2. His presentation: the Gospel ‘according to Luke’

2.    His presentation: the Gospel ‘according to Luke’

    [1:1] Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, [2] just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, [3] it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, [4] that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
(Luke 1:1-4 ESV)

So far, we have considered the ways in which all these early ‘Gospels’ were alike; now we consider how Luke’s presentation of the facts claims to differ from the others. The earliest title given to the book was simply Kata Loukan, ‘According to Luke’. Let us then see how, according to him, the events of Jesus’s life may best be presented, and note the particular features of his Gospel: thoroughness, accuracy, and order.

a.    Thoroughness

In three Greek words Luke indicates how thorough his researches have been in gathering material for his Gospel. He has ‘followed’ these events, not of course in the sense of observing them, since he was not himself an eyewitness, but in the sense of investigating them. He has followed ‘all things’ that could possibly be relevant to his theme. And he has done so ‘for some time past’, or (better, as in RV) ‘from the start’; by which he means, as we shall see, not ‘from the beginning’ of Jesus’s ministry (as in 1:2), but ‘from the start’ of his earthly life, and even earlier. He is like ‘a traveller who tries to discover the source of a river, in order that he may descend it again, and follow its entire course.’15

[Luke, Page 28]

b.    Accuracy

Luke has surveyed his materials ‘closely’, says RSV. The word carries the idea of exactness, and so RV and other versions agree with RSV’s marginal note in translating it as ‘accurately’. He would undoubtedly have checked and re-checked his findings, and in any case a wealth of archaeological discovery over the past hundred years has shown him to have a remarkably correct eye for detail. The writer who never puts a foot wrong in matters which we can verify may well be trusted implicitly in the rest.
    His thoroughness and his accuracy combine to show us someone who would have had little patience with certain modern approaches to the gospel story. A shift away from old-fashioned destructive criticism, which was so good at seeing through Scripture that it was in danger eventually of seeing nothing in it, is more than welcome. But Luke would have been chagrined to find it replaced by a ‘biblical theology’ which distinguishes between truth and fact, and which enthuses over the one while caring little about the other. For him the two are inseparable. The truth of his Gospel is factual truth. Of course this is not to say that a spiritual message may not sometimes be conveyed by means of myth or fable, where the question ‘Did it really happen?’ is irrelevant. But it is to say that that sort of writing is precisely what Luke is not engaged in. He claims to be investigating, thoroughly and accurately, the facts.

c.    Order

Some have thought that Luke’s ‘orderly account’ meant a story told in chronological order. None of the Gospels, however, yields any very obvious chronology of the life of Jesus, and Luke’s order is much more likely to be a ‘logical and artistic arrangement’ of some kind.16 We may take it that with such an arrangement in mind, he must have surveyed the vast wealth of material—‘all things’ that he had been able to find out about Jesus—and selected from it, as John did in writing his Gospel,17 the items which would best fit his scheme.
    What that scheme is, is not easy to detect at a casual reading. Presumably it is a framework which, like a skeleton, supports the whole structure without making itself obvious. Indeed, this present exposition is to some degree an exercise in anatomy—an attempt to understand the body of the Gospel better by studying its bones.

[Luke, Page 29]

    Some readers may feel, especially with regard to the central section of the Gospel (9:51–19:44), that Luke is unlikely to have had in mind a framework as elaborate as the one I suggest. In this connection three points may be made. The first is that, in the absence of explicit headings and sub-headings provided by Luke himself, no analysis can be anything more than a matter of suggestion. This is all that the present one is meant to be, and it is for the reader to judge whether or not it squares with the contents of Luke’s book. Secondly, it is not unnatural that the critical dissection of the Gospel should seem more complex than any scheme which the author may consciously have planned. The same thing happens with the analysis of a novel or a symphony; and the reason is of course that the critic is interested in the subconscious, as well as the conscious, workings of the maker’s mind. Thirdly, of the two extremes mentioned in my Preface, complexity on the one hand and shapelessness on the other,18 I think it is truer to the character of Luke’s writing as he himself describes it in this verse—thorough, accurate, and (in particular) orderly—that a suggested analysis should err on the side of complexity.
    Here then is a version of the things ‘accomplished’ and ‘delivered’ which is claimed by its author to be in several respects an improvement on similar versions produced by his contemporaries. It should whet our appetite, especially if we have become too accustomed to living on spiritual snacks, to know what pains Luke has taken to prepare this feast. It consists basically of the living facts which were common to all the early ‘Gospels’, but it has been carefully prepared, supplemented with extra courses, and attractively served. We owe it more than a perfunctory nibble.