Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 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, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
(Luke 1:1-4 ESV)
The first four verses of his Gospel form Luke’s introduction to it. We shall be giving more detailed attention to them than to any of the following sections; but they are worth such close study, because they are the foundation of all the rest.
It is the commentaries, rather than expositions like this one, which discuss how Luke has written his preface—the good classical Greek style of it—and also the person to whom Luke is writing: whether he is actual or imaginary, whether Theophilus is his real name or a pseudonym, whether ‘Your Excellency’ indicates his official rank or is merely a courtesy title, and whether he is a Christian convert or an interested outsider. (None of these questions has a certain answer, except perhaps that 1:4 seems to imply that he is a real person). We shall concentrate rather on what Luke claims to be writing. What may we expect to find as we begin to read his Gospel? What, according to this introduction, is it?
We shall find, first, that it is one of many ‘Gospels’ produced about the same time, each of which claimed to be a narrative of certain facts about Jesus Christ; secondly, that it is Luke’s own particular presentation of the facts; and thirdly, that it is a handbook designed to be of real value to all who put themselves in the position of Theophilus, as interested readers. This is what Luke’s preface will tell us.
1. His pattern: the gospel in the second-generation church
[Luke, Page 24]
The first generation of the Christian church was that of the apostles. It comprised many people who had known Jesus personally. They had no need of books to tell them about him, for their memories, minds, and hearts were full of him. Nor did they pass on their knowledge to others in the form of orderly narratives. An early history of the church describes how Peter, for example, ‘used to adapt his instructions to the needs [of the moment]’,1 drawing readily on whichever of his vivid recollections of Jesus was most appropriate for the audience to which he happened to be speaking.
The next generation, to which Luke and others like him belonged, was in a different position. In a sense such people could say, ‘The words and deeds of Jesus were “accomplished among us” ’ (1:1), being part of the story of their own times. But since nevertheless those facts had had to be ‘delivered’ to them (1:2), they—the men of the second generation—were not actual eyewitnesses. The facts had come to them in various forms (accounts of the Lord’s death and resurrection, of his sayings, of his miracles, and of other matters concerning him which it was important for Christian converts to know); the reconstruction and study of these early accounts are therefore known as form-criticism. For their own benefit, however, and for the benefit of generations yet to come, these men saw the value of having the facts about Jesus woven into a systematic whole. With this object in mind, Mark, for instance, is said to have written down what the apostle Peter used to tell of the ‘Jesus story’.2 Luke claims to have followed the same way.
He tells us that many writers set about this task. Little of their work however has survived,3 and only the four Gospels included in our New Testament have stood the tests of time and use. Even so, it is worth considering these literary efforts, of which Luke’s Gospel is an outstanding example, to see what exactly they were.
a. The sources of the ‘Gospels’ (1:2)
just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,
(Luke 1:2 ESV)
For convenience we may call them ‘Gospels’, and although hardly anything of them remains we may yet draw some conclusions about them from the way Luke refers to them here.
They all derived from ‘those who … were eyewitnesses and ministers’. These were not two groups of people, but two descriptions of the same group: men who witnessed, in the double sense of that word—as they had seen, so they spoke. The following would be a literal translation of what Luke calls them: ‘Those who were-eyewitnesses-from-the-beginning and became-ministers-of-the-word’. In fact, of the two books by Luke which we have in our Bible, his Gospel might be summarized by the first phrase, and the book of Acts by the second. The ascension of Jesus is the pivot between the two.4 From that event Luke’s first volume looks back to ‘the beginning’,5 and beyond; it tells us what the eyewitnesses had seen. His second volume looks onwards from the ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit, and tells us what they said and did once they had become ministers of the word.
We have pictured Mark and Luke both engaged in the same kind of work, writing down what they heard from eyewitnesses. Another factor however needs to be borne in mind. There is so close a resemblance between much of Mark’s Gospel and much of Luke’s (and of Matthew’s too, for that matter) that scholars presume some sort of literary connection between the first three Gospels. In the case of Luke, for example, it is usually suggested that he had Mark’s Gospel before him as he wrote, and probably other written records, now lost, as well. If this is so, it means that Luke saw nothing incongruous about claiming that his account rested on first-hand testimony, yet incorporating in it much of Mark’s second-hand report. The point surely was that the accuracy of all these accounts could still be checked with original eyewitnesses.6 The commission of the twelve was, in part, that they should act as just such a testimony to apostolic truth,7 and by that standard all New Testament scripture not actually written by them—even the teachings of Paul8—might be judged apostolic, and therefore dominical.
b. The contents of the ‘Gospels’ (1:1b)
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us,
(Luke 1:1 ESV)
Accordingly, the Gospel narratives consisted of the things which were ‘accomplished’ by Jesus in the sight of the apostles, and then ‘delivered’ by them to those who had not themselves seen him.
[Luke, Page 26]
They were, basically, a set of facts. It is true that no amount of head-knowledge can save a man’s soul, and in that sense a mere ‘set of facts’ does not in itself have any spiritual value. Yet a well-defined series of statements seems to have been precisely what successive generations of the church were to guard and to hand on—‘the traditions’ about Jesus.9 They were the things which the ‘eyewitnesses’ had seen ‘accomplished’, a settled group of facts which were to be reported ‘exactly as’ they had been received,10 and from which a continuous ‘narrative’ could be composed by arranging them in a certain order (which is the meaning of ‘to compile’).
These are what we find as the core of the earliest Christian message, when in Acts 2:22f. we read a set of statements about Jesus. But the context there shows that we have to do with something much more far-reaching than mere academic head-knowledge. For the facts, selected with the interpreting wisdom of the Spirit of God which turns history into theology, are now being preached, in the living power of that same Spirit; and the result is that they cut men to the heart and bring them to repentance.11
So what had been ‘accomplished’ is now being ‘delivered’; Peter the eyewitness has now become Peter the minister of the word, and that word is proving itself to be ‘living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.’12 The apostles ‘had discovered among their memories of Jesus that which met the deepest needs of men.’13
We can see, then, what these earliest ‘Gospels’ attempted to be, with greater or less success, and therefore what we may expect Luke’s Gospel to be, since it is one of them. We shall find that it is, in fact, a version of the ‘Jesus story’, an account of actual events. It is not a theory, or an idea, or a philosophy, or even a religion. It is the tale of a thing that really happened. Yet it is not mere history, for it does something to the people to whom it is proclaimed. Those who witnessed the original events found that when the story was preached, it changed men’s lives. And those who, like Luke, wrote it up, reckoned that in this form also it would have a similar effect on those who, like Theophilus, would read it.
The Victorian heyday of preaching was followed by a long period of reaction, in which the authoritative declaring of facts was at a discount and
suave politeness, tempering bigot zeal,
Corrected ‘I believe’ to ‘One does feel’.14
It would be pleasant to know that we are now out of that particular wood; but I doubt whether we are. So it is worth reminding ourselves how much store these early Christians set by the plain proclamation of the ‘Jesus story’. Whether it was spoken by the first-generation apostles, or written by the second-generation evangelists, they expected it to be effective; and it is so still.
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