TPT The Book of Luke E-Book

Brian Simmons

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Passionate Life Bible Study Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 221

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The book of Luke is a love-filled account of our compassionate, merciful Savior. Luke shares story after story of Jesus' heart for children and the forsaken. Written to the lovers of God, this gospel urges us to imitate our Lord and show forgiveness, mercy, and grace to those around us. This 12-lesson study guide on the book of Luke, designed for both individual and group study, provides a unique and welcoming opportunity to immerse yourself in God's precious Word as expressed in The Passion Translation®. Begin your journey with a thorough introduction that details the authorship of Luke, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. The lessons then walk you through every portion from the book and include features such as notable verses, historical and cultural background information, definitions of words and language, cross references to other books of the Bible, and character portraits of figures from the Bible and church history. Enrich your biblical understanding of the book of Luke, experience God's love for you, and share his heart with others.  

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BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

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BroadStreetPublishing.com

TPT: The Gospel of Luke: 12-Lesson Bible Study Guide

Copyright © 2024 BroadStreet Publishing Group

9781424567607 (softcover)

9781424567614 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT). Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

General editor: Dr. Brian Simmons

Managing editor: William D. Watkins

Writer: William D. Watkins

Design and typesetting Garborg Design Works | garborgdesign.com

Printed in China

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Contents

From God’s Heart to Yours

Why I Love the Gospel of Luke

Luke and His Gospel: Getting Started

Lesson 1

The Prophet and the Savior

Lesson 2

Preparation for Ministry

Lesson 3

Jesus Launches His Ministry

Lesson 4

Life Teaching, Faith, and John

Lesson 5

Parables, Power, and Provision

Lesson 6

From Transfiguration to Prayer

Lesson 7

Critics and Warnings

Lesson 8

Lost and Found

Lesson 9

Kingdom Life

Lesson 10

The King in the City

Lesson 11

Passover and Betrayal

Lesson 12

Death and Beyond

Endnotes

From God’s Heart to Yours

“God is love,” says the apostle John, and “Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him” (1 John 4:7). The life of a Christ-follower is, at its core, a life of love—God’s love of us, our love of him, and our love of others and ourselves because of God’s love for us.

And this divine love is reliable, trustworthy, unconditional, other-centered, majestic, forgiving, redemptive, patient, kind, and more precious than anything else we can ever receive or give. It characterizes each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and so is as limitless as they are. They love one another with this eternal love, and they reach beyond themselves to us, created in their image with this love.

How do we know such incredible truths? Through the primary source of all else we know about the one God—his Word, the Bible. Of course, God reveals who he is through other sources as well, such as the natural world, miracles, our inner life, our relationships (especially with him), those who minister on his behalf, and those who proclaim him to us and others. But the fullest and most comprehensive revelation we have of God and from him is what he has given us in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and the twenty-seven books of the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament). Together, these sixty-six books present a compelling and telling portrait of God and his dealings with us.

It is these Scriptures that The Passionate Life Bible Study Series is all about. Through these study guides, we—the editors and writers of this series—seek to provide you with a unique and welcoming opportunity to delve more deeply into God’s precious Word, encountering there his loving heart for you and all the others he loves. God wants you to know him more deeply, to love him more devoutly, and to share his heart with others more frequently and freely. To accomplish this, we have based this study guide series on The Passion Translation of the Bible, which strives to “reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader. It doesn’t merely convey the literal meaning of words. It expresses God’s passion for people and his world by translating the original, life-changing message of God’s Word for modern readers.” It has been created to “kindle in you a burning desire to know the heart of God, while impacting the church for years to come.”1

In each study guide, you will find an introduction to the Bible book it covers. There you will gain information about that Bible book’s authorship, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. Each lesson following the introduction will take a portion of that Bible book and walk you through it so you will learn its content better while experiencing and applying God’s heart for your own life and encountering ways you can share his heart with others. Along the way, you will come across a number of features we have created that provide opportunities for more life application and growth in biblical understanding.

Experience God’s Heart

This feature focuses questions on personal application. It will help you live out God’s Word and to bring the Bible into your world in fresh, exciting, and relevant ways.

