Luke

The Gospel of Luke​​​​

 

WHEN NOBODY GETS LEFT BEHIND

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If Matthew shows you the Jesus who teaches, and Mark shows you the Jesus who acts, Luke shows you the Jesus who searches.

 

This is the Gospel where Jesus walks past no one. He stops for a widow burying her only son. He sees a tax collector hiding in a tree. He defends a woman the room is judging. He talks to the criminal dying beside Him on the cross and promises him paradise. He tells a story about a father running down a road to meet a son who left in disgrace.

 

Luke is the warmest of the four Gospels. It is also the longest, and the most carefully researched. He was a doctor and a careful writer, not an eyewitness, and the first thing he tells you is that he investigated the whole story before writing a word of it.

 

If you have come to Jesus from the edges of the religious world, or from outside it altogether, Luke was written in your direction. His Gospel is for everyone the others might have left out.

 

This guide will not replace your Bible. It is here to walk alongside you while you read it. Open Luke soon, and let what is said here send you back to the source.

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Who Wrote It

Luke was most likely a Gentile, and is traditionally regarded as the only non-Jewish writer in the New Testament. He was a close companion of the apostle Paul. Paul calls him the beloved physician (Colossians 4:14) and, near the end of his life, mentions that only Luke is still with him (2 Timothy 4:11). He travelled with Paul on several missionary journeys and wrote a second book, Acts, that picks up where this Gospel ends.

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Luke was not one of the twelve. He did not see most of these things himself. So before writing he went looking. He interviewed eyewitnesses. He read earlier accounts. He arranged everything in order. He says so plainly at the start of the book.

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It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in an orderly sequence, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

Luke 1:3-4

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The phrase translated exact truth carries the sense of solid ground. Something you can stand on. This is a writer determined to give his reader certainty.

 

If you have ever wondered whether what happened to you was real, or whether the Jesus you encountered is consistent with the Jesus other people have known, Luke is the Gospel that was written specifically with that question in mind.

 

The book was most likely written between AD 60 and AD 80.

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Who He Was Writing For

Luke addressed the book to a man named Theophilus. The name means lover of God or friend of God in Greek. Whether Theophilus was a real person of standing or a stand in for everyone outside the Jewish world who was beginning to ask questions about Jesus, the dedication tells you something. Luke is writing for seekers. For people without a religious background. For people who need an ordered, careful account they can trust.

 

Luke's Gospel is the most universal of the four. Where Matthew traces Jesus' family line back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, Luke traces it all the way back to Adam (Luke 3:38). The first human being. Everyone is in that line. Before Jesus has begun His ministry, you are being shown that He did not come for one nation. He came for the whole human family.

 

You are in that family. He came for you.

The Tone of the Book

Luke writes with warmth and a careful eye. He notices things the other Gospel writers do not stop for. The exact words of Mary's song when the angel tells her she will carry the Son of God (Luke 1:46-55). The shepherds talking to one another on the hillside after the angels leave (Luke 2:15). The way Jesus turned and looked at Peter the moment after Peter denied Him (Luke 22:61). These are details from people who were actually there, written down by someone who tracked them down.

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Luke is also the Gospel most full of joy. Angels rejoice. Shepherds rejoice. Crowds rejoice. A woman finds her lost coin and calls her neighbours over to celebrate. A father throws a feast for a son he thought was dead. The word for joy keeps showing up. What is happening in this book is, before anything else, very good news. Good enough to celebrate.

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And he is the Gospel most attentive to prayer. Jesus prays at His baptism (Luke 3:21). Before choosing the twelve disciples (Luke 6:12). At the transfiguration (Luke 9:29). In Gethsemane (Luke 22:41). From the cross (Luke 23:34, Luke 23:46). You are seeing a Jesus who lives in unbroken conversation with the Father. Prayer is not something Jesus does occasionally. It is the air He breathes.

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Why He Came: The Faces of Luke

Matthew tells you why Jesus came through names and promises. Mark tells you through verbs. Luke tells you through faces.

 

Watch who He stops for. That is His answer.

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The Sermon That Set the Course

Jesus' first public moment in Luke is in His home town synagogue. He stands up, takes the scroll of Isaiah, and reads aloud a passage written seven hundred years earlier. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. Sight to the blind. Freedom for the oppressed. Then He sits down and says one sentence that changes everything.

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Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Luke 4:21

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Today. Not someday. Not when conditions are right. Today.

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The word translated today is one Luke loves. It comes back at the most decisive moments of the book. Today salvation has come to this house, He says to a tax collector named Zacchaeus (Luke 19:9). Today you will be with Me in paradise, He says to the criminal dying beside Him on the cross (Luke 23:43). The Jesus of Luke does not keep people waiting.

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If you are wondering whether He is willing to act in your life now, today, the answer is already there before you have finished asking.​​

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The Widow at Nain

Outside a town called Nain, Jesus meets a funeral procession. A woman has lost her only son. She is also a widow, which in that world meant she had no one left to provide for her. No one had asked Jesus to come. No one had reached out for help. What happens next is written in one quiet line.

