The Gospel of Luke: A Survey of the Gospels

Transcript

JRNT 52
04/07/2024
The Gospel of Luke – Part One - A Survey of the Gospels
Matthew – John
Jesse Randolph

Well, I’ve shared this story before but about two years ago, right before we packed up the van to move here to Nebraska, I had an opportunity to meet one-on-one with one of my living spiritual heroes, Pastor John MacArthur. And in that meeting with Dr. MacArthur, which only lasted about 30 minutes, that took place in his office there at Grace Community Church, I had this ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to ask this influential and faithful man of God for his advice and his counsel on all sorts of matters, as I was getting ready to take on the role here at the Hills. I reported on this a few years ago, not a few years ago, a couple of years ago (I haven’t been here a few years.) But at the heart of Dr MacArthur’s advice to me, if I could boil it down, was really two-fold. First, he said, “Preach the Word,” and then he said, “Give them Christ.”

And that first piece of advice, “Preach the Word,” was to be expected. Dr. MacArthur is a Bible man, if he’s anything. He bleeds bible. And the advice he gave came straight out of 2 Timothy 4:2, where Paul tells Timothy the same thing, “preach the word.” MacArthur’s second piece of advice, though, “Give them Christ,” was also very helpful. And it weighed very heavily in my decision, during my first few months here at Indian Hills, to preach through Revelation 2 and 3. Those seven letters that Christ, the ascended, risen Christ sent through the Apostle John to those seven churches there in Asia Minor. Dr. MacArthur’s advice to “give them Christ” also factored into me preaching through the book of Colossians, twenty-nine sermons over the last year or so, which we just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago.

But one thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet (I could be wrong. I haven’t gone back and read the transcripts) is MacArthur in the same meeting gave me another piece of advice, in conjunction with that charge to “give them/you Christ.” He said, “Get into one of the gospels and get into the gospels as quickly as possible. And so here we are on April 7, 2024 getting into one of the gospels, and what is going to be a multi-year study of the Gospel of Luke.

And as is true I’m sure for many of you, the Gospel of Luke has had a profound influence upon me. And not just upon me, but my entire family. In fact, it was through the Gospel of Luke that my wife, Jenna, and I were first exposed to expository preaching. As new converts, we had never heard verse-by-verse exposition of the bible. Until we landed at this church in southern California where the pastor was going verse-by-verse. He had just started a verse-by-verse exposition of the Gospel of Luke. And there we sat with our bibles in our laps and knowing absolutely no one, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. While Pastor Mike Fabarez took us line-by-line and verse-by-verse through this incredible gospel. And we were completely hanging on every word, we were totally transfixed, as this word, this gospel, progressively did its work in our hearts and in our lives. In fact, so enraptured were we with his exposition of Luke that we even gave our middle son, Eli, the middle name Luke, because it had such a profound influence upon us in our walk.

So now, all these years later. I have this incredibly amazing and high responsibility to bring this gospel to you. And my simple prayer for this series has been, the way the Lord used the preaching of this gospel in our lives, all those years ago in California, that He would do the same thing among us here at Indian Hills. As we just work through this line upon line, verse upon verse, month over month, year over year, progressively growing in our love and our devotion to the Savior.

Now, people have asked, speaking of year over year, how long is it going to take? How long, Jesse, are you going to take through the Gospel of Luke? And I can’t say with certainty right now. I’ve surveyed other pastors who have braved the waters of Luke. And some have said it took them about two years, some have said three years, our pastor in California took seven years. John MacArthur took ten years. In fact, there’s this story about MacArthur, where in December of 1998, he’s in the Christmas account, in Luke 1, and then by December of 1999, guess what? He’s still in the Christmas account, albeit, now in Luke 2. It took him a year to get from Luke 1 to Luke 2. I don’t think it will take that long. But I do think we’ll probably be somewhere, if I could estimate, in the 4 to 5 year range. However long it takes. Again, my prayer is that through this study we each come to know Jesus better, to love our Savior more deeply, as we seek to live for Him more faithfully, and advance His gospel in this darkening world.

Now, how we’re going to do this. And Pastor Mike alluded to it earlier. Over the next three Sundays, to get us all acquainted, we’re going to work through a number of preliminary matters before we even get to Luke 1:1. Today, we’re going to work through a survey of all four gospels real quickly, to see how the Gospel of Luke fits in with each of those other gospel accounts. Next week, we’re going to do a survey of the Gospel of Luke itself. As we seek to trace out how the gospel lays out and flows. Taking in the forest, so to speak, before we get into the individual trees over the next few years.

The week after that, we’re actually going to do a survey of the Book of Acts. And you might ask, why Acts? Well, Acts is really a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. In our English bible arrangement, we have the Gospel of John parked right between Luke and Acts. But in reality, Luke wrote his gospel and the book of Acts right around the same time. And Acts is the sequel to Luke, and getting a better feel for how Luke and Acts go together, will make us better students of the Gospel of Luke itself. I’m going to be out the following week, teaching at a conference in Illinois. But then, the week after that, Sunday, May 5, is when we’ll actually get into Luke 1:1 and start our formal exposition of the Gospel of Luke. Alright, we have to do these things when you start a series, this kind of long runup.

