How To Understand Luke 23

Luke was a medical doctor, a missionary, and evangelist, a historian, a researcher, and the writer of the third Gospel. The book of Luke was written in a formal literacy introduction noting his purpose in writing, his methodology, and the attempts others had made in such writing. Luke is the author of the book and it was written in AD 60 in Caesarea. According to Hindson and Elmer Luke’s purpose is to give “an orderly sequence” of the events about Christ’s birth, life, and sacrificial death followed by his resurrection and ascension back to heaven. The occasion calling for Luke to write his Gospel was that Theophilus, and other new believers like him, needed a clear account of the life and ministry of Jesus as an aid to confirm his faith

Luke was the only author of the Bible who was a physician. His two books in the Bible, which are the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, are constructed in a highly scientific way. He was not present at the time in which the gospel was written and so he had to acquire all of the data through interviewing others to be able to write a truthful account of the stories told. The book of Acts is partly a collection of observations of the events that he witnessed. Through these two methods, Luke was able to construct part of the gospel and a book of the New Testament that radically proclaimed his faith in Jesus Christ and how we should follow him. Luke new how to seek out the truth and then proclaim the truth once he found it. He lived a life that

In today’s Gospel, we read about Matthew 20:1-16. A man hired laborers for his vineyard. The men started at 9 o’clock, and agreed to usual daily wage. Around 5 o’clock, the man met more people standing around. He asked them, “Why do you stand here and idle all day?” The men replied, “Because no one has hired us.” He then told them to work in his vineyard. Later, the man told his foreman, “Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.” When the men who started at 5 o’clock came, they received the usual daily wage. When the the man who started at 9 o’clock came, he received the same wage. The man who worked earlier started to complain about how he worked more, but received the same wage.

I chose to read The Gospel of Luke for my project. It is said that The Gospel of Luke was written somewhere between 80 CE - 90 CE. The Gospel of Luke was written for Theophilus, who was called “Friend of God”. But The Gospel was also written for a wider audience, including converts and potential converts.

This passage is situated at the beginning of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Jesus has returned from Nazareth after several days in the wilderness where the power of the Holy Spirit assisted him in fighting the temptations of the devil. In this story, Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and is now said to be reading from the Torah as was customary. This means that Jesus regularly does this which shows that he is a devout Jew. It was important for him to rest on the Sabbath and go to the synagogue for scripture and teaching on this day. Luke has followed this account with miracle and healing stories depicting Jesus as a compassionate saviour and prophet. Luke arranges the passages in this way in order to ‘write an orderly account’ (1:3) of

This is found by comparing Acts 1:1 with Luke 1:3-4. Acts 1:1: "In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen." Luke 1: 3-4: " (3) Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, (4) so that you may know the certainty of things you have been taught." Because Luke's first book was written to Theophilus as was Acts, Luke must be the author of both.

In the first four verses, Luke gives a short but valuable outline about the nature of the gospel. He says he want to declare those things that are most assuredly believed

He is mentioned to by Paul as "Luke the beloved physician" (Col. 4:14). Luke fixed forth the humanity of the Son of Man and cites it in chronological order the life of Christ. Being a physician, he is more precise when using language. For example, when he indicates a leper he uses the identical medical term to describe the circumstance, for example "full of leprosy" (Luke 5:12). Luke’s gospel is particularly focused towards an individual named Theophilus and is focused on the complete story and past events of Jesus Christ from his birth and ministry to his crucifixion and resurrection. A major theme in Luke’s gospel shows how important the poor were to Jesus and how we should not neglect the poor. Examples of this are seen when the book talks about the distinctive beatitudes “blessed you are poor…hunger now...weep now...” and the distinctive woes “woes to you that are rich...that are full...that laugh now…” which overall say, money and power will tend to bring judgement upon you. In addition, the gospel of Luke refers to certain parables like the Rich man and Lazarus. This sends a message to warn the rich who tend to trust in their riches more than in God, wealth tends to pull us away from God and that if we neglect the poor and prioritize our riches more we will go to hell. Asking oneself- is your existence a blessing for the

In Luke 24:13-35, the story of the risen Jesus was explained, as was the aftermath of the event. Simply put, after Jesus died and was put in the tomb, a woman went looking to witness what had happened. When the woman saw an empty tomb she went on to explain to the town what she saw. Two men were taking on the walk to Emmaus, these men were claimed to be outside of the normal community, and were described as being a queer couple. The men encountered a stranger, who was the actual risen Christ. The two vent to the stranger about the death of their beloved God, not knowing that the stranger in which they are speaking to is him. The men invite the stranger to sleep and to enjoy a dinner with them. During the dinner the two men recognized rituals which were practiced in Jesus’ sermons. They soon realized that this stranger that they encounter on the streets was the one and only Jesus Christ. In this story of Luke, I believe that it is based on two queer men who are confused and having pain caused within their community; forcing them to become outsiders. Jesus recognizes the pain and grief that many experience on

Luke begins his Gospel, which was written in Greek, with a dedication to Theophilus, “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write and orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus…”(Luke

Written in what is believed to be around 80 C.E., the gospel of Luke was third in line of the gospels that made the cut into the new testament. Which means that the author of this gospel was a disciple of Jesus or worked extremely close to a disciple of Jesus, being that is how canon at that time was selected by the early church. The author of Luke is virtually unknown; however, it is believed that they had worked closely with the Apostle Paul, and did some writing in the Acts of the Apostles as well in the new testament. The Author is also been presupposed as Greek instead of Jewish which supports the claim that he worked closely with the Apostle Paul, who was known as the apostle of the Gentiles. The Gospel of Luke is usually grouped with

The Book of Acts has not precisely ascertain its writer. Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-3, can evidently show that the matching writer authored possibly The Book of Luke and The Book of Acts. This history through the oldest era of the church appears to have been that Luke, an associate of the apostle Paul, authored both the Luke and Acts (Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11). Luke’s name was mentioned 3 times in the New Testament. We could conclude that Luke would have been a Gentile. And naturally this fits what we deduced previous: the writer was obviously a knowledgeable person who had been not an apostle however, who had previously been affiliated with them. There are also other evidences that proves the authorship pf The Book of Acts was written by the same person. Both of the Book of Luke and Acts were written to the same person Theophilus. Both Luke and Acts showed strong similarity in language and writing style. Luke and Acts showed mutual interest. (Fairchild) (Wallace)

In Luke 23:1-15 and Mark 15:1-15 there are subtle differences that show the increased writing ability of Luke compared to Mark, and the overall structure of each of the gospels. Although both gospels are telling the story of Jesus’s verdict of crucifixion from Pilate they both come to the end of the story differently in historic details. Luke as a writer likes to convey his stories in the way history would have chronological laid out each of the events versus Mark who just abruptly tells the story. Ehrman 137 states, “Luke’s book is to be taken as a historical piece.” Luke shows this to the readers of his chapters with his writing style of “historiographic” (Ehrman 137). It is believe that Luke was able to form this historic timeline based

The Gospel according to Luke exhibits several differences from the other Synoptic Gospels. Unlike Matthew and Mark who record Jesus saying: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Luke states "Father, into your hands, I commend my Spirit."

The theme of the gospel of Luke talks about the journey of the life of Jesus, Christ. His death, burial, and resurrection. Moreover, his ministry, teachings and parables. As a historian, and physician, Luke was not only eloquent in his writing about Jesus; he also took interest in his early life. The Gospel of Luke also depict Jesus as compassionate, caring, and loving. Likewise, Luke not only put Jesus at the heart of the Jewish world during the first century, but also at the heart of the Roman world, where with the Christian gospel exploded.