GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:3a
3 It seemed good to me also, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very beginning, to write an orderly account for you,
Luke does not say that he has been investigating from the start, as if he were an eyewitness to Jesus’ birth and ministry, but rather than he has investigated, done his research, all the way back to the beginning of the life of Jesus.
What might Luke’s investigation into everything from the very beginning have been? We certainly get the impression that he spoke with Mary and with some of the Apostles; perhaps others as well who saw Jesus, who heard him, and who were still living in Galilee and Judea. Luke’s trip to Jerusalem at the conclusion to Paul’s third missionary trip would have given him access (albeit brief) to quite a few Christians whose memories of the Lord were less than thirty years old. After staying with Mnason in Caesarea (Acts 21:16), Luke travelled to Jerusalem when Paul met with the elders of the Christian church there including James, the brother of Jesus and author of the Epistle of James (Acts 21:17-25; James 1:1). Unfortunately, after just seven days, an accusation of false teaching against Paul and a misunderstanding about Paul’s association with a Gentile Christian led to Paul’s arrest and eventually his prison sentence in Rome. However, those seven days and the time spent in Ceasarea may have been one of the key periods of Luke’s research.
Certain details come out of Luke’s homework which might have been inferred from the other Gospels but which are stated clearly only by Luke. For example, when Jesus was baptized, there were others being baptized by John as well (Jesus’ baptism was not a private ceremony, Luke 3:21). The genealogy Luke presents is not that of Joseph (Jesus’ legal but foster father) but of Mary (Luke 3:23-38). During the temptation, the devil’s display of “all the kingdoms of the world” was done “in an instant” (Luke 4:5). There is a detail when Jesus drives out a demon from the man in the synagogue of Capernaum that the demon “threw the man down” when it was expelled “without injuring him” (Luke 4:35). These and many, many other details show that Luke did his work thoroughly and carefully, and of course there are a considerable number of passages in Luke that are unique to his Gospel.
One account which Luke omits is the story of Jesus walking on the water on the evening after he fed the 5,000. While this story is related by Matthew (14:22-33) and Mark (6:47-51) and is one of the more important accounts in John (6:16-71), it is altogether omitted by Luke. Perhaps he felt that Matthew and Mark had done the story justice.
We should notice the term “an orderly account” (Greek kathexes, καθεξῆς). This adverb means to do things in order (like Jesus going through the towns “from one village to another,” Luke 8:1). This doesn’t mean that everything in Luke’s Gospel is precisely in chronological order, but presented in an orderly fashion. Luke tends to group parables together, whether or not they were delivered by Jesus at the same time. Some things, such as the infancy narrative (chapters 1-2) are certainly in sequence, as is the story of the Lord’s Passion. But other things might be more topically arranged.
This is something for us to consider from time to time as the book unfolds, but it’s really secondary to the main point, that Jesus Christ the Son of God came to rescue mankind from our sins.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota