Bible Survey - Luke

Among the four Gospels, we're looking at the Gospel of Luke today, so we've been proceeding book by book through the New Testament. And what we will do here is take a focus on the Gospel of Luke, but we start off with this chart that we had last week as well, and that's why four Gospels.

The four Gospels are different. for various reasons, but particularly they are addressed to different audiences. That's one of the reasons I was talking with a fellow who's been persuaded to be skeptical recently. And he was pointing out, well, the Gospels are different. Yes, they are. And one of the primary reasons is they're directed to different audiences. And that explains a lot of the differences.

We'll be taking a look at that briefly here in the Gospel of Luke. And one of the things we have here is the Gospel of Luke is said to be directed to the Hellenists. That isn't just people whose names are Helen, right? But what does it mean to be directed to the Hellenists? What's that all about? According to Helen, they were of Greek culture, but they weren't necessarily of Greek birth. Yeah, their ethnic background is originally Jewish, right?

But then having been exposed to the Greek culture, compliments of Alexander the Great, who enforced Greek language and culture when he conquered. So that the Greek influence was upon these, and Hellenist doesn't have to be Jews, but in this case it is Jews. So if you look at there, two-thirds of the Jews during the Testament times lived outside of Israel. And a great number of those were those who lived in Greek-influenced areas. So Greek language and culture.

So those are the Hellenists, and here's Dr. Luke, and one of the key things that you'll see, and it's at the bottom of his column on the chart, is he often calls Christ the Son of Man. Christ calls Himself, in the Gospel of Luke, the Son of Man. And so, as it says here, a key verse, Luke 19, 10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. a key message in the Gospel of Luke. Now, let's talk about the author, Dr. Luke himself. He's the beloved physician. We find from Colossians 4, 10 through 14, almost certainly a Gentile. As a matter of fact, the only Gentile author in the New Testament.

And you see him also mentioned in 2 Timothy 4.11 in Philemon, which has about one chapter. In Philemon, verse 24. So Dr. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, and we'll be covering Acts in two sections when we get there. Both of those books were written to, and the first one is addressed this way, most excellent Theophilus.

Now, since we find Theophilus mentioned in Luke 1.3 and Acts 1.1, addressed in the first case as most excellent, it's been suggested based on that kind of address, three possibilities, a dignitary or official in the Roman Empire, That's one possibility. And one of the clues to that is going to be in Acts 23, 26, 24, 3, and 26, 25, that was the way you addressed a governor, a Roman governor.

So that would be one possibility. Another is that he is an administrative judge preparing to present Paul's case to Nero. This fellow, John Mock, has written a book with that theme. Not everybody is convinced of it, but that would be one possibility. Another is he might have been a wealthy individual who paid Dr. Luke to write the Gospel of Luke and Acts, perhaps in two parts. First write the Gospel of Luke, okay, I'll pay you for that, and then write the rest of the story in Acts.

Yes? Don't don't know that except in the book of Acts He has he has a nephew come And in fact, it's the nephew that informs him that the Jews have got a plot to kill him so that would seem to imply that he was not unless you get some complicated situation there and But we don't know for sure. I think it was the nephew, and then you've got an aunt there. So, don't know. The other thing is...

Well, Dr. Luke, in the Gospel of Luke, and we'll take note of this, three times talks about an only daughter or an only son. He makes note of that, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, three chapters in a row. If Paul was an only child, I would think that Dr. Luke might have pointed that out as well, just because he pointed it out in the Gospels. And then one other thing to take a look at, Dr. Luke's introduction clearly presents his approach and purpose in writing.

So let's take a look at that at the bottom of page one. So here's Luke 1, 1 through 4. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in a consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." Alright, so let's take a look here.

