Luke

The longest book in the New Testament, and the only Gospel that opens by explaining how it was made: sources named as eyewitnesses, an investigation described, an order stated, and a named reader who has already been taught and now needs to know the thing is reliable. It is volume one of two — Acts continues the same sentence — and the whole arc runs from a temple in Jerusalem to a message going out to all nations, beginning there. What makes it distinctive is who it keeps putting in frame. Shepherds hear it first, and their word would not have been accepted in court. Women are named as the people funding the ministry. A Samaritan is the hero of its most famous story and another is the only one of ten to say thank you. A tax collector goes home justified and another climbs a tree. The song at the front of the book says God has emptied thrones and filled the hungry, and the sermon at the front of the ministry says the poor are blessed and the rich have already had their consolation — with no qualifiers on either. And at 9:51 the whole thing turns: he sets his face toward Jerusalem, and the ten chapters that follow hold most of the parables the world knows by heart.

Themes

• That you might know the certainty — Luke's stated purpose, and it makes this the one Gospel that describes itself as evidence. He names officials, dates events by emperors and governors, and reports what he was told by people who were there — including details, like the disciples calling the resurrection nonsense, that nobody constructing a case would invent.
• The great reversal — Announced in Mary's song before the child is born — thrones emptied, the hungry filled, the rich sent away — and then worked out for twenty-four chapters. Luke's blessings have no qualifiers and come with matching woes, and his parables keep putting the wrong person in the right position.
• He was praying — Luke reports prayer at almost every turning point: the baptism, the choosing of the twelve, Peter's confession, the transfiguration, Gethsemane, the cross. Twice he gives a parable specifically about persistence in it, and the disciples ask to be taught it after watching him do it.
• Money, and what it does to people — No Gospel spends as long on it. A rich fool who talks only to himself, a manager commended for shrewdness, a beggar named while the rich man is not, a tax collector who repays fourfold, and a widow whose two coins outweigh everyone's. The teaching is rarely about amounts and almost always about grip.
• The outsider gets it right — A centurion whose faith is called greater than any in Israel, a Samaritan who stops on a road, another who comes back to say thank you, a criminal who asks to be remembered. Luke's pattern is consistent enough to be a thesis: the people expected to understand often don't, and the people nobody expected do.
• Today — One of Luke's favourite words, and it always marks something arriving rather than being promised. Today this Scripture is fulfilled; today salvation has come to this house; today you will be with me in Paradise. The future keeps collapsing into the present tense.
• He set his face to go to Jerusalem — 9:51 turns the book. What follows is a journey narrative ten chapters long, holding the good Samaritan, the prodigal, the rich man and Lazarus, the persistent widow and the tax collector's prayer — and the destination is never allowed out of sight.