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When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her (Luke 7:13).

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He saw her. He stopped. He raised her son and gave him back to her (Luke 7:11-17).

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Sit with that for a moment. He stopped because of what was happening to a stranger. Nobody had to convince Him.​​

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The Woman in the Pharisee's House

A woman known in the town as a sinner walks into a respectable dinner party uninvited and stands behind Jesus weeping. Her tears fall on His feet. She wipes them with her hair, kisses His feet, pours expensive perfume on them. The host watches in disgust and assumes Jesus must not realise what kind of woman is touching Him.

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Jesus knows exactly what kind of woman she is. That is why He lets her stay. He defends her in front of the room. He tells her her sins are forgiven. He sends her home in peace (Luke 7:36-50).

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This is the Jesus you are being shown. Not the one the room expected. Not the one religion would have wanted. The one who lets the woman everyone is judging come close, and treats her as the only person in the room who has understood Him.​​

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Zacchaeus in the Tree

Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector in Jericho. Wealthy, dishonest, and despised. He was also short, and so when Jesus came through town he climbed a sycamore tree to get a look. Jesus stopped under the tree, looked up, and called him by name. Hurry and come down, He said, today I must stay at your house (Luke 19:5).

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The crowd was furious. Of all the houses in Jericho, He chose the cheat's? He invited Himself? Jesus did. He went home with him. By the end of the visit Zacchaeus was a different man (Luke 19:1-10).

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Notice the verb. He looked up. Jesus looked up to see the man no one else respected. Read that again.

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The Criminal Beside Him

Two criminals were crucified with Jesus, one on each side. One mocked Him. The other turned, in the last moments of his life, and asked Jesus to remember him. Jesus' reply is one of the most extraordinary sentences in the Gospel.

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Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).

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A man with no time left to make anything right. No track record. No baptism. No years of faithfulness. Just a turn of the head and a few words. And Jesus reaches across, even from a cross, and takes him home.

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There is no situation Jesus cannot reach into. There is no point at which it is too late.​​

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The Three at the River, and the Spirit in Every Chapter

The Father, the Son and the Spirit appear together at the baptism, the same way they do in Matthew and Mark. Jesus is praying, the heavens open, the Spirit descends on Him in physical form like a dove, and the Father's voice says, You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased (Luke 3:21-22).

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But what makes Luke distinctive is what comes before that scene and what follows.

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The Spirit is everywhere in Luke. The Spirit comes upon Mary at the conception (Luke 1:35). Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit when she greets her (Luke 1:41). Zechariah prophesies by the Spirit (Luke 1:67). Simeon, an old man waiting in the temple, is led by the Spirit on the very day Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus there (Luke 2:25-27). Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness (Luke 4:1) and returns from it in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14).

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If you have noticed strange and gentle things happening since you encountered Jesus, a sense of being guided, sudden understanding, a peace you cannot explain, this would not be a surprise here. The Spirit is the same Spirit who has always been moving in the lives of those who are turning towards God. He is at work in you.​​

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Why He Came: The Cross

The verse that explains so much of this Gospel is one Jesus says quietly to Zacchaeus the tax collector after lunch.

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For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Luke 19:10

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Seek and save. Two verbs. The whole book is in them.

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The cross in Luke is the last and longest seeking. Only Luke records that on the way to Golgotha Jesus turned and spoke to a crowd of weeping women. Only Luke records the prayer Jesus prayed as the soldiers were nailing Him to the cross.

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Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).

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Read that line slowly. He prays for the men hammering the nails. They have not asked. They do not know they need it. He asks anyway.

That is what the cross is in Luke. The Son of God praying forgiveness for people who do not yet realise what they have done. Including, two thousand years on, you and me.

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When He dies, He says one last thing.

Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit (Luke 23:46).

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He goes the way He lived. Speaking to His Father. Trusting Him.

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The Empty Tomb and the Road to Emmaus

Three days later, the women who loved Him come to the tomb at dawn. The stone is gone. Two men in dazzling clothes ask them, why do you seek the living One among the dead? He has risen (Luke 24:5-6).

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But the book is not finished. There is one more story that no other Gospel records.​​

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Two disciples are walking that same afternoon to a village called Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. They are devastated. They had hoped Jesus was the one. Now He is dead. As they walk, a stranger joins them. They do not recognise Him. He listens to them tell Him about Jesus, and then He gently begins to explain, from the Scriptures, why everything that has just happened was always going to happen.

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They reach the village. They invite Him to stay for dinner. He takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, hands it to them. And in that moment they see who He is. And He vanishes.

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Later they say to each other: were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking with us on the road? (Luke 24:32).

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That story is a quiet promise. The risen Jesus does not stay in heaven. He walks with people who are confused and grieving. He listens. He explains. He shows up at ordinary tables. He is doing it still. He may have been doing it with you already, before you knew His name.​​

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A Few Threads from the Old Testament

Luke's first two chapters are full of songs that echo the old songs of Israel. Mary's song (Luke 1:46-55) closely mirrors the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Two women who conceived against all odds, separated by a thousand years, both responding by singing about the God who lifts up the lowly. The birth of Jesus is not the start of something new. It is the long story finally arriving.

