Topic 13: Birthplace of The Gospel of Luke: From Great Antioch on the Orontes (mid-80s)
I. The Gospel of Luke is the text of the fourth spiritual path, exploration of an unending road of riches, and question of maturing in service.
II. Review of the historical progression of Gospel composition across first century
A) Matthew: early-70s – Antioch– after Jerusalem temple is destroyed. How to face change?
B) Mark: mid-60s – Fire in Rome – How do we move through suffering ?
C) John: mid to late 90s – Ephesus, first time Christian Community diverse – How do we receive Joy
D) Luke: mid-80s – Antioch. How do we mature in service ?. Christianity and Jews break apart
III. Historical context of The Gospel of Luke
A) Luke was written to two wounds or dilemmas shared by all the emerging Christian communities across the Mediterranean. Luke/Acts – largest text – manual of spiritual practice to be servant/leaders We serve by doing the work of conversion .
B) It was composed in Great Antioch in the mid-80s as a book to be carried to all the communities.
IV. First Wound: Jewish Christians were divorced from their mother Judaism
A) After the Jewish Temple was destroyed and the priests massacred in 70, the Pharisees step into vacuum of leadership.
1) Pharisees had no religious authority in Judaism, for their role was not connected to The Temple or Priesthood. They focused on interpreting the law of Moses.
2) Pharisees exert authority by their ability to organize and persuade.
B) Pharisees accomplished great spiritual things for Judaism that led to the birth of the rabbinical movement and a revitalization of their spiritual tradition.
C) After the Temple and Priesthood were gone, the Pharisees for a short time advocated that any who believed the Messiah had already come should be removed from the synagogue and Jewish life. To the Pharisees, these upstarts presented a serious problem, for every convert to Christian belief represented a direct threat to their efforts to sustain traditional Judaism Further, these Christian followers persisted in talking about their beliefs to anyone who would listen, complicating what the Pharisees were working so hard to rebuild
D) Result: Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah were cut off from their families and ancestral religious tradition.
V. Second Wound: Christians persecuted by the Roman Emperor
A) With Jewish Christians being forcibly removed from Judaism, the Emperor realized Christianity was a new religion that posed a particular threat to his power.
1) The name and person of Jesus did not disturb the Emperor, but Christians‘ way of living did.
2) Christians were reaching out to differing ethnicities and socio-economic classes, resulting in the Emperor‘s judgment that the religion was zealous and breaking Roman taboos. They preached a message of oneness.
B) The Emperor criminalized Christianity, and made any member subject to execution because of the religion‘s values and actions that moved the culture toward a more harmonious and just society.
C) Religious persecution by the Empire continued intermittently for some 225 years, until 315 CE.
VI. Luke/Acts is one book in two volumes and forms the largest work in the Christian Testament.
A) It was written to Christian communities who were asking how to stay—even in the face of bitterness, resentment, injustice, lost jobs, no homes and execution –when their desire was to spread hope, reconciliation, justice and love.
B) He instructs the “Followers of the Way” to stringently challenge themselves, speak their truth boldly, yet maintain- inner equanimity and avoid self-righteousness. Faced with opposition on all sides, the course Jesus taught in Luke’s gospel was for the Christian believers to be at peace, rather than taking up arms or trying to effect change through anger. This gospel is filled with instructions about growing into the capacity for mature relationships and compassion and generosity without boundaries.
C) Luke‘s answer to the communities and their dilemma was to stay true to the work of spiritual practice, remembering that deep transformation does not come from the change of a law but rather the slow, steady conversion of one heart at a time.
VII. Who was Luke ?
Luke was an educated Greek and a Gentile, possibly born in Antioch. He is the only Gentile to author any of the books of the New Testament (both Gospel of Luke and Acts). He was also witness to the growth of the first century church and carried the Good News to the Gentiles. He records virtually nothing about himself, but his fellow apostles do reveal some information about him.
Paul records in Colossians 4:14 that Luke is a physician – “Luke, the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). In our day, it would be easy to assume that someone who was a doctor was rich, but scholars have argued that Luke might have been born a slave. It was not uncommon for families to educate slaves in medicine so that they would have a resident family physician.
Paul also describes Luke as a "˜fellow laborer’ in the 24th verse of his letter to Philemon. In 2 Timothy 4:11a, Paul says, "Only Luke is with me." These are the only direct references to Luke in the entire New Testament. What we can infer from this is that Luke must have been a humble man.
He was Paul’s traveling companion Luke first joined Paul’s company at Troas at about the year 51 and accompanied him to Philippi. Luke then switches back to the third person which seems to indicate he was not thrown into prison with Paul and that when Paul left Philippi Luke stayed behind to encourage the Church there.
Seven years passed before Paul returned to the area on his third missionary journey. In Acts 20:5, the switch to "we" tells us that Luke has left Philippi to rejoin Paul in Troas in 58 where they first met up. Luke is the loyal comrade who stays with Paul when he is imprisoned in Rome about the year 61: Paul in his final imprisonment and sufferings, it is Luke who remains with Paul to the end: "Only Luke is with me" (2 Timothy 4:11).
The reports of Luke’s life after Paul’s death are conflicting. Some early writers claim he was martyred, others say he lived a long life. Some say he preached in Greece, others in Gaul. The earliest tradition says that he died at 84 after settling in Greece to write his Gospel.
Uniqueness of Luke
1. Luke showed special sensitivity to evangelizing Gentiles. It is only in his gospel that we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, that we hear Jesus praising the faith of Gentiles such as the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (Lk.4:25-27), and that we hear the story of the one grateful leper who is a Samaritan (Lk.17:11-19). Luke’s unique perspective on Jesus can be seen in the six miracles and eighteen parables not found in the other gospels.
2. Luke is the gospel of the poor and of social justice. He is the one who tells the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man who ignored him. Luke is the one who uses "Blessed are the poor" instead of "Blessed are the poor in spirit" in the beatitudes. Only in Luke’s gospel do we hear Mary ‘s Magnificat where she proclaims that God "has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:52-53).
3. Luke also has a special connection with the women in Jesus’ life, especially Mary. It is only in Luke’s gospel that we hear the story of the Annunciation, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth including the Magnificat, the Presentation, and the story of Jesus’ disappearance in Jerusalem.
4. Forgiveness and God’s mercy to sinners is also of first importance to Luke. Only in Luke do we hear the story of the Prodigal Son welcomed back by the overjoyed father. Only in Luke do we hear the story of the forgiven woman disrupting the feast by washing Jesus’ feet with her tears. Throughout Luke’s gospel, Jesus takes the side of the sinner who wants to return to God’s mercy.