New Testament · The Gospels
Κατὰ Λουκᾶν
The Gospel of the outsider, shepherds, Samaritans, prodigals, and joy in heaven over one sinner.
The most literary of the Gospels and the first half of a two-volume work. Luke says openly in his preface that he investigated and arranged an orderly account, and it shows: this is the Gospel with the doctor's eye for detail and the historian's habit of dating things by emperors and governors. It is also the Gospel of the overlooked. Women appear constantly and are named. The poor are blessed without qualification. Samaritans are the heroes of two stories. The parables found only here include the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and the rich man who built bigger barns. Notice how much of it happens at meals, and that the risen Jesus is finally recognised not by his appearance but by the way he breaks bread.
If you remember one thing
Luke keeps putting the wrong people at the center: shepherds, Samaritans, prodigals, a tax collector up a tree. If a story is only in one Gospel and it makes you uncomfortable about who counts, it is probably in Luke.
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Luke 19:10
Luke 14:26
Unless you hate your father and mother. A Semitic idiom of comparative preference, which does not make the demand mild.
Luke 16:19-31
The rich man and Lazarus, used heavily in arguments about the intermediate state, and disputed as to whether its details are doctrine or scenery.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
The one righteous man of his generation, who built a ship on dry ground on the strength of a warning about weather he had never seen. After the flood God set the rainbow as the sign of a covenant made with every living creature.
A woman who prayed for a son so intensely that the priest assumed she was drunk, then gave the child back to God's service when he was weaned. Her song of reversal, where the proud are brought down and the hungry filled, is closely echoed centuries later in Mary's Magnificat.
The prophet who brought David both the covenant promise of an everlasting throne and, later, the parable of the poor man's lamb that trapped the king into condemning himself.
A foreign general with leprosy who came to Israel expecting a spectacle and was told to wash seven times in the Jordan. He nearly went home offended. Jesus cited his healing in Nazareth as evidence that God's mercy has always reached past Israel's borders.
The carpenter from Nazareth whom the New Testament proclaims as the Messiah promised to Israel and the Son of God. He taught for roughly three years in Galilee and Judea, was executed under Pontius Pilate, and was raised on the third day. Christians across every tradition confess him as fully God and fully man, the formula the Council of Chalcedon settled on in 451.
A young woman in Nazareth who answered the angel's announcement with consent, and whose song of God lifting up the lowly is one of the earliest Christian hymns. She appears at the wedding in Cana, at the cross, and with the disciples in the upper room.
A prophet in camel's hair who preached repentance at the Jordan and baptized Jesus. He named himself the voice crying in the wilderness from Isaiah, and was beheaded by Herod Antipas for condemning the king's marriage.
A Galilean fisherman who spoke first and thought later, walked on water and sank, confessed Jesus as the Christ, denied him three times, and was restored on a beach over breakfast. He preached the sermon at Pentecost and opened the door of the church to Gentiles at Cornelius' house.
One of the twelve, who kept the money box and sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, then threw the money back into the temple and hanged himself. The Gospels report his motives sparingly and do not speculate.
A woman from Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, out of whom Jesus cast seven demons, who supported his ministry and stayed at the cross when most had fled. All four Gospels place her at the empty tomb, and John has her as the first person to see the risen Jesus.
Sister of Mary and Lazarus, remembered for working in the kitchen while her sister listened, and also for the confession she made at her brother's grave, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
A son of Herod the Great, ruling Galilee through the whole of Jesus' ministry. He imprisoned John the Baptist for condemning his marriage, had him beheaded on the strength of a rash oath at a birthday party, and later heard about Jesus and wanted to see a miracle. When Pilate sent Jesus to him, he got nothing and sent him back.
A widow of many decades who never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. She came up as Simeon was speaking over the infant Jesus, gave thanks, and spoke about the child to everyone waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
He had been told he would not die before seeing the Lord's Christ. When the parents brought the infant in, he took the child in his arms and asked to be dismissed in peace, then warned Mary that a sword would pierce her own soul too.