One more introductory word, and I’m going to ask everybody in the room to collectively take a deep breath and exhale before you hear the words I’m about to say. Okay? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and a lot of prayer over the last year, at least the last year. But I do think it is the right time for me, as our church’s teaching pastor to make a change in the Bible translation that I preach from. [deep breath from Jesse] You guys okay so far, you leaving the church yet, everybody okay? Okay. Starting today, as we begin this series in the Gospel of Luke, I’m going to start preaching through the Legacy Standard Bible, also known as the LSB. I’ll give more information on that in various other ways in media in the future.

But for the sake of time, and for the sake of getting into Luke today, I’m just going to lay out for you a few factors that are going into my decision for me to switch from the NASB ’95, which I’ve been preaching from and you all read, to the LSB. First, is quality. What the Legacy Standard Bible has done, when it was first introduced back in 2020, is taken the base line translation that we all love and hold dear to, the good old NASB ’95. (Some of you have the NASB ’77 in your laps.) And what it’s done is taken that base translation, and made several key improvements to it. Holding to the legacy of that original translation that we love and hold dearly, but making some updates as well. Second, would be availability. Just like it’s becoming more and more difficult to find an NASB ’77 anymore. Maybe you can find them on e-Bay for an outrageous price. With how licensing and ownership works with the NASB ’95, eventually the NASB ’95 will be harder and harder to get and less and less available in the future. While the Legacy Standard Bible is, in my estimation, going to become more and more readily available. So, we have a good translation and we also have availability. Thirdly, would be timing. I would much rather make this switch now, as we start a series, a multi-year series, than do it two or three years into this series and then have everybody make a switch, or at least me make a switch at that point. So, for the sake of the continuity and the quality of the exposition, I do believe that the start of the series rather than mid-series, would be the better call.

And note, I’m trying to go out of my way here to say, I’m doing this. Let’s make this clear, I’m making this switch in the translation I preach. I’m not mandating, I’m not asking that anybody else make the switch. But I do know, naturally, how things go when the guy with the microphone clipped to his face says things. And you’re trying to follow along in your understanding of the word. You might want to make the switch, too. If you do, that’s great. I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. And we will, and I think we already do have, some LSB’s in the bookstore, and more to come.

With that, now that I’ve dropped that bomb, let’s get into our study. Today will be a bit different than the typical Sunday morning at Indian Hills, where we normally open with a specific passage and we unpack and unfurl what’s in that package. Today, we’re going to do this broader survey of all four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That will give us, I think, a good running start into our study of Luke. This is going to feel this morning much more like a bible college class or a seminary class as we seek to get some key information and data from each of the four gospels.

Now, let’s start with the matter of authorship, as in, who wrote the gospels? Of course, on one level, we know that God wrote the gospels. The bible, all sixty-six books, is the word of God.1 Thessalonians 2:13 testifies to that what we hold in our hands is the word of God, not the mere word of men. We know from the scriptures that all scripture, whether a seemingly obscure passage in Leviticus or the well-known account of the prodigal son, is God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3:16, “theopneustos,” it’s breathed out by God. It’s “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” We know from 2 Peter 1:20-21 that “no prophecy of Scripture comes by one’s own interpretation.” It was never “made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

So, God is the primary author of all four gospels, as He is of the entire bible, but we also know that God used human authors. The Holy Spirit moved in men, as the Holy Spirit directed what they were to say in the sixty-six books we have, and now, the four gospels that we have. So, getting right into it, the first gospel we know was written by Matthew, also known as Levi. Who in a previous life had a very lucrative business. a tax-gathering or tax-collecting business. His job, Matthew’s job, was to collect taxes levied on merchandise carried by caravans throughout his district. And the way it worked is that Matthew was required to give a fixed amount of whatever he gained back to the Roman government. So, whatever he had left over he was allowed to keep and that means that he had this natural built-in incentive to collect more, to levy higher and higher taxes, on his own countrymen, the Jews, so as to turn the highest profit possible. That, of course, led to tax gatherers like Matthew being naturally despised.They were considered by their countrymen, their fellow brethren, to be the worst of the worst, apostate traitors, sinful outcasts. Those who use their own people for sinful personal gain. So, that’s who Matthew was, that is until he encountered Jesus. Turn over to Matthew 9:9, if you would, where we’re going to see this first encounter Matthew has with the Lord Jesus, there at the tax booth. Matthew 9:9 says, “And as Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ And he stood up and followed Him.” So, so much for the tax business. Matthew was now following Christ.

Now, the second gospel was written by Mark. Mark was not an apostle. He was, rather, a direct convert and disciple of the Apostle Peter. We know that from 1 Peter 5:13, where Mark is identified by Peter as his “son,” Peter’s son, meaning his spiritual son, his “son” in the faith. And, in fact, we saw just a couple of weeks ago, as we were wrapping up the book of Colossians, that early in his ministry, Mark had traveled along with Paul and Barnabas on Paul’s first missionary journey. And during that journey Mark totally flamed out. We don’t have all the details, but what we do know is that when Paul needed Mark most, Mark left. Mark abandoned ship. And that left a really bad taste in Paul’s mouth. So much so, that on a successive missionary journey, there’s this disagreement between Paul and Barnabas, as to whether Mark should be allowed to come along. Barnabas thinks that Mark should be allowed to be restored and to join them. Paul disagrees and that leads to Paul and Barnabas going their separate ways, with Barnabas taking Mark and Paul taking Silas.

