September 9, 2021 Good afternoon, How do we know what we know ?” Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us.” Luke 1:1 ( NIV )
These words begin the Gospel of Luke. The earliest copies of this Gospel do not have Luke in the text. The church gave it its name. We do not know who the leaders were who decided that Luke would be the name. Who are the ” many ” . We only have four biographies of Jesus, and so I think there might be others who tried. John is so different from the others, we have to treat his book by itself. Luke, Matthew and Mark are similar . Why did the writer of Luke think that there needed to be another set of stories of Jesus ? What if a new Gospel story would be found in an ancient monastery in Palestine ?
What does ” fulfilled ” mean ? All the things told about Jesus in the Gospel have fulfilled things said in the Old Testament . To me, this is not extraordinary. If God is God, and all-powerful, then doing things throughout history is just what God does. Why God , through Jesus, might do certain things is a good question.
And Luke is scripture, why ? The church decided after about 350 years that it is God’s word. It was not received as the word of God when Luke wrote it. How do we know this to be the truth ? How do we know anything ? We need to weigh various ideas with our own research, and then do what is best for the community that we call the church . Not as easy as it sounds.
Shalom and strength,
Fred
Soaring like Vultures lifted up by unseen Hands Trust, silent enters my fears Monica Pieper Landoni 2021