Short, rich, and hated, he climbed a sycamore to see over the crowd and was told to come down because Jesus was coming to his house. He gave half his goods to the poor and offered fourfold restitution, which is the penalty the law set for a stolen and slaughtered animal.
He asked for his servant to be healed and then said not to bother coming, because he understood chains of authority: he gave orders and they were obeyed, so a word would be enough. Jesus said he had not found faith like that in Israel.
A younger son who asked for his inheritance while his father was still alive, which was as good as wishing him dead, spent it all, and ended up envying pigs their food. He rehearsed a speech about being made a hired servant and never got to finish it, because his father saw him a long way off and ran.
A traveler from the despised neighboring people who stopped for a beaten man that a priest and a Levite had walked past, bandaged him, paid for his lodging, and promised to cover anything more. Jesus told it in answer to a lawyer looking for a defensible definition of neighbor.
A farmer with a bumper harvest who decided to tear down his barns and build bigger ones, then take life easy. God's answer is the only line in the parables where God speaks directly, and it is one word of address: fool. He died that night.
A man in purple who feasted daily and a sore-covered beggar at his gate, whose positions are reversed after death. The rich man, still treating Lazarus as an errand boy, asks for water and then for a warning to be sent to his brothers, and is told that people who will not hear Moses and the prophets will not be persuaded even by a resurrection.
Two men praying in the temple. One thanked God he was not like other men and listed his observances, all of which were true. The other would not lift his eyes and asked God to be merciful to him, a sinner. Luke says the second went home justified.
A craftsman of Nazareth, betrothed to Mary, who was told in a dream to take her as his wife despite a pregnancy that was not his. He named the child, which in that culture was the act of claiming him as a son, and it is through Joseph that Jesus is legally of David's line.
The ten generations from Adam to Noah, and the parallel line from Cain. Seth is the son given after Abel's death, and it is in his line that people began to call on the name of the LORD.
The priestly and Levitical registers of 1 Chronicles 6 and 23 to 26: the line of Aaron down to the exile, and the twenty-four divisions David organized for service in the sanctuary, assigned by lot.
The apostles the gospels say least about. Andrew, Peter's brother, is the one who keeps bringing people to Jesus: his brother, the boy with the loaves, the Greeks who came asking. Thomas is remembered for one sentence of doubt and forgotten for another, let us also go, that we may die with him.
The fathers, mothers, and relatives named around the Twelve. Zebedee is left in the boat with the hired men when James and John walk away from the family fishing business, a detail Mark includes without comment.
Luke names three of the women traveling with Jesus and the Twelve, and says plainly that they were supporting them out of their own means: Mary called Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, with many others.
The tax collector called from his booth at Capernaum, on the road running from Damascus to the coast. Mark and Luke call him Levi; Matthew's gospel calls him Matthew and adds the detail that he was a tax collector, which the others leave out of the apostle list.
The Hebrew word satan means adversary or accuser, and in its earliest uses it is a role rather than a name, complete with the definite article: the accuser, standing in the heavenly court to press a case, as in Job and Zechariah.
The only two angels Scripture names. Gabriel appears as a messenger, interpreting Daniel's visions and announcing the births of John and of Jesus. Michael is called a prince and an archangel, and is described contending for Israel.
James son of Zebedee, John's brother, one of the inner three, and the first apostle martyred, killed by Herod Agrippa. James son of Alphaeus, of whom almost nothing is recorded. And James the brother of Jesus, who did not believe during the ministry and became the leader of the Jerusalem church.
A priest of the division of Abijah and his wife Elizabeth, both descended from Aaron, both righteous, and both old and childless. Struck mute for doubting Gabriel's announcement, he wrote the boy's name on a tablet and his speech returned.
A family name that became a title. Augustus orders the census in Luke 2. Tiberius reigns during the ministry. Claudius expels the Jews from Rome, which is how Paul meets Priscilla and Aquila. Nero is almost certainly the Caesar to whom Paul appealed and under whom he died.
A quiz for Luke is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