But apparently, and we see this as the biblical record unfolds, Mark at some point re-established himself. He overcame his earlier failures, he became this effective servant of God, he ended up proving himself faithful. So much so that, like we saw at the end of Colossians, in Colossians 4:10, Paul then tells the Colossian church that they are to “welcome” Mark. At the end of Paul’s life in 2 Timothy 4:11, (these are some of the last words he would say before he died), he tells Timothy, Mark “is useful to me for service.” So, talk about this all-time story of redemption, the one who once crashed and burned, but now is considered mission-critical.

How about Luke? Well, like Mark, Luke was not an apostle, one of the original apostles. But what we do know from the book of Acts (and we’ll get into this as we get into this later) is that Luke was a close traveling companion of Paul’s. Not only that, Luke was medically trained. He’s called “the beloved physician” in Colossians 4:14. And it makes so much sense. Because as a physician, as we go through the Gospel of Luke, we see his interest in matters related to human physiology and biology just come out of his pen. That includes his account of the miraculous birth of Jesus, the circumcision of the infant Jesus, the human development of Jesus. The conditions of those who were demon-possessed. The condition of the woman who had a specific form of sickness. It’s very clear that Luke had a medical mind.

Not only was he medically trained though, Luke was highly-educated, clear-thinking, and able historian. We see that come through, his historical gift, through the exactitude and the precision with which he supplies these very historical details in his gospel. In fact, if you would, go over with me to Luke 3, and just look at how many details in Luke 3:1-2 Luke loads into this very description. He says, “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.” So, the main idea is the word of God coming to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. But look at how much backstory and historical data is given there, to give us a sense of precision about when exactly this happened. Luke was, incredibly precise historically. We also know that Luke was a Gentile, in fact, the only Gentile author in the New Testament. We know that from Colossians 4:14. We saw that in our last study in Colossians, where Paul lists out various friends and acquaintances who he says are “of the circumcision.” But Luke is on a different list, meaning he was not a Jew, he was not “of the circumcision,” rather, he was a Gentile. So, that’s a little bit about Luke. We’ll visit him again a little bit later.

Now, we get to John. Who was John, the author of the fourth gospel? John was the son of Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman, a disciple of John the Baptist who later went on to become one of Jesus’ apostles. And not just any apostle, but a member of Jesus’ inner ring. He was there along with the three at the Mount of Transfiguration, was John. He was there at the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s even described in scripture, coincidentally, by John himself, as the apostle whom Jesus loved. He was very, very close to Jesus. And he would be the same John, we know, who would write, not only the gospel that bears his name. But 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, and also the book of Revelation. So, those are some of the high-level, biographical details of the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Now we want to pivot and talk a little bit about… We’re looking at this survey of the gospels; we’re studying the gospels this morning. Well, what is a gospel and why is it called a gospel? Well, the word “gospel” means good news. These gospel accounts are reflections, reflective of the good news, the gospel. The news that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He left heaven to come here to earth and He lived this perfect and spotless and sinless life. And he died for the sins of the world and He was buried and rose again on the third day, so that anyone who repents of their sin and believes upon Him as Savior and Lord, will have their sins forgiven and be granted eternal life. That’s what we refer to when we speak of the gospel message itself. So, what are the gospels? And why are the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John called gospels? Well, they are called gospels because they record the gospel, the very good news message that I just articulated.

So, we have the gospels but why are there four of them? That’s another question people ask. If there’s one singular message of salvation proclaimed through Jesus and His death and burial and resurrection, why wasn’t there just one recording of it? Why do we need four? Well, the short answer would be that, well, each author offered something unique. And makes a unique contribution. Each human author was writing for a different purpose in his day and his time and in his context. Each of the different human authors had a different theme they were emphasizing, as we’ll see in a moment. Each had a different emphasis, each had a different audience, something they wanted to stress and emphasize about some aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. And because of this -- though each of the gospels does have that silver thread of the message of the life and death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ -- each does come off a bit different in their tone and their theme. We see that, for instance, in the Synoptic Gospels, that would be the three of Matthew, Mark and Luke. They are much different in how they come off than the Gospel of John, which is a non-synoptic gospel. So, they all have different perspectives and different angles that they are coming at this with. And, in fact, they each have, as I alluded to earlier, a different theme that they are really emphasizing and stressing.

Let’s start with Matthew, what theme is Matthew stressing as he unfolds and reveals his gospel, the gospel, through his pen? Well, Matthew presents Christ Jesus as the Messiah, the King, the Israelite Messiah-King who fulfills all the prophecies laid out about the Jewish Messiah in the Old Testament. Matthew is all about the One whom God had promised to send to His original people, the Israelites. Matthew is a very Jewish book. It’s written by a Jewish convert, this former tax collector, principally for the purpose of Jewish evangelism. And when you read through the Gospel of Matthew, you see these constant references to the Jewish scriptures. There are countless Old Testament references in Matthew. And then Matthew will use some language often quoting Jesus, to the effect of “this is to fulfill,” this was to fulfill what was said previously about the coming Messiah. He’s trying to convince the Jews of his day, that Jesus was and is that promised Messiah.