 

When Jesus reads from Isaiah in Nazareth and announces that He is the one Isaiah was writing about, He is placing Himself at the centre of every prophecy that came before. The whole Old Testament has been pointing here.

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And Simeon, the old man holding the baby Jesus in the temple, says he has now seen the salvation God has prepared, a light to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel (Luke 2:30-32). The scope of Jesus' mission was always the whole world, and you can see it from the second chapter of the book.

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A Few Themes Worth Noticing

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The Lost and the Found

Luke 15 is the heart of the Gospel. Three parables in a row, each about something missing and a search and a celebration when what was lost is found. A shepherd leaves ninety nine sheep to look for one. A woman lights a lamp and sweeps the entire house for a single coin. And then the longest, most famous parable Jesus ever told.

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A son demands his inheritance early, leaves home, and wastes everything. He ends up feeding pigs and longing for their food. He decides to go home. He rehearses what he will say. He expects, at best, to be taken back as a hired servant.

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So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

Luke 15:20

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Sit with this verse. Every word in it matters.

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While he was still a long way off. The father had been watching the road.

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His father saw him. He recognised his son before his son had said a word.

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Felt compassion. Not anger. Not coldness. Compassion.

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And ran. In the culture Jesus was speaking into, men of dignity did not run in public. Running meant lifting your robe in front of everyone. The father ran anyway. He did not care what it cost his pride to reach his son faster.

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Embraced him and kissed him. Before the apology. Before the speech. Before the son finished saying I am no longer worthy.

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This is the Father Jesus came to bring you to. Not a Father weighing your fitness to come back. A Father already on His feet.

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If you have ever wondered whether you can come home, Luke 15 is your answer. You can. He is already running.

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Parables in Luke

Luke contains many parables that appear nowhere else. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8). The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14). Each of them is worth reading slowly in your own Bible.

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Some of Luke's parables also appear in Matthew or Mark, including the Sower and the Mustard Seed. If you have already read those Gospel pages, you have met them. What is unique about Luke's parables, taken together, is the same thing that is unique about everything in this Gospel. They are about who the love of God reaches. Almost always, it reaches the person you would not have expected.

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Reversal

There is a pattern through Luke. The world ranks people one way. The kingdom of God ranks them another. The mighty are brought down and the humble are lifted up (Luke 1:52). The poor are blessed (Luke 6:20). The Samaritan is the hero of the parable while the priest walks by. The tax collector goes home forgiven while the Pharisee does not.

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This is not a political programme. It is a description of what God sees. He looks for the heart that knows it has nothing to bring, and turns to Him anyway. That kind of heart is the kind God runs to.​​

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How to Read Luke

Take your time with Luke. It is the longest of the four Gospels and there is more in it than you can absorb in one sitting, and that is okay.

 

If you are not sure where to begin, here is something gentle to try. Read the first two chapters first. They are the most beautiful birth narrative in the Bible, and they set the tone for everything else: the songs, the angels, the joy, the Spirit moving across the lives of ordinary people. Then sit with Luke 15, the three parables of the lost and the found. After that, go back to chapter 1 and read the whole book in order.

 

As you read, pay attention to who Jesus stops for. Notice that He almost never stops for the people the world expects. Ask yourself gently: where would I have been in this scene? In the crowd disapproving? Up the tree? At the back of the room weeping?

 

And when you finish Luke, read Acts straight afterwards. Luke wrote both books, and they are really one long story. Luke ends with Jesus rising and ascending. Acts opens at the same moment and continues with the Spirit being poured out and the church being born. Read them together if you can.

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What Luke Means for Your Life Now

If Jesus came looking for you, Luke helps you understand what kind of person He is when He comes looking. He is not impatient. He is not embarrassed by you. He is not weighing whether you are worth the trouble. He sees you, the way He saw the widow at Nain. He calls you by name, the way He called Zacchaeus. He defends you when the room is judging you, the way He defended the woman with the perfume. He makes room for you even from the cross, the way He made room for the criminal beside Him.

 

If you have noticed promptings, gentle nudges, sudden clarity, or comfort that came from somewhere you cannot explain, here is language for that: the Holy Spirit may be drawing you and helping you recognise Jesus. The same Spirit who moved across Mary and Elizabeth and Simeon and Jesus Himself in the opening chapters of this book is moving in you. You are not making it up. He is real. He is here.

 

If you are learning to pray, watch Jesus pray in Luke. Watch how often. Watch how plainly. Prayer is not a performance. It is a conversation with the Father Jesus came to bring you to.

 

And if you ever doubt whether you can come home, read the parable of the prodigal son slowly enough that the running father becomes the picture in your head when you think of God. Because that is who He is. Already watching the road. Already on His feet. Already running.

 

Begin with Luke. Let it show you the Jesus who saw you before you turned around.