Luke

By F. Scott Spencer

The story Luke tells in his gospel, says F. Scott Spencer, is “a compelling, complex narrative confession of faith in God. To what degree anyone joins Luke in that faith journey is up to them, but any responsible interpreter must attend considerately to Luke’s theological roadmap.”

In this latest addition to the Two Horizons New Testament Commentary series, Spencer integrates close textual analysis of Luke’s unfolding narrative with systematic theology, spiritual forma­tion, philosophical inquiry, and psychological research. With section-by-section commentary, Spencer highlights the overriding salvific message that runs through Luke’s gospel. Pastors, scholars, and students alike will benefit from Spencer’s insight into Luke’s theological significance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Apr 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781467452427

F. Scott Spencer

F. Scott Spencer is professor of New Testament and preaching at Baptist Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. His other books include Dancing Girls, Loose Ladies, and Women of the Cloth and The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles

Book preview

Luke

F. Scott Spencer

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

© 2019 F. Scott Spencer

All rights reserved

Published 2019

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-2563-6

eISBN 978-1-4674-5267-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Spencer, F. Scott (Franklin Scott), author.

Title: Luke / F. Scott Spencer.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019. | Series: Two horizons New Testament commentary | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018035774 | ISBN 9780802825636 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Luke—Commentaries.

Classification: LCC BS2595.53 .S73 2019 | DDC 226.4/077—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035774

THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY

Joel B. Green, General Editor

Two features distinguish THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY series: theological exegesis and theological reflection.

Exegesis since the Reformation era and especially in the past two hundred years emphasized careful attention to philology, grammar, syntax, and concerns of a historical nature. More recently, commentary has expanded to include social-scientific, political, or canonical questions and more.

Without slighting the significance of those sorts of questions, scholars in THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY locate their primary interests on theological readings of texts, past and present. The result is a paragraph-by-paragraph engagement with the text that is deliberately theological in focus.

Theological reflection in THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY takes many forms, including locating each New Testament book in relation to the whole of Scripture—asking what the biblical book contributes to biblical theology—and in conversation with constructive theology of today. How commentators engage in the work of theological reflection will differ from book to book, depending on their particular theological tradition and how they perceive the work of biblical theology and theological hermeneutics. This heterogeneity derives as well from the relative infancy of the project of theological interpretation of Scripture in modern times and from the challenge of grappling with a book’s message in Greco-Roman antiquity, in the canon of Scripture and history of interpretation, and for life in the admittedly diverse Western world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

THE TWO HORIZONS NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY is written primarily for students, pastors, and other Christian leaders seeking to engage in theological interpretation of Scripture.

To Lauren Michael and Meredith Leigh,

most excellent daughters, beloved with all my heart

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION: READING LUKE THEOLOGICALLY

A Pilgrim’s Prospectus

Minifesto for Theological Interpretation

Introductory Addenda

INTERPRETATION: THEOLOGICAL COMMENTARY ON LUKE

Knowing God the Savior with Solid Assurance through the Story of Jesus (1:1–4)

Knowing God the Creating Savior in the Birth and Growth of Jesus (1:5–4:13)

Birth Announcements and Celebrations (1:5–80)

Jesus’s Birth and Childhood (2:1–52)

Jesus’s Baptism and Temptation (3:1–4:13)

Knowing God the Liberating Savior in the Teachings and Miracles of Jesus (4:14–9:50)

Proclaiming the Freedom of Jubilee (4:14–6:16)

Leveling the Field of Opportunity (6:17–8:3)

Cultivating the Fruit of Salvation (8:4–9:50)

Knowing God the Seeking Savior in the Travels and Parables of Jesus (9:51–19:44)

Stage 1: Refusing to Retaliate and Destroy in the Face of Rejection and Prejudice (9:51–13:21)

Stage 2: Longing to Gather and Protect in the Face of Opposition and Obstinacy (13:22–17:10)

Stage 3: Choosing to Restore and Welcome in the Face of Ingratitude and Otherness (17:11–18:30)

Stage 4: Pressing On to Suffer and Save in the Face of Injustice and Ignorance (18:31–19:44)

Knowing God the Suffering Savior in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus (19:45–24:53)

Challenging the Temple Establishment (19:45–21:38)

Incarnating the World’s Suffering (22:1–24:53)

INTEGRATION: THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON LUKE

Reflecting on Luke Systematically

Theological Knowing

Trinitarian Theology

Spiritual Theology

Creational Theology

Social Theology

Passional Theology

Bibliography

Index of Authors

Index of Subjects

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

Preface

At the 2008 Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) annual meeting in Boston, I ran into Joel Green as we were heading opposite ways in the Prudential Center, foraging for food. We stopped and chatted about this and that, but I made a point of bringing up the Two Horizons series of commentaries that Joel was editing and had recently kicked off with his fine volume on 1 Peter (2007). I expressed keen interest in the series and casually (ahem) mentioned that I would like to help, if I could. He politely acknowledged my offer, said something, I think, about Luke being a possibility, and indicated that he would get back to me. I filed this away in my SBL mental file under networking. I’m not very good at schmoozing, but I make an effort. And SBL meetings teem with myriads of these types of conversations, talking shop, working deals, angling for better jobs, and such. We’re a rather geeky bunch and not slick businesspeople for the most part, but we play the game once a year as best we can. I did my bit with Joel but didn’t hold my breath about whether anything would materialize.

I should have known better. Joel is a consummate gentleman and professional—in both scholarship and administration (a rare breed)—and, while a man of good humor, he doesn’t waste his time with foolish pursuits. His productivity and efficiency as author, editor, and dean are legendary. He took me seriously and soon officially offered me the THNTC volume on Luke. I had been serious, too, about my desire to contribute, but more on the order of a fishing expedition; at the time I was seriously exploring a number of projects. But now it was commitment time, and I don’t enter into commitments lightly.

I swallowed hard. I really loved the fresh approach and format of the Two Horizons commentaries, integrating cutting-edge critical, interdisciplinary biblical scholarship and confessional theological interpretation of Scripture. But Joel had just started this series with 300 insight-packed pages on the five chapters of 1 Peter! Luke, of course, has twenty-four chapters, and all of them are longer than 1 Peter’s (Luke 1 has eighty verses!). Oh, and ten years earlier, Joel himself had written a magisterial 800-page commentary on Luke for NICNT, beautifully sustaining literary, cultural, and theological exposition across the volume. It was hard to imagine myself remotely approximating that achievement, to say nothing of other astute Lukan commentaries, which seem to multiply like rabbits.

Obviously I dealt with my anxiety and got on with the project, encouraged by Joel’s faith that I was up to the task. It’s been a long journey, but a richly rewarding one intellectually and spiritually; or perhaps, rather, I should say formatively, involving mind and heart together, integrally, in what is commonly known these days as spiritual formation. Early on in my work on this commentary, I lit on Luke’s stated purpose for writing his Gospel—"that you may know the truth [assuredly, solidly]" (1:4)—as a guiding star for my trek through the narrative. All written communication, of course, seeks to convey knowledge on some level, but I took Luke’s aim in the fullest sense of knowing God in Christ through the Spirit in all the interwoven ways we come to know ourselves, other people, and the lives we/they lead, which is to say: experientially, relationally, emotionally as well as meditatively, individually, analytically. As Luke masterfully builds his characters and plots around the main character, Jesus Messiah, readers’ knowledge grows along with the characters-in-relation within the story. Framing the story of the adolescent Jesus’s engagement with temple scholars (found only in Luke among the canonical Gospels) is the assessment of Jesus’s growth in wisdom . . . and in divine and human favor (2:52; cf. 2:40). Luke happily gives student and teacher Jesus an A+, but not gratuitously: Jesus learns his material and earns his grade through conflict and suffering (cf. Heb 5:8–9), with blood, sweat, and tears (Luke 19:41–44; 22:43). Via Luke’s narrative, we come to know Jesus as Lord and Christ more fully as he comes to know and fleshes out (incarnates) his saving identity and mission.

I make no claim to being a spiritual director (far from it), but I hope this commentary offers some illumination of Luke’s narrative tracking of Jesus’s and his followers’ foundational spiritual pilgrimages. I certify the usual disclaimer that I bear full responsibility for whatever missteps I take and errors I make as Luke’s tour guide. Daring to comment on such an iconic text, which better minds than mine have tackled, is a risky venture, to say the least. Perhaps what I appreciate most about Joel Green is that, while nudging me this way and that on key matters—and, of course, providing numerous insights from his own writings—he largely gave me my head to run as I chose. Supportive freedom to think and feel afresh through this remarkable gospel, and to explore a wide array of theological, philosophical, and psychological resources for interpretation, is an inestimable gift of grace.

I’m indebted to many others—scholars, colleagues, students, congregants, and friends too numerous to name. For the past decade I’ve lectured and preached on Luke in a variety of seminary classes and church settings, always benefiting from thoughtful reception and feedback. The staff at Eerdmans has once again proven themselves among the best in the business. I enjoyed working with them on my book about capable women of purpose and persistence in Luke (Salty Wives, Spirited Mothers, and Savvy Widows [2012]), which I drew on for some of the material in this commentary. This time around, I’m especially grateful for the careful work of copyeditor Craig Noll, which regularly went beyond commas and colons to include a number of perceptive exegetical and theological queries. My interaction with Craig greatly improved the final product.

A couple of bookkeeping matters before my final acknowledgments. First, all Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the NRSV. Apart from using standard abbreviations for other versions, I use AT (author’s translation) for my own renderings. Second, as is standard for THNTC, commentaries are cited in the footnotes by author’s name only and page numbers; other sources include short titles. Full bibliographic information appears at the end of the volume.

My wife of forty-four years now (we married young!), Dr. Janet M. Spencer, continues to be the inspiration of my life. We have shared the long journey together at every point and look forward to many more miles to come. Our two most excellent daughters, Lauren Michael and Meredith Leigh (to whom Theophilus couldn’t light a candle [Luke 1:3]), continue to amaze and challenge us (in good ways!) in their now flourishing lives as adult women. To them I dedicate this book with all due irony: no personal commentary I could muster could ever adequately capture how I feel about them.

