{"id":22874,"date":"2025-08-27T07:22:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T11:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/?p=22874"},"modified":"2025-08-27T12:43:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T16:43:05","slug":"the-gospel-of-luke-in-brief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/article\/concise\/the-gospel-of-luke-in-brief\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gospel of Luke in Brief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The longest book in the New Testament is the Third Gospel, the account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that is attributed to a man called Luke. Though it is like the other canonical Gospels in many ways, there are nevertheless several details about Jesus\u2019s life and ministry found only in the Gospel of Luke and several points of emphasis unique to his account. For those less familiar with this New Testament book\u2014and even for those who are\u2014let me offer this brief introduction, survey, and summary of the Gospel of Luke.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n


1. For a lengthier introduction to the Gospel of Luke, see Douglas S. Huffman, \u201cThe Gospel of Luke,\u201d 80\u2013101 in What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Their Writings, ed. Kenneth Berding and Matt Williams, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2015).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Authorship & Date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All four of the canonical Gospels in our New Testament are technically anonymous. But all four have long traditions pertaining to their authorship, which eventually led to the addition of their eponymic titles. Since the second century, the Third Gospel has uniformly been attributed to Luke, as has the New Testament book called the Acts of the Apostles (this corpus of literature is regularly dubbed simply Luke\u2013Acts). That the Third Gospel and Acts are written by the same person is clear enough from the coordination of their prefaces (Luke 1:1\u20134 and Acts 1:1\u20132) as well as their shared writing style and thematic interests. Furthermore, several passages in Acts indicate its author was accompanying the apostle Paul at those points in the story (see the \u201cwe\u201d passages of Acts 16:10\u201317; 20:5\u201315; 21:1\u201318; 27:1\u201328:16). From Paul\u2019s New Testament letters, we know a first-century man named Luke to have been a physician (Col. 4:14) who occasionally accompanied Paul as a \u201cfellow worker\u201d (Phlm. 24) in his missionary travels (2 Tim. 4:11). All this internal evidence lends credence to identifying Luke as the author of Luke\u2013Acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four lines of external evidence are more overt in supporting Luke\u2019s authorship of Luke\u2013Acts. First, in discussing the New Testament writings, a list of books called the Muratorian Canon dating to AD 170\u201380 attributes Luke\u2013Acts to the man Luke. Two, among a second-century collection of introductory remarks prefaced to copies of the Gospels (perhaps comparable to introductions in modern study Bibles), the Anti\u2013Marcionite Prologue to the Third Gospel descriptively names the author of Luke\u2013Acts as Luke, a Syrian from Antioch, a physician by trade, a disciple of the apostles, and a follower of Paul. Third, by the third century traditional Gospel authorship appears to have been common enough to be represented in titles, and the oldest extant Greek manuscript of the Third Gospel, a papyrus codex called P75<\/sup> (a.k.a. the Bodmer Papyrus XIV\u2013XV) and dating to AD 175\u2013225, has the first known occurrence of the title \u201cGospel According to Luke.\u201d Fourth, among the early church fathers, several have written works identifying Luke as author of Luke\u2013Acts. These include Irenaeus (ca. AD 130\u2013200), Clement of Alexandria (ca. AD 150\u2013215), Tertullian (ca. AD 155\u2013240), Origen (ca. AD 184\u2013254), a book called The Teaching of the Apostles <\/em>(ca. AD 230), Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (ca. AD 260\u2013340), Pamphilus of Caesarea (died AD 309), Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 310\/320\u2013403), Chromatius, bishop of Aquilaeia (ca. AD 345\u2013407), Jerome (ca. AD 347\u2013420), John Chrysostom, bishop of Antioch (ca. AD 349\u2013407), and a book entitled Apostolic Constitutions<\/em> (ca. AD 375\u2013380). In fact, in all of church history, there is no other name so universally associated with the authorship of Luke\u2013Acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, given the internal evidence and the abundance of external evidence, we have little reason to doubt the well-attested and rather unanimous early church tradition that identifies the author of both the Third Gospel and Acts to be Luke, the first-century physician and sometimes ministry companion of Paul.[2]<\/a><\/sup> Since in several respects the Gospel of Luke seems dependent upon the wording and format of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (these three are called the \u201cSynoptic\u201d Gospels because they \u201cview together\u201d the life of Jesus), it seems likely that Luke wrote after them, especially after the shorter and more rough Gospel of Mark. On the other hand, since Luke abruptly ends his second book with Paul under a two-year house arrest and with no mention of major happenings thereafter (e.g., Paul\u2019s death, the Jewish revolt against Rome, the fall of Jerusalem, official Roman persecution of Christians, etc.), it seems likely that Luke wrote both Luke and Acts prior to AD 64. But precision on the issues of date and even authorship is not as important as understanding the message of the Gospel of Luke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


2. Luke\u2019s ethnic background has been debated, but two observations from the text of Scripture convincingly suggest that Luke was a gentile. First, in Colossians 4:10\u201314 Paul lists for the moment Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus to be \u201cthe only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers\u201d (Col. 4:10\u201311) and then goes on to add the names of the presumably non-Jewish men Epaphras, Luke, and Demas as also being with him (Col. 4:12\u201314). Second, in recounting the demise of Judas Iscariot in Acts 1:18\u201319, Luke gives the Semitic name of the place, remarking it is \u201cin their own language,\u201d that is, the language of the Jews and not his ethnical language.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Purpose & Outline for the Gospel of Luke<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of his Gospel, in Luke 1:1\u20134, Luke communicates clearly about his purpose for writing. Desiring \u201cto compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us\u201d (Luke 1:1), our author collected information from sources such as \u201cthose who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word\u201d (Luke 1:2). Well researched, \u201chaving followed all things closely for some time past\u201d (Luke 1:3), Luke set out \u201cto write an orderly account\u201d (Luke 1:3, where \u201corderly\u201d means \u201corganized and intentional\u201d) so that his readers \u201cmay have certainty concerning the things you have been taught\u201d (Luke 1:4). Luke may also have had other intentions for his writing (e.g., historical, biographical, doctrinal, paradigmatic, mediational, apologetical, evangelistic, and even entertainment), but he is clear from the beginning that he wants to confirm for his readers the truth of faith in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While variating in some details, nearly all suggested outlines for Luke\u2019s Gospel acknowledge that the book is divided into two parts, with Luke 9:51 clearly marking the midpoint. The story takes a turn there with reference to how Luke (alone among the Gospels!) will conclude his book with an account of Jesus\u2019s ascension: \u201cWhen the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.\u201d Up until this midpoint, Luke has focused on the unique identity of Jesus, sharing stories and information that emphasize Jesus\u2019s unique birth (Luke 1:5\u20132:52), his unique qualifications for ministry (Luke 3:1\u20134:14), and his unique power and authority (Luke 4:15\u20139:50). After Luke 9:51, Luke focuses on the mission of Jesus to bring God\u2019s salvation to humankind, sharing stories that emphasize reordered priorities for following Jesus (Luke 9:51\u201319:27), narrating the events that led to Jesus\u2019s sacrificial death (19:28\u201323:56), and celebrating Jesus\u2019s resurrection and ascension (Luke 24:1\u201353).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. The Man: Jesus\u2019s Unique Identity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n