Share God’s Heart

This feature will help you grow in your ability to share with other people what you learn and apply in a given lesson. It provides guidance on using the lesson to grow closer to others and to enrich your fellowship with others. It also points the way to enabling you to better listen to the stories of others so you can bridge the biblical story with their stories.

The Backstory

This feature provides ancient historical and cultural background that illuminates Bible passages and teachings. It deals with then-pertinent religious groups, communities, leaders, disputes, business trades, travel routes, customs, nations, political factions, ancient measurements and currency…in short, anything historical or cultural that will help you better understand what Scripture says and means.

Word Wealth

This feature provides definitions for and other illuminating information about key terms, names, and concepts, and how different ancient languages have influenced the biblical text. It also provides insight into the different literary forms in the Bible, such as prophecy, poetry, narrative history, parables, and letters, and how knowing the form of a text can help you better interpret and apply it. Finally, this feature highlights the most significant passages in a Bible book. You may be encouraged to memorize these verses or keep them before you in some way so you can actively hide God’s Word in your heart.

Digging Deeper

This feature explains the theological significance of a text or the controversial issues that arise and mentions resources you can use to help you arrive at your own conclusions. Another way to dig deeper into the Word is by looking into the life of a biblical character or another person from church history, showing how that man or woman incarnated a biblical truth or passage. For instance, Jonathan Edwards was well known for his missions work among native American Indians and for his intellectual prowess in articulating the Christian faith, Florence Nightingale for the reforms she brought about in healthcare, Irenaeus for his fight against heresy, Billy Graham for his work in evangelism, Moses for the strength God gave him to lead the Hebrews and receive and communicate the law, and Deborah for her work as a judge in Israel. This feature introduces to you figures from the past who model what it looks like to experience God’s heart and share his heart with others.

The Extra Mile

While The Passion Translation’s notes are extensive, sometimes students of Scripture like to explore more on their own. In this feature, we provide you with opportunities to glean more information from a Bible dictionary, a Bible encyclopedia, a reliable Bible online tool, another ancient text, and the like. Here you will learn how you can go the extra mile on a Bible lesson. And not just in study either. Reflection, prayer, discussion, and applying a passage in new ways provide even more opportunities to go the extra mile. Here you will find questions to answer and applications to make that will require more time and energy from you—if and when you have them to give.

As you can see above, each of these features has a corresponding icon so you can quickly and easily identify them.

You will find other helps and guidance through the lessons of these study guides, including thoughtful questions, application suggestions, and spaces for you to record your own reflections, answers, and action steps. Of course, you can also write in your own journal, notebook, computer document, or other resource, but we have provided you with space for your convenience.

Also, each lesson will direct you toward the introductory material and numerous notes provided in The Passion Translation. There each Bible book contains a number of aids supplied to help you better grasp God’s words and his incredible love, power, knowledge, plans, and so much more. We want you to get the most out of your Bible study, especially using it to draw you closer to the One who loves you most.

Finally, at the end of each lesson you’ll find a section called “Talking It Out.” This contains questions and exercises for application that you can share, answer, and apply with your spouse, a friend, a coworker, a Bible study group, or any other individuals or groups who would like to walk with you through this material. As Christians, we gather together to serve, study, worship, sing, evangelize, and a host of other activities. We grow together, not just on our own. This section will give you ample opportunities to engage others with some of the content of each lesson so you can work it out in community.

We offer all of this to support you in becoming an even more faithful and loving disciple of Jesus Christ. A disciple in the ancient world was a student of her teacher, a follower of his master. Students study, and followers follow. Jesus’ disciples are to sit at his feet and listen and learn and then do what he tells them and shows them to do. We have created The Passionate Life Bible Study Series to help you do what a disciple of Jesus is called to do.

So go.

Read God’s words.

Hear what he has to say in them and through them.

Meditate on them.

Hide them in your heart.

Display their truths in your life.

Share their truths with others.

Let them ignite Jesus’ passion and light in all you say and do.

Use them to help you fulfill what Jesus called his disciples to do: “Now wherever you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them to faithfully follow all that I have commanded you. And never forget that I am with you every day, even to the completion of this age” (Matthew 28:19–20).

