to convince those already drawn to Jesus’ teachings of this last option.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.