Outline

• 1. That you might know the certainty — A historian's preface in formal Greek, and then two annunciations in prose that sounds like 1 Samuel — with a song about emptied thrones in the middle.
• 2. You will find a baby lying in a feeding trough — The birth dated by an imperial census, announced to shepherds, and confirmed by two elderly witnesses in the temple — one of whom tells his mother about a sword.
• 3. All flesh will see God’s salvation — Seven officials date the year, and the word of God arrives outside all of them. John's preaching is startlingly practical about coats and wages.
• 4. Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled — Deuteronomy answers the wilderness, and then the manifesto at Nazareth — a text, one sentence of commentary, and an attempted killing.
• 5. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man — A borrowed boat, an impossible catch, and a fisherman who asks him to leave. Then the objections begin, and a proverb about old wine that is oddly generous to the objectors.
• 6. Blessed are you who are poor — The sermon on a level place: no qualifiers, four woes to match four blessings, and an instruction to lend expecting nothing back.
• 7. Your faith has saved you — A centurion, a widow at Nain, a prophet in prison having doubts, and a woman with a reputation who does at a dinner what the host did not do at the door.
• 8. Who is this then? — Women named as the ministry's funders, a parable about hearing, and four demonstrations — a storm, a legion, a haemorrhage and a death.
• 9. He intently set his face to go to Jerusalem — The Galilean ministry closes and the journey opens. Twelve sent out, five thousand fed, a confession, a transfiguration — and then one sentence that turns the book.
• 10. Go and do likewise — Seventy sent, a lawyer's boundary refused, a Samaritan on a road, and a kitchen argument in which the sister not working is the one commended.
• 11. Lord, teach us to pray — A short prayer and two arguments for persistence, and then six woes delivered at a dinner party by the guest.
• 12. Where your treasure is — The longest teaching on money and anxiety in any Gospel, triggered by a man wanting help with an inheritance — and refused an arbitration.
• 13. How often I wanted to gather your children — A question about atrocity turned back on the askers, a woman bent for eighteen years called a daughter of Abraham, and a lament over a city that would not come.
• 14. Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame — A whole chapter at a dinner, and all of it about invitations: where you sit, who you ask, who declines, and what it costs to accept.
• 15. This, my son, was dead and is alive again — One complaint and three stories in reply, the last of which has a second half — an older brother outside, and no ending given.
• 16. You aren’t able to serve God and Mammon — A crook commended for shrewdness, and then the only parable in which a character has a name — and it is the beggar's.
• 17. Where are the nine? — Faith as a connection rather than a quantity, ten lepers and one Samaritan, and a day that will find people eating and marrying.
• 18. God, be merciful to me, a sinner — Two parables about prayer with their purposes stated first, a rich ruler who leaves sad, and a blind man who will not be quiet.
• 19. He saw the city and wept over it — A short man in a tree, a hard parable about a delay, and a triumphal entry that stops so the king can cry over the place he is entering.
• 20. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s — A day of traps in the temple, each sprung with a counter-question, until nobody dares ask anything more.
• 21. By your endurance you will win your lives — A widow's two coins beside the temple's demolition, and an answer about the end that tells the disciples to look up rather than down.
• 22. Not my will, but yours, be done — A meal with an argument about greatness in it, a prayer with an angel and sweat like blood, and a denial that ends with a look across a courtyard.
• 23. Today you will be with me in Paradise — Four declarations of innocence, and three sentences from the cross that no other Gospel has — a prayer for the executioners, a promise, and a child's bedtime psalm.
• 24. Weren’t our hearts burning within us? — Women told to remember, men who call it nonsense, and seven miles of walking with someone they only recognise at a table.

Chapters

• Luke 1 — The only Gospel that begins by explaining its own method, in one long formal sentence of the best Greek in the New Testament — and then switches register completely, into prose that reads like the Septuagint. The effect is deliberate: a historian's preface, and then a world of priests, angels and barren women that sounds like 1 Samuel. Two annunciations are set side by side, and the difference between the two responses is the chapter's argument.
• Luke 2 — Luke dates the birth by an emperor's census, which is his method in miniature: the most important thing that has ever happened is filed under an administrative inconvenience. The announcement goes to shepherds — night-shift workers whose testimony would not have been accepted in court — and the sign given is not glory but a feeding trough.
• Luke 3 — Luke dates the start of the ministry by seven officials in one sentence, which is a historian showing his work — and then says the word of God came, not to any of them, but to a man in a desert. The preaching that follows is specific about money in a way no other Gospel's is: three groups ask what to do, and all three answers are about what they hold or take.
• Luke 4 — Two tests of the title just given. First the wilderness, where the devil twice says 'IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD' — and every answer comes from Deuteronomy, from the chapters about Israel's own forty years. Then Nazareth, where Luke places the synagogue scene early because it is the programme for everything after: a text read, a sentence of commentary, and an attempted murder.
• Luke 5 — Luke tells the call of the fishermen with a catch of fish in the middle of it, which no other Gospel does — and the effect is that Peter's first reaction to Jesus is to ask him to go away. The chapter then runs through the conflicts, and ends with a proverb about wine that is Luke's own addition and is quietly generous to the people resisting him.
• Luke 6 — Luke's sermon is delivered standing on a level place rather than up a mountain, and it is shorter, blunter and more economic than Matthew's. Four blessings get four matching woes, the poor are simply the poor, and the whole thing turns on one instruction that nobody in the ancient world regarded as sensible: love your enemies, and lend expecting nothing back.
• Luke 7 — Four people Luke wants you to watch, and none of them is an insider: a Roman officer whose faith is called greater than any in Israel, a widow with no one left, a prophet in prison having doubts, and a woman with a reputation who does at a dinner party what the host failed to do at the door.
• Luke 8 — Luke opens the chapter by naming three women and noting that they funded the whole operation out of their own money — a detail no other Gospel supplies and one nobody would invent. Then a chapter about hearing, followed by four demonstrations of power over a storm, a legion, a haemorrhage and a death, in which the only thing asked for is faith.
• Luke 9 — The chapter that turns the book. It runs the whole Galilean ministry to its conclusion — the twelve sent out, five thousand fed, Peter's confession, the transfiguration — and then, at verse 51, one sentence changes the direction of everything: he set his face to go to Jerusalem. From here the Gospel is a journey with a destination that has already been named three times.
• Luke 10 — Seventy more are sent out, and when they come back thrilled about demons they are told to be pleased about something else entirely. Then a lawyer asks a question he knows the answer to, tries to narrow it, and gets a story that makes narrowing impossible — and the hero is a member of the group his audience most despised. The chapter ends in a kitchen argument, with the wrong sister praised.
• Luke 11 — A request to be taught to pray gets a short prayer and then two arguments for persistence, both of them from the lesser to the greater: if a sleepy neighbour will get up, and if a flawed father knows what to give, then how much more. The chapter's second half turns sharply into six woes, delivered at a dinner party by the guest.
• Luke 12 — The longest sustained teaching on money and anxiety in any Gospel, and it is triggered by a man in the crowd asking for help with an inheritance. The refusal to arbitrate is the point — the problem is not the division of the estate but what an estate does to people. Around it sit instructions about fear, about sparrows, about barns, and about being dressed and awake.
• Luke 13 — Someone brings news of an atrocity, apparently expecting an explanation of who deserved it. The answer refuses the premise twice and turns the question back on the askers. Then a fig tree gets one more year, a woman bent double for eighteen years is called a daughter of Abraham, and the chapter ends with the most tender image in the Gospel — a hen, and children who would not come.
• Luke 14 — A whole chapter at a dinner party, and every part of it is about invitations. Where you sit, who you ask, who accepts, and what it costs to come. The guest watches the other guests choosing seats, and then tells his host that the right guest list is the one that cannot pay him back.
• Luke 15 — One complaint — this man welcomes sinners and eats with them — and three stories in reply, each about something lost, sought and found, and each ending in a party. The third has a second half that the first two do not, and it is where the complaint gets answered: an older brother, outside, unwilling to go in, being begged by his father.
• Luke 16 — Two parables about money with a warning in between, and the first is the strangest thing Jesus ever told: a crook is commended. Not for his honesty — the text calls him dishonest twice — but for grasping that his position was ending and acting on it. The chapter's second story is the only parable in which a character is given a name, and it is the poor man who gets one.
• Luke 17 — The disciples ask for more faith and are told they have been thinking about it as a quantity when it is not one. Then ten men are healed and one comes back — and the one is a Samaritan, which is Luke's third time putting a member of that group in the position of the person who got it right. The chapter ends with a warning about a day that will find people doing ordinary things.
• Luke 18 — Two parables about prayer, framed by Luke's own explanations of what they are for — and the second is aimed at a specific audience: people 'CONVINCED OF THEIR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND WHO DESPISED ALL OTHERS'. Then children, a rich ruler, a third passion prediction that nobody understands, and a blind man who will not be quiet.
• Luke 19 — Two men with money, told back to back. One is short, rich and despised, and he gets a house call; the other is a servant in a parable who plays it safe and loses everything. Then the city, and Luke's own detail: before the entry is over, the king who has just been acclaimed sits down and cries about the place he is entering.
• Luke 20 — A day of questions in the temple, and the pattern is consistent: every trap is set with flattery and sprung with a counter-question. By the end nobody dares ask anything else, and the last question of the day is his — about a psalm, and about whether the title everyone is using is big enough.
• Luke 21 — The widow's two coins are the last thing he commends before the building she gave to is condemned — Luke places them together and lets the arrangement do the work. Then the long answer about the end, which in Luke is unusually concrete about Jerusalem: armies, a siege, and a period when the city is trampled that has an expiry date.
• Luke 22 — Luke's passion begins with a sentence the other Gospels do not have — Satan entered Judas — and closes the loop opened at 4:13, where the devil left 'UNTIL ANOTHER TIME'. What follows is a meal with a dispute about greatness in the middle of it, a prayer with an angel and sweat like blood, and a denial that ends not with a rooster but with a look.
• Luke 23 — Luke's trial has more acquittals in it than any other account — Pilate declares him innocent three times and Herod adds a fourth by finding nothing. The charge that reaches the governor is political, because blasphemy would not have interested him. And then the crucifixion, in which Luke records three sentences the others do not: a prayer for the executioners, a promise to a criminal, and a last word that is a psalm about sleep.
• Luke 24 — Three scenes, and all three are about recognition failing and then arriving. Women are told to remember and do; men call it nonsense; two walk seven miles with him and know him only when he breaks bread. The chapter's method is stated twice: he opened the Scriptures, and then he opened their minds — and everything hinges on a claim that the suffering was in the text all along.

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