And through all of this, let Jesus’ love nourish your heart and allow that love to overflow into your relationships with others (John 15:9–13). For it was for love that Jesus came, served, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. This love he gives us. And this love he wants us to pass along to others.

Why I Love the Gospel of Luke

Imagine the joy of telling the world about Jesus Christ. Many of us are faithful to share our faith with family, friends, and coworkers, but Luke gets to share his firsthand account of Jesus Christ with the whole world.

I’m looking forward to meeting Dr. Luke one day. He wrote over a quarter of the New Testament with his Gospel and the book of Acts. What a brilliant author and disciple of our Lord Jesus! I read his account with a hungry heart, for I know he performed an “autopsy” with the facts of the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus.2 That’s why I love Luke’s account; we can trust it.

Also, I love how Luke records Jesus’ interactions with both men and women. As stated in our introduction to Luke:

Luke writes about Jesus’ ministry to women twenty-four times. This was somewhat controversial in the culture of his day. In fact, Luke uses an alternating narrative of one story about a man and the next story about a woman. Luke begins with the story of Zechariah, then moves to Mary. A focus on Simeon, then on Anna. The Roman centurion, then the widow of Nain. The good Samaritan, then Mary and Martha. This pattern continues throughout his Gospel.3

I think Luke, more than any other Gospel writer, portrays the humanity of our Lord Jesus. Jesus is a wonderful man who gets hungry and sleepy and who reaches out with such tender compassion. He is not afraid to touch a leper, kneel before a child, restore the health of a suffering woman, and forgive his sometimes wayward followers. There is a human touch to the writings of Luke that has always moved my soul to want to know Jesus better.

Do you like prayer? Then you will love Luke’s stirring book that gives us glimpses into the private prayer life of our Master while presenting challenging truths to inspire our hearts to higher realms of prayer. I love the emphasis on prayer I find in this anointed Gospel.

Front and center in all of Luke’s chapters is our Lord Jesus Christ. We find a lengthy introduction to his birth and baptism, with loads of loving glimpses into the miracles and teachings that have transformed our lives. I think Luke may have been the first “Jesus freak” because of all the focus he places on the Son of Man, our glorious King. I love the Jesus-centeredness of Luke.

And I can’t leave out one more reason why Luke is beloved to my heart. It is the one he writes it for: Theophilus. For centuries, scholars have dug through ancient manuscripts looking for this man named Theophilus, but he remains an invisible, unknown entity. Who was he? Was he a nobleman? Perhaps an aristocrat of his day? Luke describes him as “excellent” or “honorable.” But the Greek word Luke uses to describe him could also be translated as “mighty.” I wonder who this “mighty Theophilus” could be. And why could historians and Bible scholars never track him down in history?

One day, it dawned on me. This was not a person but a group of people. The word Theophilus might not even be a name but a description. It means “lover (friend) of God.” I believe Luke wrote his Gospel for every “mighty (excellent) lover of God.” That’s you. Luke’s Gospel was written for you. And that’s why I love the book of Luke.

I know you’re going to enjoy this study guide. Make it your own personal journey into the heart of Jesus Christ. Be sure to take some friends along with you on your trip through this book of God’s Word.

Brian Simmons

General Editor

Luke and His Gospel: Getting Started

(Luke 1:1–4)

History and story—these are the basic hallmarks of the Gospel of Luke. The writer gives us history, what really happened in the past, but he tells it as a story—in fact, as the story of stories, the story that matters more than all others. It’s the historical story of Jesus, and like all good stories, it includes a cast of characters, all of whom are just as real as Jesus: for example, Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, King Herod, a prophet named John, Jesus’ disciples, and religious leaders such as the Pharisees and Sadducees. Luke tells about good angels and demons, healings and parables, discussions and refutations, prophetic pronouncements, betrayals, trials, and executions. And the writer ends the story with a resurrection and an ascension, events that open to the rest of the story—the other part of the story that the writer tells in his follow-up book, the Acts of the Apostles. Throughout his Gospel, however, the central figure is the man Jesus, who, the writer maintains, is God’s Son in the flesh. And that’s the most remarkable, life-changing event in human history. Truly the story of all stories, the historical fact of all facts.