In fact, if you go over to the opening verse of Matthew’s gospel, you’ll see, very clearly, his purpose in writing. Look at Matthew 1:1, the very first New Testament verse. Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In other words, right out of the gate here, Matthew is indicating that he’s seeking to demonstrate that Christ is the rightful heir to the promises of both the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants.
The Abrahamic Covenant was the one in which God promised to Abraham land, seed, and blessing. And then that covenant is capped off with that promise that “in you shall all the families of the earth will be blessed,” [Genesis 12:3]. The Davidic Covenant, found in 2 Samuel 7:11-16, was that one in which God promised David the blessings of an eternal house, and a kingdom, and a throne. And then, when we go over to the Gospel of Luke, we see that Gabriel tells Mary, that her child, Jesus, would be the recipient of those specific Davidic promises. Gabriel says this to Mary, in Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.” And then throughout his gospel, then Matthew demonstrates how all of this can be possible, as he establishes that Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus of Nazareth only, could fulfill these requirements of being that long-foretold Messiah. So, Matthew is writing to this Jewish audience and this Jewish context.

Mark now, is writing to a Gentile audience. And zeroing in on that a little bit more, Mark is writing to a largely Roman audience. One who would have been unfamiliar with Holy Land history and the various Jewish customs and practices and geography of the time. And that’s why Mark in his gospel -- and it’s hard to see this sometimes, if we read it too quickly-- he does things to explain to his Gentile Roman audience that would have been obvious to a Jew. For instance, he has to point out in Mark 1:5, that the Jordan was a river. He has to point out in Mark 2:18 that the Pharisees used to fast. He has to point out in Mark 13:3, in light of his audience. It’s also why Mark has to translate several Aramaic expressions for the benefit of his readers. “Talitha kum!,” Mark 5:41, that’s that context where he says, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” Mark is translating what that means for the purpose of his Gentile audience. Or Mark 15:34 he says, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He’s making it accessible for his Gentile audience.

Now, here’s another interesting detail about Mark’s gospel. The fact that Mark’s audience was Roman likely also ties into the fact of why that gospel is so unmistakably fast-paced. See, what the Roman mind was most interested in, in Mark’s day, was power and accomplishment and what things were being done. And the Roman mind would have been far more interested in what Jesus did in His ministry than any aspect of His genealogical record or his family tree. And so, Mark, directed by the Spirit, of course, deliberately omits the birth and the childhood accounts of Jesus. And moves right into the Lord’s miraculous ministry. Apparently, Mark’s train of thought was something like, “I’m going to argue from Christ’s miracles, right away, to His deity. And then I’m going to get right to the greatest miracle and greatest display of deity that this world has ever seen, Jesus’ death and resurrection.” And knowing that the Romans were this people of action. Mark writes out his gospel with this pace that matches their zeal. Forty-two times in the Gospel of Mark, the Greek adverb “euthus” appears. And we’ve seen it in our English bibles, “immediately,” “immediately,” “immediately.” You see it 42 times in his short 16 chapters. That’s more than all the other New Testament gospel authors put together.
So, knowing the short attention span of his action oriented Roman audience, Mark writes his gospel in such a way that he’s noticeably racing toward Jesus’ death, and His burial, and His resurrection.

But if you had to pick a theme of what is at heart of Mark’s gospel, I would say it’s found in Mark 10:45 where we encounter these words from Jesus, familiar passage, familiar words, I’m sure to many of you, Mark 10:45, where He says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” See, Mark’s whole point, as fast paced as he was, in writing this gospel, in his original context, was to convince his Gentile, Roman audience, that if they were to repent and believe in the gospel of this Servant-Savior, they, too, would be saved.

So, Matthew’s got the theme of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah-King. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant-Savior. Next, we come to Luke. And as we’re going to become familiar with very soon, Luke has this very, very sophisticated literary style. He wrote in beautiful, but complex Greek. He has some of the most difficult Greek to work through in the entire New Testament. He was wordy, Luke and I would have gotten along, he was a very wordy man. In fact, his word count exceeds that of any other New Testament author, including Paul. You put Luke and Acts together, he wrote more New Testament words, Luke did, than anyone else.

Now in Luke, the gospel that bears Luke’s name, what he does is he presents Jesus as the Son of Man. In fact, Luke’s gospel has that word, “Son of Man,” that title, “Son of Man…” I think it’s twenty-four times in that gospel, often Jesus referencing Himself. And that is to say -- say that Jesus is the “Son of Man” -- is to say that He is perfectly divine and perfectly human. He is in the line of Adam, in the sense that He is a human, a real human being, just like one of us. But he’s at the same time not at all like anyone of us, because he has divine blood, divine lineage. And that “Son of Man” language also ties in with Him being that promised Messiah. The One vividly portrayed all the way back in Daniel 7, where we see Daniel having in that vision in Daniel 7:13 of “One like a Son of Man [who] was coming.” Now, we know, as we read our way through the entirety of the scriptures, that that same One that was like a Son of Man in Daniel 7, will some day come to this earth and rule over the nation of Israel and bring blessings to the entire world during His millennial reign.

And as we get deeper into our study of Luke we’re going to see that the Lord Jesus was presented just as such. In fact, we can go over to Luke 1, I’ve already quoted from it, but you can see it with your own eyes here in Luke 1. We can see here, Luke 1:32, how the angel Gabriel describes to Mary who her son Jesus would be. Look at Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.”