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION:

READING LUKE THEOLOGICALLY

A Pilgrim’s Prospectus

Luke’s Gospel opens with a concessive clause acknowledging numerous predecessors: Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events surrounding God’s climactic work through Jesus Messiah . . . (1:1). He thus sets up his own contribution to the gospel-writing industry partly, perhaps, to correct and clarify previous deficient treatments (Here’s what a real, true ‘carefully investigated’ gospel looks like [see 1:3]), but mostly to complement and certify the dynamic tradition Luke has graciously and faithfully received from eyewitnesses and servants of the word (1:2).¹

I might similarly introduce this study of Luke by tipping my hat to the many commentators who have come before me, but I hesitate to associate myself too closely with Luke himself, who obviously takes priority over anyone who dares to expound his work, or with the cadre of brilliant preceding Lukan scholars. Truth be told—and we all owe Luke that much, since his whole avowed purpose is to reinforce the truth/solidity (ἀσφάλεια, asphaleia [1:4]) of the gospel—the church today is blessed with several comprehensive, illuminating commentaries on the Third Gospel, which I do not intend (pretend), even if I were able, to replace or outpace. I list a number of these (in English or English translations) in the first section of the bibliography, with which I engage in my commentary; whether explicitly citing them or not, they deeply inform my reflections on Luke’s writings over the past three decades of concentrated study. No one expounds an inspired, iconic, canonical Scripture text like Luke in a vacuum. All commentators stand on shoulders broader and sturdier than ours, bearing an incalculable debt of insight we can never repay.

So why bother with another commentary at all, given the current embarrassment of riches? Such questions are better not asked perhaps (repression is not always a bad thing), at least not in the presence of publishers and not when I am totting up the years (about ten, I think) I’ve devoted to researching and writing this volume. But the publisher (God bless Eerdmans), the series editor (God bless Joel Green), and this humble writer would all really like this book to be widely read and discussed. Accordingly, it merits some justification in the market, some sense of what it brings to the table (a nice Lukan image) that others might not.

Most commentaries these days slot into a larger series. This one forms part of the Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (THNTC), which seeks to bridge the existing gap between biblical studies and systematic theology via section-by-section exegesis of the New Testament texts in close conversation with theological concerns. In short, it contributes to the growing interest in theological interpretation of Scripture.²

As recent years have witnessed important ventures in biblical commentary from systematic theologians, church historians, and broader humanities scholars,³ some biblical commentators have returned the favor and begun to engage more with other religious thinkers, including systematic theologians.⁴ I think it is safe to say, however, that the extent of my citing, discussing, and grappling with a range of theologians—including Jürgen Moltmann, John Caputo, Elizabeth Johnson, Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, Jonathan Sacks, Paul Tillich, Miroslav Volf, and Nicholas Wolterstorff (and scholars in other disciplines [see below])⁵—within my main commentary on Luke (as well as in a substantial concluding Integration section) distinguishes it from most others to date. Indeed, I may well cite these theologians more than I do biblical commentators (I haven’t done a formal count), not because I do not appreciate the latter’s rigorous work, but because my aim in this volume is different.

I do not seek to provide a compendium of prior research on Luke; truth be told (again), I find it rather tedious in commentaries to read extensive summaries of others’ studies (I can read those for myself); I am more interested in seeing what the current commentator has to say for himself or herself. Now I hasten to add that I regularly consult journal articles and other essays on specific Lukan passages, as well as studies on Luke’s social-historical world, so vital to explicating the biblical text in its own environment. Theological interpretation remains staunchly contextual in arcing between ancient and contemporary literary and cultural horizons.

Speaking of context, I think the section-by-section approach of the THNTC series serves to facilitate a better grasp of the internal literary context—its progressive flow of ideas, building of characters, development of themes and motifs, and sense of the whole argument or picture—than more (potentially) atomistic verse-by-verse analyses. This more holistic narrative-critical tack, as it is commonly designated, proves particularly apt for Luke’s Gospel, given its explicit identification as a narrative or account (διήγησις, diēgēsis [etymologically, a leading through; 1:1]) that unfolds in an orderly, step-by-step (καθεξῆς, kathexēs [1:3; cf. Acts 11:4]), logically linked plot line. This narrative-literary framework is no less suited to theological reflection than more propositional discourse; indeed, it particularly fits a vivid unveiling of God’s work in Christ, a sense of the dynamic, pulsing story of God’s redemptive mission, a narrative theology not antithetical to a dogmatic one but presented in different form with potentially different effects on the reader.

These readerly effects may be experienced in various ways, but in this commentary I strive toward a rigorously sequential, developmental, mindful interpretive journey that seeks to let the story unfold bit by bit, taking in the sights and sounds as they come, correlating (including questioning, wondering, debating, revising) with what has come before, but avoiding as much as possible any peeking ahead and spoiling the adventure. Now I admit that this is something of a pipe dream, since there’s no such thing as a purely naive reading, not least of a well-known canonical text like Luke that has been around for two millennia. We all know Luke’s Jesus is going to die and rise at the end of the story; the cross and empty tomb can scarcely be pushed out of our imaginations. But Jesus’s closest followers in the story do not know that and are not at all happy when it slowly begins to dawn on them; and even Jesus himself struggles with his fate on the night of his arrest (Luke 22:39–46). Just as we pick up new insights every time we thoughtfully reread Scripture with open hearts and minds, even for the umpteenth time, so we benefit from fresh, deliberate, wide-eyed trekking through the text as if (as much as possible) engaging it for the first time: moving from diēgēsis (reading through) to exegesis (reading out).