The Writer’s Identity

The Gospel of Luke is the third of four Gospels, the others being Matthew, Mark, and John.

The earliest testimonies we have unanimously name Luke as the writer of the third Gospel book. The Gospel itself doesn’t mention who its writer is, but early church leaders, such as Irenaeus (late second century), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 155–220), Origen (ca. 185–254), and Tertullian (ca. 160/70–215/20), specify that the author is Luke and that he also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Even the heretic Marcion (ca. 135) named Luke as the writer of the third Gospel. Following such testimony, the church’s tradition never wavered that Luke was the author of the third Gospel and that he was also the one who wrote Acts.

So what do we know about Luke the man?

As the author of Acts, he humbly mentions a time when he was traveling with the apostle Paul. Luke doesn’t name himself, but the language changes from talking as a historian about Paul and his travels by using the third person voice (“they”) to talking as a participant, a fellow traveler, using the second person voice “we” (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). And Paul verifies Luke’s companionship in his travels as well as mentioning Luke’s medical vocation (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24; 2 Timothy 4:11). As a physician and one of Paul’s occasional traveling companions, Luke would have cared for the apostle’s health needs. One scholar states that Luke was “Paul’s medical adviser, and doubtless prolonged his life and rescued him from many a serious illness.”4

Discover more about Dr. Luke by reading the opening paragraph of the section titled “Author and Audience” in The Passion Translation’s introduction to the Gospel of Luke. Summarize what you find there about this early Christian.

We don’t know much about the man Luke. We do, however, know quite a bit about the writing he produced. He left us with the Gospel that bears his name and the follow-up book of Acts. Bible scholar Joseph Fitzmeyer wrote: “[Luke] was a perceptive, sensitive writer with a knack for telling a story and depicting a scene, and his Gospel has been described as ‘the most beautiful book’ ever written. His two books constitute the earliest history of the Christian church.”5

Luke’s vocabulary is extensive. Although he shares a good deal of his subject matter with Mark and Matthew, he “uses 266 words (other than proper names) which are not found elsewhere in the New Testament.”6 Another New Testament scholar points out that “Luke was a Greek who had the ‘native instinct’ not only to write well but to vary his style scene by scene…His writings are generally held to be superb in style and structure.”7

So while we have little information about the human author, his writings tell us that he was a first-rate wordsmith and storyteller, and his attention to detail and historical accuracy tell us that he was a master historian. In fact, scholar William Ramsay, who went into his studies of Luke assuming that the writer was not a good historian, came to the conclusion that “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness.” He also said about Luke: “No writer is correct by mere chance, or accurate sporadically. He is accurate by virtue of a certain habit of mind,” and this accuracy is “produced by his moral and intellectual character.”8 Luke shows through his writings that, intellectually, he was astute, and morally, he was a faithful member of the Way—a name that became attached to the Christian movement very early in its history.

What about the man Luke do you identify with?

Luke was not an eyewitness of the events he records in his Gospel (Luke 1:1–4). This made him a second-generation Christian writing about the believers in Jesus who came first. What advantages, if any, do you think this gave him in the writing of his book?

Luke’s Audience, Purpose, and Date

Luke opens his Gospel unlike any of the other three Gospels in the New Testament.

Read Luke 1:1–4 and study note ‘a’ in TPT, then answer the following questions:

Whom did Luke address as the first recipient(s) of his Gospel?

Did Luke know of other biographies of Jesus? Support your answer.

Why did Luke choose to write his account of Jesus’ life?

On what resources did he base his Gospel? Why do such resources matter in the writing of history, especially the history of a person’s life?

Now compare Luke’s opening verses with those of the other three Gospels. How does his opener differ from that of Matthew’s, Mark’s, and John’s?