Jesus also presented His own ministry and role this way. In fact, go over to Luke 4:16. It says, after His temptation in the wilderness and the start of His public ministry… Look at Luke 4:16, and it says, “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stook up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.’ And he closed the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ ” So, this is how Jesus is presented in the gospel of Luke: as this promised Messiah of Israel; the Savior who was initially offered to His people, the Jews, but the One who would be eventually rejected and slain by His people. And then later, by His own resurrection proving that He was and is who He claimed to be.

Now, there are a number of other unique features of Luke. And we could spend all day talking about these. I’m just giving you some tid-bits here. But there are a number of features of Luke that I think make Luke, Luke, that are worth exploring because we’ll be in this book, not Mark and Matthew and John, in the years to come. For starters (and you can just take basic notes on this), as a good historian, Luke in his gospel places a real heavy emphasis on people, and details about these people, and details about their circumstances and their setting. In fact, he gives special attention to certain people that are not even mentioned in the other gospels, like Zacharias, and Elizabeth, and Simeon, and Anna, and Zaccheus. And there’s much detail about each one of them. Luke also places significant emphasis on women. Luke’s gospel refers to women 43 times, far more than any other individual gospel. And that includes, again Elizabeth, and Anna, Peter’s mother-in-law, and Mary and Martha, and Jairus’ daughter, and the woman with the discharge of blood, and the women who are present at the cross, and the women who were present at the burial of Jesus. We also can’t forget that in Luke’s gospel the birth of Jesus is given and accounted from Mary’s perspective. In Matthew it’s from Joseph’s perspective, but in Luke it’s from Mary’s.

Luke is also very heavy in his recording of Jesus’ use of parables. There are 22 references to parables in the Gospel of Luke. And 17 of those parables are found only in Luke’s gospel. Such as the parable involving two debtors, or the rich fool and his barns, or the barren fig tree, or the lost coin.
Luke is also not shy about recording the miraculous in his gospel. To be exact, his gospel records twenty different miracles, six of which are unique to Luke. Such as the catch of fish in Luke 5, or the raising of the widow’s son in Luke 7, or the healing of the woman who had that eighteen-year sickness brought on by a spirit in Luke 13, or the healing of the man who had dropsy in Luke 14, (I had to look up what dropsy is. It’s like what edema would be today, painful swelling, heart related condition.), the cleansing of the ten lepers in Luke 17, the restoring of Malchus’ ear after it was cut off by Peter in Luke 22.

Luke also places heavy emphasis on prayer, specifically, the prayer life of Jesus, in stressing His humanity as the Son of Man. We see that account in Luke 3 of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus after His baptism while He was praying. We see that after preaching and healing Jesus often went into solitary places to pray, Luke 5:16. Before He selected the twelve apostles, Luke 6 says Jesus spent all night in prayer. The transfiguration, Luke 9 records, occurred while He was praying. He prayed three times in Gethsemane in anticipation of the cross in Luke 22.

Luke also places great emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. As Luke records it, that John the Baptist, Luke 1:15, was prepared by the Spirit. The Spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism in Luke 3. The Spirit led Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan in Luke 4. The Spirit empowered Jesus for His preaching and healing ministries, also in Luke 4. And after His resurrection Jesus predicted, in Luke 24, that His apostles would carry out the Great Commission in the power of the Spirit, which the book of Acts then so vividly portrays.
So, that’s a thumbnail sketch. We’ll get into a lot more of this next week and the weeks to come, of the Gospel of Luke and its major themes.

What about John, the fourth gospel? Well, John is unique in a lot of ways, can’t get into all of them this morning, but he presents Jesus as the Son of God. So, there’s Matthew presenting Jesus as Christ, the Jewish King and Messiah; Mark, He’s the Servant Savior; Luke, He’s the Son of Man; and in the Gospel of John, He’s the Son of God.

Evangelistic in purpose, John’s gospel is written to convince his readers that the historical person of Jesus is the promised Messiah, He is the incarnate Son of God, and that by believing upon His name his readers might inherit eternal life. In fact, that is his purpose statement. Go over with me to John 20, John gives the most clearly articulated purpose statement of any of the four gospel writers, we see it in John 20:30-31. Look at John 20, starting in verse 30, it says, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Now, note that reference at the beginning of verse 30, to signs, “many other signs Jesus also did.” See, John’s approach, unlike the synoptic gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke, was instead of tracing out a chronological life of Jesus as they did, he takes several of Jesus’ miracles, signs, and he structures the heart of his gospel around each of those miracles and those signs. And he has this specific purpose statement he gives us here, to show his audience that Jesus was, in fact, God Incarnate, divine and human, God and man, or as it said here, the Son of God.

So, piecing it all together, the four gospels give us this very clear picture of Jesus. He’s the Messiah-King. He’s the Servant-Savior. He’s the Son of Man, He’s the Son of God, four portraits of one Jesus, which communicate that singular saving gospel message centered all around Jesus’ life, and death, and burial, and resurrection. So, take a breath. That’s a bit of the biographical data about each of the human authors of the four gospels. We’ve just gone over some of the major themes and emphasis of each of these gospels.

Now, I want to take a little time addressing the fact that with four different authors, with four different themes, and each coming from a different perspective, there can be times in which the gospel authors say things that just sound different. They are sometimes different and if we’re not discerning and if we don’t have the requisite trust in the scriptures, they can even appear as though what they are saying might contradict each other. So, what are we to do with that?

Well, I come from the world of practicing law, that’s my background. And the law field is this world in which the testimony of eyewitnesses is king. In any legal proceeding, the testimony of an eyewitness has so much value. So, I’m just going to have you go with me on a hypothetical journey, okay, to the Lancaster County Court downtown. And we’re going to step into the gallery of a courtroom where this trial is going on over an exploding lawn mower owned by a man named Fred Smith. (Its lawn-moving season, it was just on my mind.) Okay? Smith was on his riding mower when suddenly it caught fire and he was badly burned. Four witnesses… this is all hypothetical… four witnesses are called to the stand and they all bring out different details about what they saw happen to poor Mr. Smith.

One man is this middle-aged man, and a total gearhead. And he testifies that Smith’s John Deere was a 48-inch, six-and-a-half-bushel twin bagger. (I don’t know what that means, but I wrote it down.) Another guy is this elderly man who remembers specific aspects of the weather that day, the wind was blowing. And he mentions how the rays of the sun, as the sun was setting in the west, sort of obscured the color of the flames that were engulfing Smith, so he couldn’t quite tell how hot the heat was. Another witness, this third witness, is the teenage girl who was walking by and all she remembers is how loud the explosion was. It was so loud, in fact, that she heard the boom over the AirPods that are permanently lodged in her ears. It was that loud. The fourth witness is this young woman who lives across the street from where this whole incident happened. And she remembers how Fred’s wife and children came running out of their house, with looks of terror in their eyes as the riding mower went up in flames.

Four witnesses, one event. Now, each of those witnesses describing this same exact event, but they’re doing so from different angles, from four different perspectives. None is being untruthful, their perspectives are just unique. And through their unique perspectives and testimony, we now have this fuller account of what actually happened to poor Fred Smith. So it is with the four gospel accounts. They are truthful, yet unique, accounts of the life, death, burial and resurrection of our Lord.

Now, that opens up a whole other door of exploration for us. Knowing that the gospel writers offered their unique perspectives on what they witnessed and what they wrote down, we have to now remember that there are no contradictions in scripture. The bible, the scriptures, come from God, we saw that earlier, and God being holy and perfect in His character He cannot lie. Therefore, His word cannot make mistakes or have errors in it. So, how do we account for the fact that these gospel accounts have no contradictions and they have no errors, but they have these differences? And what are we to do with these differences and how are we to reckon with these differences? Because these have real life consequences and real meaning to us as we engage with the scriptures in the four different gospels.

Here's an example of what I mean: Jesus’ encounter with the demon-possessed man from the region of the Gerasenes. It’s recorded in the three synoptics, Matthew 8, in Mark 5, and in Luke 8. Now, in Mark and Luke’s account of this encounter only one demon-possessed man is mentioned, but in Matthew’s account he mentions two demon-possessed men. So, what are we to do with that? Was it one demon-possessed man or was it two? The answer is it was two, there were two demon-possessed men involved with one apparently being more prominent, and standing out more clearly, in the memories of Mark and Luke at least.

See, the other night, Asher and Eli, two of my sons, and I were returning from Eli’s baseball practice. And as we’re driving home, we’re heading east, we saw this fire truck and this ambulance coming our way, lights are flashing and the sirens are blaring. And I pulled over to the right-hand side, I think that’s the law here, was in California. So, I pull over and the boys have questions, like, “Dad, why are we stopping? Why are you stopping? Why are we not going home?” And I said to them, “I have to pull over to make way for that fire truck.” Now, I could have also said, and could have easily said, “I have to pull over to make way for that fire truck and ambulance,” but I didn’t. I just said, “I have to pull over to make way for that fire truck.”
It's the same thing with these gospel accounts of the Gerasene demoniac, there were two demon-possessed men, but Mark and Luke were focused more on that first demon-possessed man to the exclusion of the other. Just like I was focused on the fire truck to the exclusion of the ambulance. No contradiction, just ordinary human perception.

Here’s another example, of how to handle these different takes and perceptions from the different gospel writers. Now, what was written above Jesus on the cross at His crucifixion? Well, each of the gospel writers record it a bit differently. Does that mean there’s a contradiction? No. Here’s how Matthew records it, this is how Matthew records the inscription on the cross on which Jesus was crucified, this is Matthew 27:37, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” Go to Mark, Mark 15:26, it says, “the inscription of the charge against Him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ ” So, it’s, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” in Matthew. Mark says, “The King of the Jews.” Then, you go to Luke, Luke 23:38 says, “there was also an inscription above Him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ ” So, now we have, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews,” “This is the King of the Jews,” “This is the King of the Jews.” How about John? John 19:19 says that the inscription said, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” Are we confused yet, I mean, are we ready to pull our hair out? Are we ready to curl up in a ball in the corner and quit? Throw our hands up and say, “The liberals win, the doubters were right, the skeptics were right to be skeptical, the bible contradicts itself.” Or do we do the hard work of harmonizing these accounts by piecing these four descriptions together, and seeing that there’s actually no contradiction at all. The most reasonable conclusion to arrive at, by looking at these four different descriptions, from these four different authors, is that that inscription above the cross said, “This is Jesus, the Nazarene, the King of the Jews,” that’s how you harmonize them. And each individual gospel writer recorded that part of the inscription which they remembered to record while moved by the Holy Spirit.

