The angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. The whole congregation of the people was praying outside at the hour when incense was offered. When he was acting as priest before God, when his section was on duty, in accordance with the custom of priestly duty, it fell to him by lot to go into the Temple of the Lord to burn the incense. They had no child because Elizabeth was barren and both of them were far advanced in years. Both of them were good people before God, for they walked blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. His wife was also a direct descendant of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. "Seek and you shall find" ( Matthew 7:7).ġ:5-25 In the time of Herod, the king of Judaea, there was a priest called Zacharias, who belonged to the section of Abia. The word of God is given, but it is given to the man who is seeking for it. True inspiration comes when the seeking mind of man joins with the revealing Spirit of God. God's inspiration does not come to the man who sits with folded hands and lazy mind and only waits, but to the man who thinks and seeks and searches. No one would deny that the gospel of Luke is an inspired document and yet Luke begins by affirming that it is the product of the most careful historical research. (iii) There is no passage of the Bible which sheds such a floodlight on the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture. Luke had to rediscover Jesus Christ for himself. Professor Arthur Gossip of Trinity College, Glasgow used to say that the four gospels were important, but beyond them all came the gospel of personal experience. Real religion is never a second-hand thing. (ii) It is most significant that Luke was not satisfied with anyone else's story of Christ. They always gave their utmost for the highest. The historian, the scribe and the workman were all filled with the same idea-only the best is good enough for Jesus. Boreham tells of an old workman who, every Friday night, took the newest and shiniest coins out of his pay packet for Sunday's offering in church. It is as if Luke said to himself, "I am writing the greatest story in the world and nothing but the best is good enough for it." Some of the ancient manuscripts are very beautiful productions, written in silver ink on purple vellum and often the scribe, when he came to the name of God or of Jesus, wrote it in gold. Herodotus begins, "These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus." A much later historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, tells us at the beginning of his history, "Before beginning to write I gathered information, partly from the lips of the most learned men with whom I came into contact, and partly from histories written by Romans of whom they spoke with praise." So Luke, as he began his story in the most sonorous Greek, followed the highest models he could find. Luke uses here the very form of introduction which the great Greek historians all used. (i) It is the best bit of Greek in the New Testament. Luke's introduction is unique in the first three gospels because it is the only place where the author steps out upon the stage and uses the pronoun "I." There are three things to note in this passage. AN HISTORIAN'S INTRODUCTION ( Luke 1:1-4 )ġ:1-4 Since many have set their hands to the task of drawing up an account of the events which were completed amongst us, telling the story just as those who were the original eye-witnesses and who became the servants of the word handed it down to us, I too made up my mind to carry out a careful investigation of all things from the beginning, and to write to you, Theophilus, your excellency, an orderly account of them, so that you might have in your mind a full and reliable account of the things in which you have been instructed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |