The author of The Gospel According to Luke has never been quite clear. Tradition has it he was the traveling companion of Paul however many scholars disagree with this assertion sighting contradictions in between Luke’s writings and the writings of Paul. Regardless of the actual identity of the author of Luke this much we do know.
- The author of Luke also wrote The Acts of the Apostles. (Act 1:1-3).
- Luke was not a first hand witness of the life of Christ, rather he wrote of others’ experiences that were told to him (Luke 1:1-2).
- Scholars place the writing of Luke to be around 80-100 A.D.
- He used the Gospel of Mark as a guide to his text. Scholars assume this because although he follows the basic outline of Mark the author of Luke expanded on the story of Mark while he also corrects Mark’s poor grammar and syntax.
- On of the most interesting aspects for me is that he does not follow the story exactly but I will come back to that.
In addition to the question of the authorship there is much debate as to who it was written to. Luke commences with a salutation to Theophilus, but who was Theophilus?. Again, Tradition and theories vary greatly,however, my favourite is that Theophilus is not a person at all but represents the friends of God or from my perspective the members of the church. Both Luke and Acts were written in a refined Koine Greek, and the name Theophilos ( "θεόφιλος") as it appears therein, is an amalgamation of the words for God "theos" and friend or loved "philos". Literally translated it could mean loved of God or friend of God. I like this translation because on a more personal note this means Luke was written for me as one who seeks to be called by such a title.
Luke is unique from the other gospels in many respects. For instance, there are more stories of women mentioned in Luke than in any other the other gospels. There are also more stories related to the poor and the sinners. In one way, however, I find Luke extremely unique. As the writer of his gospel Luke develops certain themes. He has a purpose and he attempts to convey certain messages to his readers. In doing this he takes the liberty to alter the time line of events to convey his message in a specific way. We can see this from the opening verses of Luke where he all but tells us he is going to do this. He writes:
“Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us… It seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus. "(Luke 1:1,3)
For Luke the order in which the story was presented was important and from the start Luke takes advantage of order to present a sub plot of the Luke-acts story. That of a traveling narrative or journey motif of Christ in Luke and the church in Acts.. In Luke Jesus journeys from Galilee to Samaria and into Jerusalem while in Acts the church starts in Jerusalem and extends out through Samaria into the world. In this journey there is a subplot of the gospel being presented first to the Jews rejected and from that rejection being offered to the rest of the world (or the Gentiles).
We can see this theme from the start of Christ’s ministry as we look at His inaugural speech as presented by Luke. It deals with his rejection by those of his home town (symbolically the Jews) subsequently goes out to share the gospel with those not of his hometown (symbolically the Gentiles). The interesting aspect of this event is that it did not happen until much latter in Mark; in fact it occurs in reverse order.
- Rejection of Christ by those in Nazareth - Luke 4:16-30 - Mark 6:1-6
- Travels to Capernaum and taught there - Luke 4:31-32 - Mark 1:22-23
Notice the reverse order of these events in Mark and Luke. Luke does not even go out of his way to remedy this discrepancy. In his text as we can read where people beseech Christ to perform the same miracles in his own country that they have heard him perform in Capernaum (Luke 4:23), an event that, according to the text of Luke, has not even occurred yet and won’t until after he departs from Nazerath. We can see from this that Luke simply cuts and pastes experiences of the life of Christ from his source documents (Mark) with little or no care as to the historical timeline. He does this to help build the theme and present the doctrine as he sees it. Knowing that Luke used other material as his source and did not follow the order as they were presented is an important part of studying Luke and Acts. The reader now has to ask two questions:
- Why did Luke choose particular stories to be present in his work?
- Why did he place them in the order he did?
Let me show another example found in Acts. This is what I really wanted to present. Following the martyrdom of Stephen, we read the following verses:
“And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word… Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.” (Acts 8:2-4 and Acts 11:19-20)
Did you notice that? Look at the reference for these versus, they were taken from two different passages separated by 2 and a half chapters. The first part was from Acts 8:2-4 and the last was from Acts 11:19-20 but they would appear as if they came from the same paragraph. One uninterrupted thought. Again Luke took liberty as the author of this book to splice his source document mid paragraph inserting material in between, Why? The question needs to be answered by exploring two aspects of the text First what was the content that that was added. For one the conversion of Paul who was considered as the principle missionary to the Gentiles but also, and more importantly, Peter was given a vision to bring the gospel to the gentiles. Something that to this point was not done. As of yet the gospel was reserved for the Jews. Secondly we need to look at the verses that were spliced. You will note that those that were scattered shared the gospel with the Grecians (Translated Greeks in the NIV bible) after being rejected by the Jews. hey were as it were sharing the gospel with the gentiles and the gentiles where accepting the gospel.
The insertion of the additional text is a subtle but important one. Luke is trying to teach us the way in which change is brought about in the church by revelation. It was not that these missionaries found that the gentiles were accepting the gospel decided it was a good idea then approached the leadership of the church to tell them things needed to change. Nor was it that they went against the teachings of their leaders because they felt that the teachings of the church were somehow out of date. Instead Luke is confirming the pattern of revelation. If, and when a change needs to occur, it is the Lord who directs his prophet through revelation. Luke is reminding us that Christ is the Head of the church and that church policies, direction and governance will come by him to his prophet. Not by a grass roots petitions to their leaders. He is also reminding us that changes can and does happen. After all,"We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." (A. of F. 7) but that change will come through the revealed pattern he established. What more important message could Luke have given to those that are the “friends of God” than this? Although at times we may not understand the policies, procedures and doctrines of the church we can take comfort knowing that Christ is at the helm and will direct his Prophets when a course correction needs to be made.