Here’s another one, the parable of the mustard seed. In Matthew’s account, it’s recorded this way… And feel free to turn with me, if you’d like, to Matthew 13:31. This is the parable of the mustard seed. It’s recorded this way of Jesus by Matthew. It says, “He presented another parable to them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is the largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches’.” Keep your finger there, and turn with me now, to Mark 4 where we have Mark telling of Jesus giving this parable in Mark 4:30. Mark 4:30 says, “And He was saying, ‘How shall we compare the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smallest of all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes largest of all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that “the birds of the air can nest under its shade’.”

Did you catch the difference there? According to Matthew’s recounting of this parable, Jesus says that the birds of the air nest in the branches of the mustard tree. According to Mark, Jesus says the birds of the air nest under the shade of the mustard tree. So, which is it, which is accurate? Which statement is actually and attributable to Jesus? Well, the answer is both. Apparently, when Jesus gave this parable, He spoke of birds of the air nesting and resting on the branches of the mustard tree. And He spoke of the birds of the air nesting under the shade of the mustard tree. These two statements certainly don’t contradict each other. Since a bird, just think if it, can simultaneously be perched upon a branch of a mustard tree, and still be receiving its shade. But Matthew here zeroed in on and reported on one aspect of the teaching. And Mark zeroed in on and homed in on another.

We need to move on. Back to the bigger picture of surveying the gospels as we launch this study of Luke. Here’s another important matter we need to cover, as we work our way through this survey. And that’s the matter of audience, to whom were the gospel writers writing? Now, we are a church which is committedly and unashamedly dispensational in our theology. And what that means, just to boil it down for our purposes this morning, is that through our commitment to a consistent, literal-grammatical-historical approach to the reading of the scriptures, we believe the scriptures plainly teach a distinction between Israel and the Church. And that there will be a future for restored national Israel. God’s not done with Israel. And what that means practically, is we don’t read Old Testament passages through the lens of the New Testament. I’m railing constantly about not reading the bible backwards. We don’t find Jesus on every page of the Old Testament. And we don’t confuse the New Testament Church, which wasn’t started and founded until Acts 2, with Old Testament Israel. So, I want to set the stage with that.

But now, I’m going to say something that might ruffle some feathers. Because there are certain individuals within dispensational circles, who I would call hyper-dispensationalists or ultra-dispensationalists, and what they’ll teach is that the gospels, like the four gospel accounts, don’t apply to Christians today. And the argument that they’ll make is that because the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were writing about a time, namely, Jesus’ earthly ministry, before the church existed, and since today we’re living in the Church Age, the gospels don’t apply to us. Rather, what they’ll say, is that the only thing that we need to read, and the only thing we need to hear, and the only thing that governs our lives, as church-age saints, is what’s given to us in the church epistles, what was written to the churches later, through the pens of Paul and James, for instance.

I’m not with that line of argumentation, just let that be said, and neither should you be. And here are a few reasons why. First, I concede that the ministry of Jesus on earth, meaning the very life of Christ recorded in each of the four gospels, did take place before the Spirit came and before the Church was established. But let’s not forget that the gospel accounts, what we have as the gospels, were written after the Church had already been established. The Church was established, Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, somewhere around the year A.D. 33. The gospels weren’t written, the Synoptic Gospels weren’t written, until like the years 50, 60 A.D. And the Gospel of John wasn’t written until the 80’s or 90’s A.D. Meaning, that though the events in the gospels took place before the Church Age, the gospel writings themselves are a product of the Church Age. The gospels, in other words, are Church Age documents, just like Acts, just like the epistles, just like the book of Revelation.

Second, though Jesus’ words, as recorded in the gospels, in their original context, undoubtedly were directed to the Jews of His day, we can’t forget that everything given to us, meaning the Church in the bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments, in all four gospels, is profitable.
2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” It doesn’t say, just the letters of Paul. Numbers is profitable, Malachi is profitable, Esther is profitable. Guess what? Luke is profitable as well. Everything written in the bible, Old Testament and New, is written for our instruction, so that we might grow in respect to godliness. And as Romans 15:4 says, so that “we might have hope.”
Romans 15:4 says, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through the perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Third, let’s not forget that the New Testament epistles, specifically, those epistles that are addressed to churches, the very epistles that the hype-dispensationalists will say are our only legitimate source of authority in the Church Age… Well, those epistles include, guess what, the teachings of Christ. And where do you think Paul got his ammunition, so to speak, as he wrote those letters to the churches at Corinth and Ephesus and Philippi? Where do you think he received and developed his doctrinal convictions and statements? From Christ. Christ is the corner stone of the Church, Ephesian 2:20. The apostles were taught by Jesus and they passed along His teachings -- the very teachings, by the way, we see recorded in the gospels -- in the letters they then wrote to different churches. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with going back to the source, “ad fontes,” to the words of Christ Himself in the gospels, to consider how we ought to live and function as His followers today.

Now, pop quiz. Was the Sermon on the Mount written to the Church? No, it wasn’t.
Were the Beatitudes written to the Church? No, they weren’t. Were the teachings of Christ, as recorded in the gospels, spoken directly to the Church, were they addressed to the Church? No, they weren’t. The Church didn’t exist at that point in time, when Christ said those things and issued those words. But are the teachings of Christ, as recorded in the gospels, for the Church? Without a doubt, absolutely they are.

