Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 1.

I do not normally pay much attention to the first couple of verses of Luke, but today I want to start by commenting on them.  Luke begins by explaining why he wrote this account.  He tells us that he has observed that others have written up accounts about the life of Jesus (and perhaps also the founding of the Church).  He then tells us that, since he had carefully investigated all of the events surrounding Jesus, he would write up an orderly account of those events.  This suggests to me that there existed at that time accounts which recorded stories about Jesus’ life in no particular order, and that perhaps some of those accounts were fictional.  As a result of his purposes in writing this account (and the Acts of the Apostles), Luke wrote a carefully researched  and systematic account of Jesus’ life.

When God’s messenger appeared to Zechariah, Zechariah’s initial response was to be gripped with fear.  When he appeared to Mary, Mary’s initial response was to be troubled.  In both cases, God’s messenger, Gabriel, told them not to be afraid.  This follows a pattern from the Old Testament.  So, God’s message always begins with “Do not be afraid.”  It is a scary thing to be chosen by God for some purpose of His.  Yet, He assures us that He will stand by our side as His purpose is worked out through us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 1.

I was reminded by today’s passage about a thought which struck me a few weeks ago.  Mary was related to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, a priest.  This suggests that Elizabeth was descended from priests (priests were not required to marry the daughter of another priest, but it seems likely that they usually did).  All of this suggests to me that Mary was descended both from David and from Aaron, thus Jesus may have combined both the priestly and kingly lineages of Ancient Israel.  Which brings us to the fact that John the Baptist was definitely of priestly lineage, like numerous Old Testament prophets.  (I would like to point out that while only a few of the prophets whose writings we have in the Old Testament were also priests, several passages in the Old Testament indicate an expectation that prophets were of priestly lineage).  Having said that, I am actually more interested by the fact that Luke was able to recount in detail what Zechariah said at the time of John’s naming.  Luke has been noted for both his attention to detail and the reliability of what he writes.  As a note on this, at various times historians thought that Luke had used incorrect words for the titles of individuals to whom he referred, or for areas he described, there were also times when people thought that Luke’s description of the order of travel was wrong.  Later discoveries proved that Luke’s terms, and travel routes were accurate for the time.  Now, we have reason to believe that Luke got the accounts of what happened to Mary directly from Mary, but Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been dead by the time Luke was compiling this account.   Further, it seems likely that no one else present would have felt the event significant enough to remember the words spoken those many years later when Luke was gathering the accounts he recorded.  However, John was raised according to the oath of the Nazirite, and apparently lived according to it as a grown man.  This would have led people to think of Samuel and Samson.  So, perhaps someone before Luke had sought to gather stories about John’s birth.

All of this reminds me of comments a speaker at our Sunday morning said a few weeks ago. He used the story of the Sidonian woman with a demon-possessed daughter who asked Jesus for help as a basis for this (although that story is really about something else).  I cannot remember exactly what he said, but he said that sometimes we give bread from God to God’s children and other times we are just dropping crumbs from that bread to the dogs beneath the table.  Whether what we say is bread or just crumbs, we should hope that someone benefits.  Today, I feel that I am just dropping crumbs, but I pray that God uses it anyway.

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

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.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 1

I find it interesting that both Zechariah and Mary question the angel who brings them the message about the impending birth they will be involved in.  I think that many people make too much of the idea that what happened to Zechariah was a punishment for lack of faith.  Yes, to a degree it was a punishment, but it was also an answer to his request.  Zechariah asked how he could be sure that the angel’s words were true.  Gabriel’s answer was to give him the sign that he would be unable to speak until John was born.  On the other hand, when Mary questioned the message, she was given an explanation.  However, Zechariah asked for a sign in a way that suggested disbelief, while Mary was genuinely confused as to how it would happen.

Luke begins his story here for the same reason the other Gospel writers talk about John the Baptist at the beginning of his account of Jesus’ ministry.  We often interpret it as John the Baptist introducing Jesus and fulfilling the prophecy concerning Elijah appearing before the Messiah does.  While that view is not wrong, it is not the whole reason.  As we have learned more about the Essenes, the Jewish sect which was responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, we realize that John the Baptist was connected with them in some way.  By writing about the connection between John the Baptists and Jesus the Gospel writers were connecting Jesus to the sect of Judaism which was noted for its faithfulness to what it preached.  I am not quite sure why, despite being aware of the connection between John the Baptist and the Essenes for many years now, this year I find it significant as I read the Gospels.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 1

I love Luke’s introduction and what it tells us about what he is going to do.  Luke focused on writing what he believed (and I believe) to be a factual account of Jesus’ life.  It was more important to him that what he wrote be an accurate account of what happened than that it supported a particular belief system.  This does not mean that Luke’s belief system did not influence what he chose to record.  But it does indicate that Luke attempted to base his beliefs on the facts as he observed them.  I also believe that Luke was telling Theophilus, “of course there are not accounts about Jesus from nonbelievers.  If you saw this stuff happening and realized that it was important, you would end up as a believer.”

I find it interesting to compare and contrast the ways in which Zechariah and Mary reacted to the message they each received from the angel.  Neither one quite believed that what the angel told them would happen.  Yet Zechariah received a reprimand for not believing while Mary received an explanation.  Of course, that goes right along with how they expressed their lack of belief.  Zechariah asked for evidence that what the angel was telling him would happen.  Mary asked for an explanation, after essentially saying, “I know how this works, and that doesn’t apply here.”  Since Zechariah asked for a sign, he received a sign, a somewhat punitive sign, but a sign nonetheless.  Mary asked for an explanation, so that was what she got.  I want to point out that I believe that Luke included Mary’s comment about being a virgin to indicate that she was not a naive young woman who did not know how pregnancy happened.