What does this introduction, four verses, what does this introduction tell us about Dr. Luke and his approach to the Gospels? What do you see there? First of all, I think it shows that he was directly involved in a lot of things and had a lot of respect Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Was Dr. Luke an eyewitness of the Lord's ministry? Did we get that impression? Was he an eyewitness of the Lord's ministry? Not Jesus himself, but in Paul's missionary journey to you.

Oftentimes, it's we who did this instead of just saying they did it or all of us. Yeah, what we see is Dr. Luke says we or us, starting in Acts chapter 16. So if he were inclined to talk about being present during our Lord's ministry, he would have said so. I mean, that was within his range of writing. So he begins that, and it's not constant from Acts 16 to the end, but it has certain intervals, and we'll actually reference those in a little bit. So Dr. Luke was one who drew from eyewitnesses up to the point of his involvement, which appears to begin about chapter 16.

So that's one thing. We have all these authorities on one thing and another. And once in a while, someone steps forward and says, well, I have studied this. This is my life. I use the scientific method. I believe the fact. And here's my. Conclusion and you tend to pay more attention to that than someone who's a politician Pretending to know about climate change or yeah In this in this is dr. Luke the first one to begin writing about this Do we get that impression reading this? Yeah, we do not in other words. He's saying that others have a begun writing about this. So Luke is not the first one to do it, and others are copying him.

By the way, among the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this has been a few years ago, but the statistic was there have been 1,400 different theories, when you include all the details, about how one book got included in the other, and why things are similar, and why things are different. So anyway, no shortage of theories.

Okay, let's look at something else here. Is this a random compilation as to time? In other words, does it just grab things from different times? Consecutive order. Okay, so that's another thing to take a look about his approach to writing. That is, he didn't just pick stories and just kind of scramble them and put them in randomly, but he particularly says that things are in consecutive order.

So that's something else to take note of. And there are two Gospels that give an account of Christ's birth. They're compatible, they're not identical. One is Matthew, and Matthew tends to give more Joseph's side of the story, and the other is Luke. So Luke, when he says consecutive order, he says consecutive order and he means from the beginning, when Christ was born.

So there are things unique to Luke. Let's ask something else. Is Luke satisfied with just kind of getting some sketchy details and getting the story about right? Or what impression do you get about his care in putting this together? Yeah. he has actually done research and and very interesting he gets a copy of the letter that went from in the book of Acts he gets a copy of the letter that went from the centurion in Jerusalem to the governor in Caesarea and he gets a copy of that letter and writes it down and includes it in the book of Acts so this is a guy that does his research yes and it also says What you see is consecutive order, you see precision, you see a guy that does his research and he observes carefully. I can imagine Dr. Luke not having been there for Christ's ministry writing the gospel of Luke, and going to the various people and asking them questions. Now, was that an only child? Was that a son or a daughter? Give me the details here. So he's a guy who checks things out, asks questions, looks up records, a very careful scholar.

When we get into the book of Acts, we're going to see that he got all the political names right. There was no system of designation of different political leaders throughout the Roman Empire. It varied quite a bit. And when he checked back on each one, he got them right. So he's a very careful scholar of history.

All right, let's take a look on the Top of page 2, so Dr. Luke did not write the Gospel of Luke as an eyewitness, but his sources were eyewitnesses. So that is one of the things we see. Only in Acts 16, 10-17, 20, 5-21, and then 27, 1-28 do we find Dr. Luke writing us and we, including himself as an eyewitness. beginning on Paul's second missionary journey. He's a careful investigator, observer, reporter of history, though he is not simply writing history.

He notes what's spiritually important as well. He wrote with attention to the poor, to women, and made special note of when a young person was an only son or only daughter. So we have this instance here in Luke 7, Luke 8, and Luke 9. I'll read from Luke 7 as an example. Now he approached the gate of the city, Jesus. A dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother. And she was a widow, and a sizable crowd from the city was with her. So you have those same kinds of observations. Luke 8, he had an only daughter. For he is my only boy, so he's making note of these particular things. Why would he do that? Why would he do that?

Well, one reason being, if there's only the one, your hopes for continuity, particularly as a son, it was very important to have a And even if it was an only doctor, still your dreams, your hopes for your children are focused there. And also your support in old age comes from the one, right? From the welfare system. Yes, that's right. There are several reasons for it. Returning to life or, you know, Keeping in life was a key thing.

Yes We have in the middle of page 2 Luke at a glance and We have the first few chapters addressing Christ's birth and also in that as we'll see some other key announcements and beginnings. And then you have, he goes in chapter four particularly, starting off in the ministry again of the Son of Man. That's a key phrase in the Gospel of Luke. So there's a ministry of the Son of Man, the rejection of the Son of Man for about ten chapters. And then finally the crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of Man. at the end.

So Luke goes on for 24 chapters here. He goes on for a few more chapters than that in the Gospel of Acts 28 in the Book of Acts. Okay, so one of the things that you see also under this category topic partway down in the chart is at first he is seeking the lost, and then we see him at the end saving the lost. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

And then, now one more thing, we have some unique things to the Gospel of Luke. We talk about Matthew, Mark, and Luke being synoptic. That is, that they have some things in common. But there are some very special things that are unique to the Gospel of Luke. Let's take a look at those are bulleted at the bottom of page two.

The first one, Luke 1 and 2, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, is covered there in the Gospel of Luke. Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ through Mary. Imagine Mary, likely early to middle teens, would be a likely age for her, if you can imagine that. Imagine an angel coming to you. Here you are, a woman, a young woman, in a small little village in northern Israel, and here the angel Gabriel comes to you and makes an announcement. And does she object? Does she object when Gabriel...? No. She does have a question. How is this going to happen? I'm a virgin, right? So she does have a question, but that's going to take you a while to ponder, right?

Then it tells about the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, and then a unique account of the angels and the shepherds. And by the way, did the angels sing? It actually just says the angels said. Right? The angel said, in praising God, but real interestingly, throughout Scripture, more often, the saints are pictured as singing. Yes?

I've read a lot of things about why Mary may have been chosen, but when you think about what you just said, it's really a testimony to her faith. The fact that she's being so young, and the fact that, you know, first of all, The angel didn't say, you're not. But she was willing to carry on this discourse and not concerned about her reputation or anything else that a lot of people would have been concerned about. But it seems to have immediately, which would be a good term here, immediately accepted what the angel told her. Other than the question that she asked, how's this going to be because I'm a virgin, Other than that question, she doesn't object or, you know, oh, wait a minute, let me think about this.

The song that you and Nancy sang at the Christmas last year really kind of put things in perspective, in our perspective, like, oh boy, how am I going to say to Joseph? How do I break this to my fiancé, right? How do I get this across to people in the village that they're not going to understand?

And when we go to Bethlehem, by the way, the tradition was that the various tribes and groups within would go to their ancestral village or town and cut wood for the temple because the temple fires must always keep burning, right? And so they rotated among the tribes. So that meant that Joseph would go down, at least, Joseph would go down to Bethlehem to get with his ancestral group to cut wood for the temple. And so when he went there, these people at least had some recognition.

I know this guy. And to go there, wait a minute, how come I didn't, you know, you got a wife for, you know, this is your wife, she's pregnant, you know, this just doesn't look good. So Mary just accepted this and felt that the Lord was going to handle everything, even though socially it was very awkward. at her later life, which we don't have a record of. But through these other people, they know, like John may have been speaking about Mary and second or third John. I'm sure a lot of this information that Luke and Mark came up with. came from Mary, and you can see that she's not negative in any of these comments.

There's absolutely nothing that would distract from the fact that Jesus was truly the Son of God. Absolutely nothing. I mean, to me that's amazing what Jesus went through and she hadn't watched that and the whole thing and yet she was still That's amazing. Yes, really astounding.

She is recorded, Mary is recorded for the last time by name in Acts chapter 1. So Dr. Luke is writing about her early encounter with the angel Gabriel and then her continuing involvement and it also mentions at that point Jesus' brothers were with them there in Acts chapter 1.

And previously, according to John chapter 7, they did not believe. But having seen Christ resurrected, at least James, they did believe. One more thing, Simeon and Anna. It was according to the Mosaic law that you would go after the baby was born to the temple to present the baby and make at very least a small offering, and that's probably what they could afford, at very least a small offering there at the temple. At that point, Simeon and Anna are uniquely reported in the Gospel of Luke. Luke 3, the genealogy of Christ through Mary, the genealogy of Christ through Joseph is given in Matthew.

Yes? I'm confused by the wording in Luke 3. Now Jesus himself began his ministry at about 30 years of age, being parenthetically, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, but it doesn't make any sense. identification of Mary of any kind, it just goes on and says, son of Joseph, son of Eli, son of Matthew, etc. And you go back and compare that with Matthew and say, whoa, those aren't the same guys. They're not the same, right.

How did people come up with that being Mary's genealogy? Strictly speaking, a formal genealogy was not to mention women. So Matthews is informal, because he does mention women that are key to the lineage. So a formal genealogy is not to mention women. So the way in which the genealogy is written, including what's translated as was supposed, was the way of listing what was actually the wife's genealogy. And that's why they differ, yes. Right, and you notice that's not in Matthew. There's that and also the grammatical structure within this one, then this one, then this one is different from the way Matthew puts it. The next one, Luke 10, 70 are sent out. And what you have in the other Gospels is you're sending out how many? Jesus sends out how many in the other Gospels? Twelve. You've got just the twelve. And how did he send them out? Two by two, twelve.

So can you imagine? Whoever got paired up with Judas just kind of had a stunning moment eventually, right? And you can imagine what the Lord's sense of humor, pairing up Matthew, the former tax collector, with Simon the zealot. Something like that. So anyway, that's kind of an interesting thought.

But here in Luke, 70 are sent out. And that's a unique thing that's reported. And then something very special and unique, the parable of the Good Samaritan. That is unique to the Gospel of Luke. It's not included in the others. With the parable of the Good Samaritan, what's Jesus' point? What's Jesus' point with that parable? One is your neighbor, and why does that matter to Jews? Because they weren't concerned about their neighbors, they were only concerned about their own. Jerusalem and Israel and all the rest of it, not the outside world.

Luke's writing about when he said the Hellenists and the Greeks and the Gospel comes to everything. Yeah, it's one thing is Luke particularly widens the scope of the Gospel. Matthew says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I send you only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Luke widens the focus here.

Yes, Al? He widens neighbor because in the law, neighbor came up a number of things. Yes. You won't move your neighbor's boundary stone. You won't covet your neighbor's wife. That's right. And even love your neighbor, right? So when Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and your neighbor as yourself, then who is my neighbor? Okay, as you just said, Luke widens that scope beyond an ethnicity and religious background and says your neighbor is anybody in need that's in your area of influence. That's right.

We even have what are termed, usually at the state level, good Samaritan laws. That is someone who helps a stranger or something like that, has some release from liability. But let's think also, who were the first two to come along the road and see this guy who had been mugged? The ones who knew the law knew what they should do.

Yeah, you had a priest and a Levite, right? So you had a priest and a Levite, and what did they do? Now, why did they get away? Why did they keep their distance? Because it was unclean. Yeah, no, if the guy was dead, and they might be, if the guy was dead, I'm going to be ceremonially unclean. This is a problem, right? So what happened is the law prevented them from loving. The law prevented them from being a neighbor. So the law ended up, I'm not going to have compassion on this fellow.

I'm just going to walk to the other side and keep going. Yes, I'm on my way to church. I can't bother to help you. And so this is what Jesus was talking about. And so here's this Samaritan who doesn't have these same restraints. He's not a priest or a Levite and doesn't have those same restraints. And so here's this Samaritan who does show care and compassion.

Yes. Well, it's not only the fact that he may be dead, but it's the fact that he might die. Yeah. Yeah, in my arms, right? Yeah, I might be taking this guy and he's not dead now, but by the time I get him somewhere, he will be. And then I'm in deep trouble, right? Then I got a real serious problem. I've got to tell the guys at the temple, sorry, I know I'm scheduled for duty, but I just can't do it. I touched a dead body. You what? So that would be a problem. That would be a problem. Okay, so now let's take a look here.

Now the next one, the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham's bosom. What's that one about? This is in Luke chapter 16. That's unique to the Gospel of Luke. Isn't that basically the message being that the rich will enjoy their time here on earth? You've enjoyed all you're going to enjoy, right? And after that it's not so great. So what does this rich man then tell Abraham that he wants to have happen. Send somebody to go warn my brothers about this so they don't end up where I'm at. Right?

And the message being, if someone were to raise from the dead, be raised from the dead. Would that produce faith? Because you still have to believe that whatever it is that you believe is going to color how you act. How you see things. And by the way, Lazarus was raised. Multiple people, and it's not this Lazarus, but the one there in Bethany. Lazarus was raised from the dead. Multiple people could testify to that fact. when the Jewish leaders heard that Lazarus was raised, what was their response? Did they go, oh, wow, this Jesus is a real thing. Is that what they did?

Uh-uh. Yeah, we need to do him in. Make him dead again, right? As if that's going to fix it. So rather than be impressed by Jesus really did raise this guy, and multiple people are around to testify to that, Instead, they go around, well, we just need to do them in. Knock them off.

So anyway, with this rich man and Lazarus, even if someone comes back from the dead, as Jesus did, you still have unbelief. You still have unbelief. Yes? In a sense, what you just said previous about the people who didn't accept the raising of Lazarus, in most cases, those were the rich men. I think in that same passage it talks about many believed, but that was the poor man. So again, the primary message here of the rich and the poor is even carried out in that particular elaboration that you talked about. Okay, next one down.

Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, believes. Luke in chapter 19 uniquely reports this. This happens about a week before Christ is crucified. Morgan? I'm sorry, the Abrahamism chart, what does that signify? Okay, what we have here in Luke 16 is a partitioning of the places for those of Old Testament saints, the partitioning between those who are saved as Abraham by faith and those who are not. What's interesting is you end up having, after the crucifixion, a different partitioning.

We can't go into all the detail on that, but what does Jesus tell the thief on the cross? Today you'll be with me in paradise. The Apostle Paul doesn't talk about Abraham's bosom. The Apostle Paul says that he's been there, and he says, I've been to paradise. And then the Apostle John writes about it. That word paradise, a Persian word, means pleasure garden, is used those three times in the New Testament. Anyway, here with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, what's so remarkable about that account?

Among the Jews, just the standard phrase for the scum of the earth, tax collectors and sinners. In the law of Moses, you are forbidden to lie. One of the Ten Commandments. You're just forbidden to lie. But the rabbis figured that if you lied to a Roman tax collector, that was okay. They somehow justified that. If you lie to a Roman tax collector, that's okay. So here you have a guy, he's not just a tax collector, he's a chief tax collector. Architellonus, okay? He's a chief tax collector. This guy is the worst of the worst.

And as a matter of fact, Remember when Zacchaeus talks to the Lord, he says, and if I've cheated anyone, I pay back some multiple amount. Well, he basically is saying, yes I have. Yes, I have cheated people, and paying back multiple amounts indicated that he had committed fraud in doing so, according to the Law of Moses. shows the divine perfection of how God chose the disciples.

Because Matthew, being a text collector, really speaks to this particular example. I think Matthew's ministry really shows up here. I mean, who's to say that Matthew and Zacchaeus weren't good friends? Quite possibly. Matthew may have even worked for the Kings. Now Zacchaeus is in Jericho, and Matthew worked up in Galilee, but the odds that they at least knew each other is pretty high.

Because after all, if the Jews won't befriend you, right? You've at least got to befriend each other. Yes? All through Scripture, we see that, don't we? We have, even in the Old Testament, those who were at the low end of the social scale, ethnicity, were ones who realized their being, realized they couldn't improve themselves to the point of satisfying God.

The shepherds are getting the announcement. Nobody believes the word of a shepherd because we know that they have spent too much time with the sheep. We get this over and over again. We get the children coming to the Jesus and the disciples don't bother him unless you become like a little child.

Go over and over again message and scripture that it's the poor in spirit who recognize their need and indeed theirs is the kingdom of heaven as it says in the Bible. From Dr. Luke's unique account of Zacchaeus, what do we know about Zacchaeus? He's short. He's short. That's one thing. He's short.

So here's a guy who is not only a chief tax collector, and living in Jericho. And by the way, Jericho was not universally so, but was in many ways a resort town. Herod had a palace there. So here's Jericho, and this guy's a chief tax collector, which means he's got other tax collectors working underneath him.

And by the way, how was collection of taxes enforced? Basically, they get a Roman soldier in there and he starts putting his hand on the sword handle and that kind of clues you in, you'd better pay. Right? Yeah. And for the soldier to show up frequently, he got an extra little kick. So the soldier was motivated to be threatening. Yeah, it was a really pretty nasty thing.

The way it worked, you have a chief tax collector would give a bid to the Romans as to how much he could exact for the Roman government for a particular district and that's why they would have a census, right? So here Here the chief tax collector would give a bid to the Romans. Whatever he collected above that, the Romans didn't care. So he could press it to the max and squeeze the money out of people. And the Romans didn't care. Okay, so he's a short guy, he climbs up into a sycamore tree to be sure to see Jesus. And Jesus, does Jesus go on paying attention to short tax collectors up in the tree?

Apparently so. And the thing that you of course wouldn't do if you were any self-respecting Jew, especially a rabbi, is go and have dinner. go and have a meal with these tax collectors. who are the worst of the worst. Yes. I think of Simon saying, if Jesus knew who this woman was, he wouldn't have allowed her near him. Yes, that's right. He wouldn't have allowed her to touch his feet. Yes. The Jews wanted to keep themselves distant from any of these terrible people. Can we sing the little song they teach their children? It's like, K-E-S-Y-Z-O-W-E. Yeah. We can do the motions too. Yes. And when we taught through that, we did.

Now, okay, here in the next part, in Luke 23, Jesus is telling the criminal on the cross that today he would be with Christ in paradise. This is amazing. Wouldn't you think Jesus would think... If you try to put yourself in Jesus' place, which I realize is a little bit much, but if you put yourself in Jesus' place, wouldn't you think, you know, I'm a little preoccupied today. I'm kind of mentally overloaded and busy.

Anybody else would not take the time to talk to this criminal who's going to die that day too. But Jesus makes a particular point. It's among the last things that he says before starting into the time where he is mostly quiet until the end. But he talks directly to this thief on the cross next to him. Today you'll be with me in paradise. Instead of, I'm a little busy right now.

Imagine, here's the creator of the universe, here is the one who is taking the sins of the whole world upon himself. And he takes the time to say that to the criminal crucified next to him. You're emphasizing over and over again what just strikes me so strongly here. He cares about the individual.

Yes. And I think that song was popular a while back, People Need the Lord. And it's about the people, it's not about the... I think this is a key thing. Sometimes we can end up with a mindset, well, there's all these people and millions of people, God doesn't, you know...

Why would God care about me individually? This is a very telling indication that God loves you personally and specifically. And He's willing to lay His life down for that. does not keep you from salvation, or does he hold that against you once you come to faith?

Because this was, he was mocking Jesus. Earlier, earlier he was mocking him. Right, and so that was absolute unbelief. But yet when he comes to faith, it's totally wiped out the fact that he unbelieved previous to that. And all that it took was just that moment of faith was sufficient to get to paradise. I think it's a key thing for us to recognize the only reason that sin matters to God, and I don't mean to make light of it, the only reason that sin matters to God is God wants to get it out of the way so that he can have fellowship with us. It's not that God is obsessed with sin. He wants to get the sin issue out of the way so He can have fellowship with us. That's what this is about. Yes? The whole point of the parable of the lost son emphasizes that point. The older brother was righteous, but he was self-righteous and couldn't see where love and forgiveness and grace came in. He said, I've always been with you. I've always done what you said. And here, you never threw a feast for me. You never told me this. But now this fellow who's gone and wasted his inheritance, etc., you welcome him back with open arms. What's with this?

Luke 24, Jesus talked to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And actually there are several different little villages named Emmaus in that area, so we don't know which one it is. It's one of them though. So the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and this had only been hours, not days, hours after he had resurrected.

And these people are kind of still catching up to this extraordinary set of events. Dr. Luke does something that is really interesting. He briefly refers to the Ascension at the end of the Gospel of Luke, and then gives details at the beginning of the Book of Acts. So there's some overlap there, but the details are all in the beginning of the Book of Acts, the first chapter. And so there we get all the details of who's gathered, Even the fact, the way in which he left, that's how he's going to return. And if you read Zechariah 14, even to the place that he's going to return, the Mount of Olives.

So we're going to return to Luke after we complete John next week. We're going to return to Luke and see, in two parts, his writing of the Book of Acts, the second book to this Theophilus, the most excellent Theophilus. I just love the way Dr. Luke writes. I love his care and attention, not just to historic detail, but to personal detail. He's a very tender-hearted man. who asks about personal details with people that aren't necessarily picked up by the other authors of the gospel. He's a man who cares greatly for people, and he reflects that in the gospel that he writes, he reflects it in the book of Acts as well.

And I'm really looking forward to, we're going to start a detailed study of the Gospel of Luke in the main service in October here. So we'll go through that. So we've covered the whole book here this morning, but we'll take a number of months to cover it starting in October. Yes? This may be kind of a rabbit trail, but... Oh, I love those. Yeah.

The Hellenist, is this a... The Jews are exposed to Greek culture and influence. So they're talking about the Jewish people and the Greek people. How did the Hellenist, how did that word get made or used in reference to that group of people? What does that word mean? It's the Greeks' word for themselves. Hellenist is a Greek word for themselves?

Helen. As a matter of fact, you can... Well, no, not that, not that, but actually if you see, did you see the Olympics when they were in Athens? You know, they, anyway, they'll have, you know, Hellas, you know, on their shirts and whatnot, on the athletes.

So it's their, it's their reference to themselves. So that word Hellenus is then adopted from that. for those who are of other ethnic background but influenced by the Greek language and culture. The Hellenists, there are actually quite a number of them, Because, for example, Alexander the Great, when he wanted to establish Alexandria in Egypt, by the way, he established over a half dozen cities called Alexandria, but I wonder why. He had a number of Jews move from Israel down to Alexandria, and of course they lost their Hebrew background in great degree. And then they needed the Old Testament in Greek. Then another one of the follow-on leaders had Jews move from the area around Babylon and Persia up to the area around Ephesus and what we now call Turkey. And he gave them 10 years tax-free if they would move there. So a lot of them took him up on it, which is why there was a significant Jewish minority in that area in New Testament times.

Okay. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the amazing work that you did through Dr. Luke. And just to have written over a quarter of the New Testament, a man who pays attention to detail and also pays attention to people. He's very definitely one that we see cares about people and cares about unique things with them. And so we thank you for what you've revealed through Dr. Luke. and because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.