Matthew 1:1–17

Mark 1:1

John 1:1–5

In TPT, the phrase “mighty lover of God” gets at the heart of the Greek word Theophilus, the original recipient of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:1). Much speculation has developed over the identity of Theophilus, for he is mentioned just twice in the New Testament (the other place is in Acts 1:1), and in both instances, Luke provides little information about him. All we know for certain is his name and what it means. This has led some scholars to wonder whether there ever was an individual named Theophilus. Perhaps Luke just meant to write his Gospel to anyone who identified as a lover or friend of God, especially those “non-Jewish lovers of God who may have felt out of place in the originally Jewish” side of the Christian movement.9

Whoever the original audience was, Luke strives to give them verified information about Jesus in the form of “an orderly account of what Jesus accomplished and fulfilled among us.” Luke refers to his Gospel as an “accurate compilation of my own meticulous investigation based on numerous eyewitness interviews.” His goal is to reassure his readers that what they had been taught about Jesus was true and trustworthy (Luke 1:1–4; cf. Acts 1:1).

Are you at a point in your life when you could use some reassurances about what you have learned about Jesus and his teachings? This Bible study on Luke’s Gospel could help meet this need. Take some time to ask God to use this study to accomplish that for you and to meet other needs that arise as a result of learning and applying Luke’s Gospel.

Determining the time when Luke wrote his Gospel is based largely on Acts and what that book does and does not record. The opening words of Luke and Acts imply an order, with Luke as the first book and Acts the second one.

Review Luke 1:1–4 and Acts 1:1. What do you find there that would indicate that Acts was written after Luke and not before it?

Also, the book of Acts does not mention several events that had a major impact on the early church—events that Luke would likely have mentioned if he had not yet concluded writing Acts. These omitted events include the following:

In the spring of AD 62, the Jewish ruling body, the Sanhedrin, put to death James, the Lord’s brother, without securing the permission of Roman authorities.

In 64, the Roman emperor Nero brought cruel and controversial atrocities upon Christians in the city of Rome and its surrounding districts.

Between 64 and 68, the apostles Peter and Paul were executed in Rome under the emperor Nero’s reign.

The Zealots, a Jewish party who worked to purge Israel of its Roman overlords, led an armed revolt against the Romans from 66 to 73. The church historian Eusebius (ca. 265–339) records a tradition that, before the war against Rome began, “believers had been warned through a prophetic utterance to flee from Jerusalem to the city of Pella in Perea…Perhaps some Jerusalem believers remembered the words of Jesus (Matt. 24:15–16 [parallels Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20–21]): ‘So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.’”

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And this Christians did—in droves!

In the year 70, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and ultimately looted and destroyed the city and its temple. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and rebels died in the process, including children.

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That Luke fails to mention any of these events indicates that he had completed writing his Gospel and Acts before they took place. This is especially telling for the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70. Since Jesus had predicted their destruction (Matthew 24:1–2, 15–18; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:20–24), it would be incredibly odd, if not astonishing, for Luke to omit them. After all, they further confirmed Jesus’ accuracy as a prophet.

When scholars put these facts (and others) together, they put the writing of Luke’s Gospel anywhere between the years 57 and 61.12

Major Characteristics

In telling Jesus’ story, Luke emphasizes certain aspects of it that especially stand out.

A Fuller History

Luke’s Gospel tells more of Jesus’ story than any of the other three Gospels. In fact, his Gospel is the longest book in the New Testament. Luke gives us a fuller account of Jesus’ birth and childhood and informs us about John the Baptist’s conception and birth. Luke presents many parables of Jesus not found in the other Gospels, such as the parables of the good Samaritan, the wealthy fool, the prodigal son, and the rich man and Lazarus. Luke also provides evidence of Jesus’ post-resurrection activity not found in the other Gospels, and he’s the only Gospel writer to describe Jesus’ ascension.

Each of the four Gospels presents the story of Jesus, and they do this from different angles, with different emphases, and with different purposes. In TPT, read the “About” and “Purpose” sections in the introduction to each Gospel. Summarize key features of each Gospel described there.

Matthew’s Gospel –

Mark’s Gospel –

Luke’s Gospel –

John’s Gospel –

Now consider how the combination of these key features helps us fill out the larger reality of Jesus. What might we have missed if we had just one of these Gospels or perhaps just two or even three of them?

The Gospel’s Universality

Luke presents the gospel as good news for all and available to all no matter their social or economic status, their gender or nationality, their Jewishness or non-Jewishness, their age maturity, or anything else that differentiates people. As one Bible commentator said: