20241229 Luke 1:1-4 We can have confidence in the Scriptures

What is your relationship to your Bible? Tim Mackie compares our relationship to our Bibles to our relationship to a strange uncle. You have to interact with him at family events because he’s family, but he behaves strangely. We have to love our Bible because it is God’s Word, but when we start reading it, we must admit that it is strange! It includes supernatural beings, miracles, strange laws, and violence.

So what role does the Bible have in your life?

Luke 1:1-4 offers one of the clearest statements on why we can read our Bible. Luke wrote his Gospel so that Theophilus “would know with certainty the things [he was] taught.” We can read Luke's Gospel to have certainty about Jesus.

The divine origin of the Bible should be enough for us to trust the Bible. Since God cannot lie, we trust His word. Luke 1:1-4 shows that aspects of its human origins can also give us confidence in our Bibles.

Our Bible are both the work of humans and the very words of God. The way they are both at the same time is a miracle, called the doctrine of Inspiration. According to 2 Tim 3:16-17 and 1 Pet 1:21 Scripture is God-breathed. Every author of the Bible was carried along by the Holy Spirit so that the words the human writer wrote, were also the words of God.

We need to hold a tension. In academia, scholars often highlight the human origin of the Bible and ignore the Bible's divine authorship. In church we can neglect the human authorship, and historical factors involved in the production of scripture. We can give the impression that our English translations fell down from the sky. We treat them like our personal manuals for life. Or we treat them like a book of spells, from which we can quote a verse to solve a problem. To properly understand the Bible we must consider both its human and divine origin. Our text focusses on the human origin.

In the Greek Text, Luke 1:1-4 is one long awkward, complicated sentence. It's main clause with the main verb is: “It seemed good for me to write.” The reason follows, “that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

Luke gives three reasons his readers can have certainty concerning the Christian message. The first reason is what is being accomplished in the church. The second reason to trust the Scriptures are the eyewitnesses. The third reason is that Luke has paid close attention to the events and wrote an orderly account.

Luke 1:1 First, we can have certainty in the Scriptures because of the events accomplished among them.

Luke 1:1

We can trust the Scriptures because of what we experience in a Christian community. Luke writes that these events “have been accomplished among us.” Luke was not a first-generation Christian and he writes of Jesus’ ministry, death, burial, resurrection as the events being accomplished in his community. The Greek word for “accomplished” suggests an ongoing aspect of the fulfillment in the community.

Application

Paul Tripp speaks of a time after church when a gentleman on his way out thanked him for the sermon and then said, "Now, back to the real world.” The comment suggested that his sermon or the scriptures were not relevant for “the real world.” In Luke 1:1, Luke, a second generation believer, says the ministry of Jesus was accomplished in his Christian community. The Bible must speak to the experience of Christians.

When I first attended a church, I was an atheist. It did not take long for me to experience the love of this Christian community. When I became born-again, my experience of salvation was the same as what I read in the Bible. It was also the experience of others in the church. I could see the effect of Jesus death, burial, and resurrection being accomplished among us, in the church. In return, I became more certain of what I was reading in the Scriptures.

God is moving in Christian communities and around the world. Jesus died for the sins of those who believe in Him. God sends his Spirit to apply the work of Christ to believers. As a result, people turn from crime. Marriages are healed. Rebellious prodigal children come home. The scriptures confirm our experience of God’s work in the world. The Scriptures explain our experiences. In turn, our experiences give us certainty about what we are taught in the Scriptures.

Luke 1:2 Second, we can have confidence in the Scriptures because of the eyewitness accounts

Luke 1:2

In Luke 1:2, Luke connects the content of his gospel with what people have seen. There are four Gospels in the NT. Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus, so they were eyewitnesses. Mark was not an apostle nor an eyewitness. But testimonies from the early church and internal evidence in his Gospel suggest that he wrote Peter’s words. So we can consider Mark to be an eyewitness account. With these three gospels, the NT offers eyewitness accounts of the life and work of Jesus.

In 2 Pet 1:16, Peter writes probably referring to the Transfiguration, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty!”

Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham wrote an amazing book called “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.” This book helped me appreciate the gospels even more as historical documents. It was often thought that the four gospels are the product of the church that grew over time and fabricated a myth of Jesus’ saving power. Here are some highlights from Bauckham's book.

There was at least 20 years between Jesus’ resurrection and the writing down of the Gospels. This means that at first, the content of the Gospels was transmitted orally. In this time, it was the eyewitnesses who guaranteed the authority and truthfulness of the stories that were shared.

Bauckham shows how much eyewitness accounts were esteemed for the writing of history in the time around Jesus. True history could only be written while events were in living memory of eyewitnesses.

We see this value of eyewitnesses in the Gospels. John continually refers to himself in his gospel as “the beloved disciple.” He reminds us at every important turn, that he was present. In Mark’s gospel, Mark continually highlights Peter being present at every moment showing he was an eyewitness to the events in the Gospel.

At random times in the Gospels names are mentioned. For example in Mark 15:21, at Jesus’ crucifixion, we read “and they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” This is strange unless Rufus and Alexander were known in the Christian community. Adding their names is a reminder that they are eyewitnesses and anyone could go ask them about the events. If you are making things up, you do not include peoples’ names who could counter your version of the facts!

We could be tempted to think that names were added to romanticize the story. Studies have been done on Jewish names in Palestine between 300 BC and 200 AD. Bauckham notes that the distribution of names in this period matches perfectly with what we find in the NT. One example is the name "Mary/Miriam.”There are so many Marys in the NT. It actually reflects the popularity of the name in the first century. If you were make up a story, you would more likely give every character a different name.

To conclude on eyewitnesses, we see that first century writings were concerned about first-hand, eyewitness accounts. We see that Luke had this concern as well. This gives us confidence in the content of his Gospel.

Luke 1:3-4 Third, we can have confidence in the Scriptures because of the author’s careful attention.

This point may be a bit more shocking. We tend to focus on the divine authorship to get confidence in the Scriptures. I agree. I think it is also great to see that the Scriptures were written with a lot of care from the human authors.

In Luke 1:3, Luke writes, it seemed good to him, since he paid close attention from the beginning to carefully write an orderly account. His goal is that Theophilus would be certain concerning what he was taught about Jesus. Luke is writing in order to convince and in order to encourage active faith in Jesus. Luke writes with care and with intent so we can have confidence in his writing.

This writing is the result of experiencing the Jesus movement, being aware of what the eyewitnesses were saying. Now, Luke is writing with care. His product is an orderly account, arranged with the goal of convincing. Luke wants Theophilus to know he put a lot of care in the process of writing. These verses are now in our scriptures and so we can value this as well. God wants us to know that both he cares about the scriptures and the human beings who put it together cared as well.

This should affect how we interpret the Bible.. It is not always possible but our desire is to study the intention of the human author, in light of the historical background, as well as the literary-biblical-theological context.

God is behind the writing of Scripture, and the Bible does not hide its complex history of composition.

This is an example from Jeremiah. This passage sheds incredible insight on the production of the Bible. Jeremiah 36:2 “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today.” Here, The Lord is asking Jeremiah to compile 25 years’ worth of his writings, poems, street preaching. This is amazing. Jer 36:4 so Jeremiah called Baruch the scribe who wrote at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord that the Lord had spoken to him.

By this point in Jeremiah's life, he was banned from the Temple. He sends his scribe Baruch to read it out loud. Word got to the king about Baruch’s reading, and he ordered that it would be cut and thrown into a fire in Jer 36:23. Then in Jer 36:27-28 “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ‘take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which king Jehoiakim has burned…” In Jer 36:32, Jeremiah gives a new scroll to Baruch the scribe, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah, all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim had burned… and similar words were added to them.

The book of Jeremiah tells us how it came to be, and now we know that what we have a second edition. God used a prophet’s intellect and recollection and his scribes ability to make sense and put it all together and we know that the second edition had words similar to the first that were added to it.

The Bible is divine and it has a complex history. We can trust our Bibles because God used zealous individuals who were completely sold on God’s purposes for the world. They did everything so that we would have an accurate record.

If the complicated human history behind the Bible is more challenging than encouraging to you, I want to show what another NT book says about Luke’s Gospel. In 1 Tim 5:18, Paul writes, “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” The first half of the quotation is Deut 24:5, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” The problem with the second half of the verse, “the laborer deserves his wages,” is that it is not found in the Old Testament, nor any other ancient document. It is only found in Luke 10:7. Paul says, “as the Scripture says” and he quotes Luke! It is the same Paul who wrote that all scripture is breathed out by God. So, we have seen that Luke is a carefully ordered by a human and it is Scripture, the Word of God. In reading it, we can know with certainty what it teaches about Jesus.

Conclusion

Someone asked about helpful resources for evangelism. I suggested, "What about the Gospels?" Luke tells us that he wrote his book to convince us about Jesus. Paul calls Luke's Gospel, the words of God! John writes that he wrote his Gospel so people would believe.

The Gospels present the good news of the kingdom of God. Our sins separate us from God. The Gospels share good news about the forgiveness of sins found in Christ. They announce the coming of God's saving Reign in the person and work of Jesus. There are many ways to share our faith. And, I wonder if the NT Gospels can be neglected. They are gospel presentations. Their names tell us this.  They offer accounts of the life of Jesus to teach us about his person and work. 

As we study Luke, we will look at this Gospel as a gospel presentation. It is Luke evangelizing. Evangelism is gospel communication to convince unbelievers of Jesus. It also serves to give believers greater certainty about Jesus. I hope that Luke’s goal will be our goal. As we read and study this Gospel, that we would know with certainty concerning what we know about Jesus.