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Luke's Gospel and Simeon's Song Luke 2:25-35

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Luke's Gospel and Simeon's Song Luke 2:25-35 Luke’s Gospel and Simeon’s Song Luke 2:25-35 Broadcast Dates: March 20 and 23, 2020 Steve DeWitt We begin our Journey with Jesus today. I hope you have your Journey journals ready. We are also working on an online forum which would be an online discussion of the series and the readings to let you share what you are learning and how God is working in your life. So stay tuned for that. Today as we launch, we are going to cover some introductory material and then spend the rest of our time on the song Simeon sang over the Christ child. Last weekend was a holiday and many people were gone. Our teaching last week was entitled Prequel. Jesus shows up here in Luke 1 as the Christ-child but he was prominent in the Old Testament as well. He will tell the two disciples on the road to Emmaus at the end of Luke that actually the whole Old Testament centered on Him. We asked last week, how? The unveiling of the second person of the trinity begins with a plural personal pronoun in Genesis 1, moves to a Satan head-crusher in Genesis 3, and goes from there to the Son of David, Messiah, High Priest, and all the rest. It would be very helpful to your summer with Jesus to listen to that message if you missed it. That was the prequel; now we get into the essence of it. Bethel, are you ready? Introduction to the Gospel of Luke The reason we need the background of the letter is the same reason you need the background of any letter you read. To understand it there is so much to know. You have to know who wrote it. You might be like me - when I get a letter in the mail, I look immediately at the return address. Who is this from? If it’s from someone I know it’s kind of exciting; if it’s from NIPSCO, it’s not so exciting. But if it is a personal letter, when I open the letter, I am wondering, why did they write? Then I begin to read what they wrote. Who? Why? What? Who is writing and why they are writing influences how I interpret what they wrote. We’ll spend the summer on the “what” of Luke. So let’s get in our minds who wrote this and why he wrote it so that we can understand better what he wrote. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4) The author Nowhere in the gospel does the author overtly identify himself by name. However, he does so subtly in volume 2. You didn’t know that there is 1 Luke and 2 Luke? This is important to realize. Those of you visiting this morning are probably thinking, Is this some kind of a cult? Let me show you, 2 Luke 1:1 (or its other name Acts 1:1): In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the 1 apostles whom he had chosen. To them he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:1-3) What’s repeated? Acts is written to the same guy as Luke and the same guy wrote both. That’s why I like calling it 1 Luke and 2 Luke but we’ll just call it Acts from now on. The author of Luke and Acts is pretty important if for no other reason, the sheer volume of Scripture he wrote. If you were to ask the average Christian, who wrote the most in the New Testament, they would probably answer “Paul.” Paul did write the most books (13) but there was another author who wrote more of the New Testament. Who? John? He wrote five books, but not even close. Peter? He wrote two and influenced the gospel of Mark, but he’s a lightweight in the volume category. The author who wrote more than any other is the person who wrote Luke and Acts. In fact, you could combine Peter and John and it still wouldn’t be more than the author of Luke. The gospel of Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. So whoever this guy is, he doesn’t get near the credit he deserves as the most prolific writer in the entire New Testament. So who is he? Let’s look at a verse in 2 Luke… I mean Acts 16:10 (emphasis added) - And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. “We?” That’s first person. In other words, whoever wrote Acts was a traveling companion with Paul starting in Macedonia. The person who wrote Acts wrote Luke. So who could it be? Paul lists his traveling companions in a few places; • Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. (Colossians 4:14) • Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. (2 Timothy 4:11) • Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. (Philemon 23-24) What is clear is that there was a guy named “Luke” who traveled with Paul. What do we learn about him? He was a physician. He was “beloved” by Paul and apparently others. Paul calls him a “fellow worker.” Just before Paul’s martyrdom in Rome, Luke is the only one with Paul. He was a dear friend to the end. Church history helps us here because ever since the church father Origen, Dr. Luke has been identified as the author of both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Dr. Luke was most likely a Gentile, the only Gentile author of any book in the Bible that we know of. This impacts much of his gospel. For example, his genealogy in chapter 3 goes back to Adam whereas Matthew writes to a Jewish audience and only goes back to Abraham. Luke avoids Jewish idioms and writes a Gentile-friendly gospel. Most importantly, he presents Jesus as the Savior of all people, not just the Jews. That’s an important truth when you are a Gentile. As a doctor, he was an educated man. His Greek writing is of the highest quality. He was also an historian and says that he has carefully researched the life of Christ, to write what he calls “an orderly account.” Why Luke penned his gospel Luke states at the beginning that many had written accounts of Jesus’ life. How many of them do we still have? Four – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. At the time of Luke’s writing, probably only Mark had been written, maybe Matthew. We know this because Mark is clearly 2 one of Luke’s sources as much of Mark appears also in Luke. There is great debate as to how these accounts were written and who used what source to write their gospel. Let me give you a “word to know.” Synoptic – syn means together and optic is where we get optical from, so synoptic means to view or see together. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar that they are referred to as the synoptic gospels. John is totally unique in style and content and is not “synoptic.” So when we refer to the synoptic gospels, they are the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I’d like you to log that away. Luke says that his purpose in writing is to give an “orderly account.” By this we must not read Luke or any of the gospels with our view of historical biography. The gospels are not written as chronologies or pictures per se, they are portraits of Christ. What is the difference? A picture tries to capture the way things look. A portrait seeks to communicate who the person is. For example, a few years ago there was a well-known incident in England where the famous painter Lucian Freud did this portrait of Queen Elizabeth on the next page (portrait left; photo of Queen Elizabeth is on the right). 3 At the unveiling, Queen Elizabeth wasn’t very happy. She didn’t think it looked like her. Others weren’t either and one person said Freud should be locked up in the tower for this. However, they were missing the point. A point you might miss when you read Luke. The painter wasn’t trying to convey a photo, but a portrait of Queen Elizabeth. He was trying to bring the inner person out in a way that a photograph never could. We often want to read back into the gospels our 21st century perspective of historicity. We want a chronological biography. However, this is a real problem when you’re dealing with someone as glorious as Jesus Christ.
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