Let’s put that theory to the test, about Christ’s teachings in the gospels not being directed to the Church, but yet being for the Church. In the Sermon of the Mount, Christ says to those who are gathered around Him and listening, that they are to be broken and repentant over their sin. As Christians, are we to be broken and repentant over our sin? Absolutely. Are we to be gentle in spirit as Christians? As Christians are we to hunger and thirst after righteousness? As Christians are we to be peacemakers, and pure in heart, and avoiding lustful thoughts, and fleeing from adultery? Of course, we are.
All scripture needs to be read. All scripture needs to be studied. All scripture needs to be taught in the Christian Church today. It’s all God-breathed, and profitable for what we’re doing right now, teaching. Now, I do understand -- and don’t mishear me when I say this -- not all scripture is equally applicable to us today. It’s for us today, but it’s not all equally applicable. There’s a reason that we’re not offering animal sacrifices in the South Lobby at church here this morning. Right? It’s not applicable. But all scripture is profitable, from Malachi to Matthew, from the Sermon on the Mount to Paul’s letters to the churches. Our job is to draw out those timeless, eternal principles that we read in God’s word, and to live more faithful and consecrated and devoted lives. And to give reverence and obedience to the Lord which He is due.

One final set of comments for this morning as we wrap up this survey of the four gospels. And this builds on what I just said about determining which commands and principles given to us in the gospels still do apply to us today, as church-age believers. I’ve just made the blanket statement that it’s wrong and it’s faulty to make the blanket statement that the gospels as a whole don’t apply to us in the Church Age. But that being so, as we work our way through individual sections and chapters and verses in the gospels, we still need to be careful and discerning and cautious as we engage with these various promises and commands given in the gospels, to determine whether they apply directly to us today, or not.

I’m going to give you just a couple of final interpretive handles to grab onto here. First, just simply look for clues in what you’re reading. The language of a passage in a gospel could make it very clear that it’s a universal truth, or a generally-applicable truth, or a timeless truth. Look for words like ‘whosoever will’ or ‘anyone who.’ I mean, we quote John 3:16, legitimately, “whoever believes… will have eternal life.” But on other occasions, we’ll go through a careful reading of a text from the gospels, and that reading will reveal that a promise that was given in this context was very personal and very direct to the audience that was right in front of Jesus. For instance, in the upper room in John 14:26, Jesus says to His disciples that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” Who’s He talking to? Is He talking to everyone here, right now? No, He’s addressing His disciples.

Or what about Luke 12:11, where He says, “Now,” this is Jesus, “when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” Now, is that giving license to every Sunday School teacher or preacher of God’s word to totally wing it, because the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say? No! Those words are limited by their context. The Sunday School teacher, the bible preacher doesn’t just party up on Saturday night, because the Holy Spirit’s going to give him the words he needs in the hour in which he’ll need to say it. No, he’s compelled by 2 Timothy 2:15, to “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”

Here’s the second broad principle, work hard to establish the context of what you’re reading. Just like real estate agents talk about location, location, location, good bible students, good bible exegetes, students of the gospels specifically, need to be committed to context, context, context. We think of Matthew 18. How many prayer meetings and men’s breakfast meetings have started with somebody, very zealous to do good, standing up and declaring that Christ is now with them at the prayer meeting, or the men’s breakfast, because there are more than two or three gathered in His name? Friends, Jesus Christ is Almighty God, and as such, He is in His very person and essence, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is, at all times, everywhere, by virtue of being God. He doesn’t need the permission of a few early morning, prayer warriors to enter into their presence. He’s already with them, always. No, the context of Matthew 18, is what? -- church discipline. The ‘two or more gathered’ idea is given in the context of confrontation and potentially expelling an unrepentant professed follower of Christ. So, when Jesus in Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst,” what He’s saying is that “I’m in the midst of these concerned, discerning followers of Mine, and I’m supporting, backing, their decision to kick that unrepentant person out of the church.”

The point is, when reading the bible generally, and the gospels specifically, we need to be very careful that we do not cherry-pick verses that don’t apply to us. But instead, be discerning as we seek to read and apply God’s timeless word.

I’ve run out of time for this morning. But that was our first sermon in the Gospel of Luke, which really wasn’t a sermon, and really wasn’t about the Gospel of Luke, at least not exclusively. Hopefully, what this morning’s message has done, though, is given us sort of a landscape portrait of where the Gospel of Luke fits in the genre of the four different gospel accounts. And some thoughts we should be thinking, some discernment we should be exercising, as we engage with Luke’s writing. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll start a survey of the Gospel of Luke next week. I’ll look forward to that time together.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for the privilege that we had this morning to think of these introductory matters related to the gospels, the four accounts of the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I pray what this has done is simply reinforced what many of us already know and believe, that Your word is truth, and it’s timeless, and it’s pure, and it has all that we need pertaining to life and godliness. And in our context, today, it really frames up our study of this multi-year, Lord-willing-adventure, of the Gospel of Luke. God, prepare our hearts, please, to humbly receive Your word in the days and the months ahead. Help us to be conformed more and more to the image of our Savior, the One this gospel speaks of and testifies to. Help us to study this book, to bring glory to Your name. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen