Utumishi Blog

We’re going to be looking at the Gospel according to Luke in our micro-preaching sessions at the next ministry training week. We looked at Luke’s own introduction here and noted how Luke preaches something very different from the prosperity gospel here.

Here’s an attempt at a structure – a combination and simplification of a few different commentators (including David G Palmer). You’ll notice the chiasm/concentric structure (A-B-C-D-C’-B’-A’) – I wouldn’t want to push that too strongly but it is probably there:

• 1:1-2:52 – Introduction, birth of Jesus, angels, Word, belief & disbelief, fulfilment of OT
• 3:1-4:44 – New Exodus prophecy, Pilate, Herod, High Priest, baptism, trials & rejection of Jesus, involvement of Satan
• 5:1-9:50 – Jesus in Galilee, gathering the disciples, teaching about the kingdom, healing, identity as the Christ
• 9:51-19:10 – Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem – a number of commentators have suggested more or less complex chiastic structures for this section, usually agreeing that the centre is 13:22-35 – a passage where we see coming together the key themes of Jesus as ‘LORD’, Jerusalem, salvation, feasting in the kingdom, Abraham & the patriarchs, the nations, reversal, the death of Jesus, Temple.
• 19:11-21:38 – Jesus in the Temple, teaching about the kingdom, judging, identity as the Christ
• 22:1-23:25 – Passover, Pilate, Herod, High Priest, last supper, trials & rejection of Jesus, involvement of Satan
• 23:26-24:53 – Conclusion, death and resurrection of Jesus, angels, Word, belief & disbelief, fulfilment of OT

Just looking at the shape of the story you start to see Luke’s message and emphases. Perhaps focussing on a couple of key passages might help to bring out a few really important themes:

Luke 3:3-17

This passage starts an important new section. We’ve just skipped 18 years from chapter 2 and now Jesus’ public ministry is about to start. We have a historical setting which foreshadows the trial of Jesus (3:1-2) and the last mention in the Bible of the classic prophetic opening: “The Word of the Lord / God came to…” (The ‘word’ is a massive theme for Luke but there is a big shift underway from OT to NT (cf. Luke 7:27-28) from the prophets to whom the word of the Lord came to the apostles who will go out to witness to the incarnate Word (Luke 1:2; 24:48).) Then there is a key quote from Isaiah – used by all four Gospel’s but here in its longest form. Isaiah is probably the most important ‘back story’ for Luke and it surfaces repeatedly in his narrative.

The ‘way’ mentioned in the quote also has a special significance for Luke – he uses the word 17 times in the Gospel and 19 in Acts. Before this point it’s only been used twice, both in Zacharias’ prophecy which points forward to chapter 3. Sometimes the word has the literal meaning of road or journey, sometimes it refers to ‘the characteristic activity of a person’ (e.g. of God himself), and sometimes it means the way of salvation or even the name of the Christian movement itself – The Way. And these different senses start to merge through the narrative as we discover that the whole narrative is built around the physical journey of Jesus to Jerusalem – it is the journey of a man who is the LORD so it is ‘the way of the Lord’, and that historic sacrificial journey of God from manger to Cross is the way of salvation for us. A few more issues get raised in Luke 3:3-17 which are crucial through the whole narrative:

1. Who is Jesus? The stunning implication of the Isaiah quote is that Jesus is the ‘Lord’ – Yahweh – the LORD God who comes (Isaiah 40:10).
2. What are we naturally like? Sinners needing forgiveness. A brood of vipers in danger of a coming wrath. Stone hearts needing to be transformed into flesh. People naturally inclined to stealing and grabbing and being discontent. There are echoes of Genesis 3 in all this.
3. How are we saved? Luke is the only one of the Evangelists to extend the Isaiah quote sufficiently (and use the Greek translation) so that we get “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” It’s another key theme in Luke, from the songs of Mary (1:47) and Zachariah (1:68-69) and the angels (2:11) and Simeon (2:30), all the way through Acts (e.g. the classic Acts 16:30). Salvation is the Lord’s. Implicitly it’s going to involve a new Exodus – that’s the point of Isaiah 40 and there’s a hint at 9:31 as well as more clearly in the timing of Jesus’ death (22:1). And it’s going to involve a complete change of nature – from stone to son. This is humanly impossible (the greatest prophet can’t do it) – it’s going to involve Christ baptising you with the Spirit (of sonship – cf. 3:22).
4. What fruit comes from being saved? The metaphor of trees (v9) is common throughout the Bible – from Genesis 1, through Isaiah and the other prophets. The point of a tree is to be fruitful (Gen. 1:11; 28; Isaiah 5) but fruit only reveals the true nature of the tree (Luke 6:43-45). If a viper/stone becomes a child of Abraham and son of God (Luke 6:35-36) then he will produce fruit in very practical terms – justice, integrity and contentment.

Luke 19:1-10

Again a very key section – the transition from the central travel narrative to the following section all about the destination – Jerusalem (v11) and the clearest purpose statement in the whole gospel in relation to why Jesus has come (v10). Notice the ‘way’ theme that comes up implicitly in verse 1 and 4. And interestingly a lot of the same themes as in Luke 3:

1. Who is Jesus? That’s the question Zacchaeus is asking. He’s not just a sightseer. He has Christological questions.
2. What are we naturally like? Lost. Even the physical sons of Abraham. They grumble like the children of Israel in the desert. They despise the traitorous Zacchaeus but in the end Jesus shockingly confirms him, from ‘Today’, a son of Abraham – implying he wasn’t before and that the status of the grumblers is, at the very least, very doubtful. (This reversal of expectations comes throughout the Gospel – e.g. Luke 1:52-53; 13:24-30; 14:7-11; 16:19-31; 18:9-14.)
3. How are we saved? By Jesus coming to seek and save us – cf. the shepherd of Luke 15. It is by the work of the Son of Man in the coming chapters (22-24). I wonder whether there might be an echo of the ‘today’ at 19:9 in the ‘today’ at 23:43 spoken to another criminal. Jesus can call the sinner Zacchaeus down from the tree to be his friend because He, the innocent, righteous one is going to climb a tree to die instead of him. And even more than the work of the Son of Man, salvation IS the Son of Man. In 19:1-10 we see clearly what was suggested in the early chapters of Luke – that salvation is not a thing but a person (19:9 cf. 2:30; 3:6). I love this. Salvation is Jesus. Salvation invites himself round to your house for tea. And as he saves and forgives and justifies, he gives a new nature. Zacchaeus has now miraculously changed from a stone to a son of Abraham.
4. What fruit comes from being saved? In Luke 3 the tax collectors asked, “What shall we do?” – now in Luke 19 there is a tax collector who spontaneously bears fruit in keeping with repentance. Not only does he not collect more than he should, not only does he correct his wrongs, he overflows in giving to the poor. He is now a son of the Most High, reflecting his Father’s nature in giving to those who cannot repay (6:32-36).

So I’m wondering whether these four questions might be helpful ones to ask of any passage in Luke – whether we’re working on a sermon or leading a 1-to-1 Bible study. In the same way that Rico Tice has helped us by showing how the Identity, Mission, Call questions can be applied to any chapter of Mark, I wonder whether these four, or something like them would work in Luke. I haven’t road-tested this thoroughly though so please do let us know if you have a go at a passage in Luke and find this helpful or unhelpful or come up with some better questions.