Consistent with this reader-response approach to narrative criticism, I concentrate on the final form of the Greek text of Luke, as best determined by textual criticism. Redaction criticism, the stock-in-trade of most late-twentieth-century commentaries, giving prime attention to Luke’s editorial handling of his Mark and Q sources, receives little play in my volume. I do keep a comparative eye on the other gospels (and Scripture as a whole) but resist concluding that differences between Mark and Luke, for example, constitute significant semantic and thematic changes (redactions) for Luke. They may or may not in light of Luke’s overall presentation, but the bare fact of difference does not necessarily make a difference. Moreover, Luke’s meaning is conveyed just as much, if not more so, in the large chunks of material shared in common with Mark and other gospels. My goal, in any case, is neither to demarcate Luke from nor to conflate it with the wider gospel tradition, but to let Luke be Luke on Luke’s own terms.

I will say more below about my intertextual engagement with the scriptural canon, but a brief word is in order here about this commentary’s particular relationship with the book of Acts. I follow the consensus that the same author wrote both Luke and Acts (the common Theophilus addressee and reference to first book in Acts 1:1 make this conclusion obvious) with similar language and style and pervasive character and thematic parallels (though different structures). But I am not as convinced as some that the writer had the entire two-volume project mapped out from the start, even less so that reading backward from Acts to Luke—in other words, reading the gospel in light of Acts or with a concerted view toward Acts—is the optimal interpretive strategy.⁶ Canonically, Luke and Acts have always been separate books (not 1–2 Theophilus), and historically there is scant evidence that they circulated in tandem (no boxed set).⁷ As it happens, I cut my scholarly teeth on the book of Acts with my PhD thesis on the Philip material and subsequent commentary on the entire book,⁸ so in fact I come to commenting on Luke after years of interpreting Acts. But I remain rather dogged in my commitment to letting Luke’s Gospel unfold for itself without overanticipating the Acts sequel. I do not claim that this is the only way to read Luke profitably, but it is the way I have chosen here and found fruitful.

Building on this sketch of my engagement with systematic theology and narrative criticism, I now identify the main planks of my approach to theological interpretation of Luke in this commentary. I present these, with limited supporting examples from Luke at this stage, as a quick orientation to what the reader should be on the lookout for in the commentary—a kind of promotional brochure or pilgrim’s prospectus, rather than a detailed travel guide. The proof is in the reading journey.

Minifesto for Theological Interpretation

I riff here on a recent collection of essays edited by Craig Bartholomew and Heath Thomas entitled A Manifesto for Theological Interpretation, which aims to crystallize the prime commitments of an avowedly theological hermeneutic of Scripture interpretation that has been building steam over the last two decades.⁹ Though I welcome the thoughtful, stimulating contributions to this volume, the whole idea of a manifesto makes me nervous. Chalk it up, perhaps, to my Baptist suspicion of (narrow) dogmatic creeds (many of us prefer to call articles of faith confessions, professions, or a message),¹⁰ though increasingly some Baptist groups have felt no such qualms and happily jumped on the manifesto bandwagon, including self-styled Bapto-Catholics, proponents of Evangelical Baptist Catholicity, and Reformed Baptists—groups that intentionally distinguish themselves from each other and other Baptists.¹¹ It frankly makes my head hurt. As it happens, several contributors to the latest Manifesto collection, including coeditor Thomas, are Southern Baptists; and the preface to this volume readily acknowledges that not everyone involved in the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar (2012–14), from which this Manifesto sprang, was fully comfortable with its rigid, procrustean intimation: The contributors to this volume (and especially the editors) recognize these dangers and affirm that the term ‘Manifesto’ does not mean the only, first, or final word on theological interpretation.¹² Fair enough, but they still promulgate twelve points in bold print, explicated in twelve chapters.

Nothing wrong with this approach, especially since the authors convey their views in an irenic spirit toward the aim not of scoring points, but of trying to make public the central tenets that help to orient theological reading of Scripture so as to hear God’s address.¹³ Moreover, I share many of their interests, though they would not share all of mine, I suspect (not a lot of interaction, for example, in their Manifesto with feminist criticisms or theologies, which I find very illuminating and challenging). I also can’t shake my manifesto-phobia (except for following scholars of various theological persuasions in dubbing Luke 4:18–19/Isa 61:1–3; 58:6 as Jesus’s mission manifesto) or muster the self-confidence to propound twelve planks, good biblical number though that may be. So rather cowardly, and somewhat cheekily, I set forth my minifesto for theological interpretation (of Luke) with a measly six points.

Theologically Centered

This plank is an easy one—and an obvious one—but worth presenting first because it has tended to get lost in the thicket of the hardest-core historical criticisms of Luke and the rest of the Bible. On its own terms—its own historically and culturally situated terms—Luke is first and foremost a narrative about God (θεός, theos) and God’s dealings with the people of Israel and the entire world through God’s Son Jesus Messiah and God’s Spirit in dynamic, interpenetrating, theological union (trinitarian, as we would say). Because it tells a story in real space and time, Luke’s Gospel charts a history, but generically it is not a mere, dispassionate history, if there were such a thing (a congressional record or business meeting transcript comes closest), but a theological-biographical history of God-in-Christ in the framework of first-century Palestine.¹⁴

And it is not an outsider’s history by a professional historian, like, say, an American academic or researcher might write a biography of Otto von Bismarck. However little we might know about the author of Luke (we do not even know that his name was Luke; I use that moniker only by convention) and however much investigative work he might have done, what comes through loudest and clearest, as with all the gospel writers, is that he writes within the Christian tradition in its first few generations as a committed believer in Christ as God’s Son and Messiah. He writes from faith for faith (cf. Rom 1:17) and does so for Theophilus and all God-lovers, as the name signals, for all who seek to know God more fully (see commentary on the prologue, Luke 1:1–4).

Historians of religion, classics scholars, and literary critics of all stripes are free to comment on Luke as they will and often provide illuminating insights. But they inevitably miss the boat and the full haul of fish teeming in its depths (to evoke Luke 5:1–11) if they do not engage with this gospel for what it was, is, and always will be: a compelling, complex narrative confession of faith in God. To what degree anyone faithfully joins Luke in that faith journey is up to them, but any responsible interpreter must at least attend considerately to Luke’s theological roadmap.

Philosophically Expanded

The only use of φιλοσοφία (philosophia) in the NT has skewed a perfectly good term meaning love of wisdom: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy [φιλοσοφίας, philosophias] and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Col 2:8). Of course, in ancient Greek life there were various philosophies, various paths of wisdom to follow promulgated by purported sages. In Colossae, one idiosyncratic philosophy, the contours of which remain sketchy in the Colossian letter, struck Paul as antithetical to Christ and Christian virtues. But this one example hardly disqualifies all wisdom (σοφία, sophia). Indeed, in the same letter Paul prays that the Colossian congregation "may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom [σοφίᾳ, sophia] and understanding, so that you may live lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work, and as you grow in the knowledge of God (Col 1:9–10). God is the source of all true wisdom. Spiritual (πνευματικός, pneumatikos) wisdom—that is, the wisdom of God’s Spirit—far from eschewing so-called secular expressions of wisdom that may not acknowledge the name of God or Christ, in fact encompasses all truth under whatever banner. In Christ himself . . . are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:2b–3).

Such a hidden, mysterious state (see μυστήριον [mystērion] in Col 1:26–27; 2:2; 4:3), however, does not denote a body of secret plans and programs,¹⁵ some gnostic codebook for the privileged few, but the wisdom of God (in Christ through the Spirit) obscured by human sinfulness and short-sidedness, which God desires to disclose fully. God desires deep and wide knowledge and understanding of God’s wise will for the purpose of fruitful, flourishing living pleasing to God (1:9–10; 2:2–3). God longs to reveal, to be known.¹⁶

This epistemological and sophialogical thrust also characterizes Luke’s Gospel and will be a major focus of the present commentary. I take my first cue from the long prologue sentence, which concludes with the explicit purpose clause for the entire narrative. My translation, discussed more fully in the opening section, which I entitle Knowing God the Savior in Solid Assurance through the Story of Jesus (Luke 1:1–4), runs: "I decided . . . to write . . . to the end that you may come to know the solidity of the matters which you have been taught" (1:3–4). It is of critical importance that Luke’s Jesus, the protagonist of the entire story, embodies or incarnates this progressive knowledge of God’s will—this faithful growth in wisdom (see 2:40, 52)—as the Son and chief Prophet of divine wisdom (7:34–35; 11:49). Among other portions of the Jewish Bible (see next section, Canonically Connected), the wisdom materials in the Writings part of the HB and additional books in the LXX (Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon) also inform Luke’s Gospel, as we shall see. And it is well known that this literature, though firmly rooted in theological soil (The fear of the LORD is the beginning [and end] of knowledge/wisdom [Prov 1:7; 2:5–6; 3:7; 9:10; Eccl 12:13]), also welcomes creational (natural) and cosmopolitan (international) observations. Nowhere in the Bible do theology and philosophy intersect more than in the wisdom traditions.¹⁷

Aptly, then, theological interpretation of Luke should track the horizons of both ancient and modern philosophical reflection. Systematic theologians routinely engage philosophy, some more than others (esp. Caputo, Tillich, and Wolterstorff, among those cited above)—and not just philosophy of religion per se. Moreover, in line with philosophy’s close alliance with psychology until the early twentieth century (William James was an adept philosopher, psychologist, and physician, resisting specialization silos that have increasingly divided Western academics), the full range of the human sciences provides much food for thought for critical, open-minded theological exegetes. Of course, this interdisciplinary impulse is fraught with obstacles as well as opportunities. It is hard enough to keep up with the flood of Lukan studies these days, let alone the tsunami of knowledge from the natural and social sciences. I make no pretense to being a polymath. But despite my limitations, I try to be a minimath (to keep up the mini image) and do the best I can. In any case, the reader will find regular references to philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and other scholars in various fields not customarily cited in exegetical commentaries.

I find not a little encouragement for my efforts in Plank #5 of the Manifesto for Theological Interpretation related to The Role of Hermeneutics and Philosophy in Theological Interpretation. The opening synopsis of this plank puts it very clearly:

Notwithstanding the sometimes uneasy relationship between philosophy and theology, the resources of philosophy—and by extension of all scholarship—remain essential for maintaining a properly life-affirming and integrated intellectual habitat for theological interpretation. For the task of theological interpretation, philosophy is practiced with an awareness of both its limits and its vocation within God’s creational ordinances. . . . Philosophical insights can . . . be expressed in terms of Christian wisdom. Indeed, the extent to which these philosophical developments owe their inspiration to convictions learned in the language of faith is a moot point. It therefore becomes somewhat artificial to attempt to draw clear lines of division between theology on the one side and philosophy on the other.¹⁸

Or more succinctly stated: Theological interpretation must be interdisciplinary, learning to speak with multiple conversation partners.¹⁹ Accordingly, the reader (like the writer) of this commentary does not walk alone; theological interpretation of Scripture is not a silent, solo adventure. Get ready to hear—openly, joyfully, and critically—a lot of voices. As Luke’s Jesus put it, Let anyone with ears to hear listen! (8:8; 14:35).

Canonically Connected

Because theological interpretation of the Bible is not a solo, straitened intellectual exercise, but rather is deeply informed by ecclesiastical tradition and interdisciplinary wisdom, it challenges somewhat the famed Reformation dictum of sola Scriptura. The priority of Scripture, yes, and even its singularity in the sense of a unique, written (scripted) repository of divine revelation; but the exclusivity of Scripture, Scripture alone as self-interpreting, as the only word one needs to know God—not so much: that notion shrinks the immeasurable horizon of God to a manufactured object, an artifact (bibliolatry is a real and present danger). God does not live in a scroll, a codex, a book (βίβλος, biblos) made with human hands (any more than God lives in a temple), however good and holy that book is, however fine a leather binding or gold edging may adorn the tome.

Of course, the Bible, though most commonly produced and purchased in modern times in one volume, is not one book at all, but an anthology of books of varying sizes originally written in Hebrew (with some Aramaic) and Greek over a thousand-year period or so, eventually compiled into an authoritative canon of sacred Scripture. Here too, then, the sola adjective should be clarified, especially when commenting on one biblical book, like the Gospel of Luke. Though I intend, as stated above, to keep my interpretive eye firmly fixed on Luke’s narrative to see/hear what Luke has to say on his own terms, I know full well that Luke did not write, and no one has ever read this narrative, in a hermetically sealed chamber; again, the making and consuming of books is never a purely solitary affair. All writing and reading are intertextual in large measure. And even without the modern conventions of footnotes and bibliography, Luke makes abundantly clear his debt to other canonical books, to tota Scriptura, the whole purpose [counsel] of God (Acts 20:27) in Scripture.²⁰

At the end of Jesus’s earthly journey in Luke, the risen Lord makes explicit what has already been evident across the story, namely, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44; cf. vv. 26–27). This wording covers all three principal sections of the Jewish Scriptures. Throughout the commentary, I will make much of Luke’s ongoing conversation with texts and books of the Law/Torah (esp. Genesis and Deuteronomy), the Prophets (esp. former prophets Elijah/Elisha in 1–2 Kings and latter prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and the Writings (esp. Psalms). But beyond explicating many patent OT citations and allusions, I also probe thick thematic resonances of major ideas/events—particularly, creation, exodus, exile, and restoration—between Luke’s Gospel and the sweeping OT story of God’s dealings with Israel and all families of the earth. It is no exaggeration to say that Luke is thoroughly immersed in biblical narrative theology. Far from simply raiding Scripture as a proof-text grab bag and limiting himself to a hyperliteral, mathematical equivalence of old predictive pointers and new fulfillment events (OT = NT), Luke engages in the art of theological interpretation,²¹ a dynamic, creative, Spirit-infused process of thinking through, praying over, wrestling with, and writing out (and no doubt rewriting many times) the complex event(s) of God’s coming into the world afresh in Jesus Messiah—but not de novo. The God who comes in Christ is the God of all creation and covenant, the God of the world and Israel, the God of Genesis and Malachi. Luke picks up this biblical story and unpacks it further in light of Christ. The journey continues.

And just as Luke does not undertake this gospel-writing journey alone, winding up sharing canonical status with Matthew, Mark, and John, he also walks and writes alongside the apostle Paul (perhaps literally—as well as literately—for a time)²² and other authors whose letters and apocalypse (John’s Revelation) came to compose the NT part of the Christian canon alongside the OT. Leaving aside the vexed question of how closely Luke studied Paul’s antecedent letters and how many allusions to these letters we might detect in the book of Acts (where Paul is a major figure),²³ we can certainly justify correlating (comparing and contrasting) the presentation in Luke’s Gospel with Pauline thought in a theological commentary like this one. I freely bring in Paul and other NT writers to help elucidate Luke’s narrative, with no special claim to strict literary dependence, but with every intention to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, in toto.

Salvifically Aimed

You have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:15–16)

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. (John 5:39)

The Pauline and Johannine writers firmly link the study and interpretation of Scripture with the practical-theological goal (telos) of good, full, flourishing life, presently and eternally—the very life of God-in-Christ thriving in God’s people.²⁴ In a word, used in 2 Tim 3:15 (and 2:10) and repeatedly in Luke and Acts, the goal is salvation (σωτηρία, sōtēria) (Luke 1:69, 71, 77; 19:9; Acts 4:12; 13:26, 47; 16:17; 27:34).

The Spirit-inspired prophetic hymn placed on the lips of Zechariah the priest early in Luke’s Gospel clearly melds this soteriological (salvific) theme with theological, epistemological, scriptural, and ecclesial strains: "[God] has raised up a mighty savior [lit. horn of salvation—κέρας σωτηρίας, keras sōtērias] for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. . . . The prophet of the Most High . . . will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation [γνῶσιν σωτηρίας, gnōsin sōtērias] to his people [Israel]" (Luke 1:69–70, 76–77). Luke’s narrative seeks to make known the continuation and consummation of the scriptural (prophetic) story of God’s saving purpose for God’s called-out (ecclesial) people as a graced community, not simply a random assortment of individuals, in the person and work of Jesus Messiah.

This soteriological principle in Luke, as I’ve called it elsewhere, accentuates God’s preeminent role as Savior (σωτήρ, sōtēr) of God’s creation, including God’s human family, personally and corporately.²⁵ The first confession of faith in Luke’s story comes from Mary of Nazareth in the opening hymn (just before Zechariah’s), extolling from the start the magnificent work of "God my Savior (1:47). Soon the angel of the Lord chimes in, announcing to a group of nomadic, nocturnal shepherds the birth of Jesus the Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord (2:11). As common as this Savior title for Jesus (less so for God) has become in modern Christian hymnody, it is quite rare in the gospel tradition outside of Luke and Acts (Luke 1:47; 2:11; Acts 5:31; 13:23 [otherwise only in John 4:42]).²⁶ The primary, programmatic position of God (and Christ) as Savior in liturgical formulation commends God our Savior (Mary’s my Savior quickly extends backward and forward to all generations" of God’s people in her prophetic song [Luke 1:50–55]) as a virtual banner over the entire Lukan narrative.

The dominance of this saving theme throughout Luke’s Gospel is further reinforced by some seventeen occurrences of the verb σῴζω (sōzō) (plus thirteen more in Acts), signaling God’s saving action in Christ. Of course, linguistic statistics do not tell the whole tale, but the contexts of these saving events, as the commentary will unpack, evince a rich range of restorative, right-making activity in the lives of human beings and the surroundings of the world. Saving in God’s terms defies narrow definition, bursting forth into a cosmic, holistic vision of God’s re-creational purpose for all creatures and environs. In short, Luke wants his readers to know how the Savior God has acted dynamically in Christ to make their broken lives and world whole.

Ecclesially Located

The communal-ecclesial commitment of theological interpretation is rooted in the nature of (1) God, who dwells in perfect, perichoretic (interpenetrating) trinitarian fellowship—Father ↔ Son ↔ Spirit—and creates and calls people made in God’s image to share in that communion; (2) Scripture, whose canon is forged and affirmed in the community of God’s people (the individual authors likely had no clue they were writing Scripture as such, and in any case, their writings would have long gone out of print without faithful reading groups and distribution centers [churches]); and (3) salvation, with its holistic concern for the health of the entire body of God’s creation.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims are aptly called "people of the Book, and however valued private, devotional reading might be, the principal locus of scriptural interpretation remains the local synagogues, churches, and mosques where people gather for worship, prayer, and study. While Luke’s Jesus happily talks about Scripture on the Emmaus Road and other outside" venues, he launches his messianic campaign with the reading and exposition of prophetic Scripture in the Nazareth synagogue, which in fact sets the agenda (manifesto!) for his saving mission on behalf of people within Israel and beyond (Luke 4:16–30; cf. 6:6–11; 13:10–17; Acts 13:13–47). The ecclesial biblical vision is manifestly ecumenical, encompassing the entire inhabited world that Rome fancied as its privileged imperial domain in pretentious usurpation of God’s realm (see οἰκουμένη [oikoumenē] in Luke 2:1; 4:5; 21:26; Acts 11:28; 17:6, 31; 19:27; 24:5).

Of course, not only tyrannical, megalomaniacal Caesars threaten God’s salvific, ecumenical vision. Outreaching and in-bringing evangelistic missions that dare to cross ethnic, social, and religious boundaries often breed conflict within established communities of faith. Jesus barely makes it out of hometown Nazareth alive after suggesting—via well-known stories from 1–2 Kings—that God might care about Sidonian widows and Syrian lepers as well as fellow Israelites (Luke 4:25–30). He routinely and, at times, hotly debates legal-scribal religious experts about various aspects of table fellowship and border security. The early church in Acts, for all its amazing unity, soon has a major crisis on its hands concerning Greek-speaking widows neglected by the dominant Aramaic-speaking wing of the Jerusalem church (Acts 6:1–7).

Nothing new or shocking here, sadly. Today we know all too well the bitter splits that wound the body of Christ within local churches, denominations, and among Christian communions across the globe, to say nothing of virulent strains that continue to plague interfaith fellowship among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other religious groups. So what’s an ecumenically minded theological interpreter of Scripture to do? Cry a pox on all their houses and claim to be a pristine member of the church universal above the fray? Yeah, right—that works as well as claiming to be a citizen of the world (cue Cicero) when my US passport is checked and stamped every time I venture overseas for a short visit, which hardly qualifies me as a concerned participant in that country or culture. Although I lived and studied for four years in England and passed my various language exams for advanced biblical study, I am still a born-and-bred American citizen who sees the world first and most familiarly through my American lenses, which themselves are multifocal. (I could write a book on the differences between my native Texas roots and my current Virginia residence.)

Oh, and back to the matter at hand: I am a lifelong Baptist, sort of. It has become fashionable to put the biblical interpreter’s autobiographical cards on the table. Honest disclosure about one’s social and ideological location is fine as far as it goes; but just as with biblical books, so with commentaries on those books, author profiling can easily overdetermine and skew reading of the texts themselves, which remain primary and to some degree independent (see more below under Author). Texts are composed by writers but not controlled by them when texts leave their hands; then readers take the reins, readers who indeed need to be as honest as possible about what they bring to the interpretive process. So I am not sure what is to be gained about confessing my sixty-year pilgrimage from an independent, fundamentalist Baptist upbringing to a Southern Baptist adolescence and young adulthood, into a moderate Baptist maturity that has included considerable interaction with other faith groups in the church and academy. (I happily maintain an evangelical commitment, if I can define it in the vein of Jesus and Luke’s evangel/gospel.)

But does this six-decade history affect how I interpret Luke theologically or otherwise? Of course! I can’t jump out of my skin to read and study the Bible. My name is Scott, and I am a biased Bible reader. Do I resist this background with all its attendant slants and try to be open to challenging perspectives posed by the text of Scripture itself and interpreters from other traditions? You bet. When you get enough history behind you, you acknowledge (hopefully) how much you’ve changed your views through the years, even on some matters you were once most dogmatic about. Have I been successful in this openness to God’s Spirit, God’s word, God’s people? Partly, perhaps, but by no means completely. Am I the best judge of my competence? Absolutely not! Our potential to delude ourselves is very potent indeed.

As a theological interpreter, I freely admit to being formed by my ecclesial communities for good and ill (we still live in a fallen, broken world) and by the wider span of ecclesiastical Christian traditions for good and ill (the church fathers are useful, but not infallible, and would have been more useful if they’d talked more with faithful church mothers)—all of which deeply inform my commentary writing about how I think Luke’s narrative aims to form solid, being-saved Christian pilgrims and to inform the Christian faith journey in Luke’s day and ours. This forming-and-informing happens on an unconscious level more than a conscious one. It is in my bones and marrow. In the commentary, I do not flag very much which Baptist points I might be pushing, which would be quite a trick anyway, since Baptists are notorious for disagreeing with one another. (I am not shy, however, about noting, for example, my appreciation for the so-called social gospel of the American Baptist theologian, pastor, and reformer Walter Rauschenbusch [though not without critique], which would not warm the hearts of my erstwhile Independent and Southern Baptist friends.)

I try to engage theologians, exegetes, and philosophers from a wide spectrum, but still with a patent preference for some over others. I am not sure how I would systematize these influential thinkers in the commentary, except in their illumination of Luke’s unfolding story from my viewpoint. I do, however, following the broad guidelines of this series, endeavor to become more systematic in the final Integration section, including more particular interaction with Baptist colleagues, though even here I selectively associate with more moderate Baptist commentators, as they are commonly classified. In my mind, ecclesial theological interpretation of Scripture inevitably entails a messy, yet necessary and meaningful, dialectic between local and ecumenical expressions of faith.

Emotionally Invested

I present this miniplank last because of its rare discussion in matters of biblical interpretation.²⁷ Textual analysis and theological synthesis in Western scholarship have typically given pride of place to reason over emotion, logos over pathos. Emotions (passions, affections, sentiments, by whatever name) have often been viewed as irrational disturbances and therefore not simply negligible, but even deleterious, to moral thought and life. Inflaming one’s passions of any sort surely leads to no good.

This long-standing dualistic paradigm, however, pitting sound reason against wild passion, has been systematically collapsing over the past few decades across a wide range of disciplines in the sciences and humanities, in favor of a more holistic anthropology integrating physical, mental, emotional, social, and environmental aspects of human experience. We think—and feel—on multiple levels; and thus we are. Indeed, feelings entail various thoughts—good, bad, and in between—and vice versa. Emotions involve some degree of cognitive judgment, and judgments inevitably carry some affective valence.

To be sure, biblical characters do not come with full psychological profiles, but they are scarcely automatons void of emotion. Right out of the box, Adam becomes afraid, and Cain becomes angry (Gen 3:10; 4:5). And while they might feel and think somewhat differently than modern Westerners about their fear and anger—in other words, the Hebrew terms might not perfectly map on to our modern English labels—we might safely assume, though always paying close attention to contexts, some reasonable overlap. It makes pretty clear sense that Adam would be terrified when he first crossed his Maker and that Cain did not coolly and calmly murder Abel just to see what would happen, but was motivated by some type of bitter feeling against his brother.

Fine, but that doesn’t get us to the heart of biblical interpretation, especially to theological interpretation focused on God and, from a Christian perspective, on Jesus Messiah, the Son of God and chief protagonist in Luke. Emotional outbursts from flawed human beings are no surprise; indeed, starting with the Adam and Cain examples just cited, emotions might be viewed as telltale signs of humanity’s fallen nature. These first humans’ problems, we might suppose, owed to their marked drift from the core rational dimension of the divine image in which they were created, the logical Word (logos) that brought all created life into existence and then became holy flesh on earth in Jesus, the incarnate God. God—Father, Son, and Spirit—though dynamic, is thoroughly impassible, incapable of volatile passion(s), in classic orthodox formulation.

Yet theology, like other fields of thought, especially in conversation with other disciplines, moves on; and some modern theologians have jettisoned an impassible, immutable God in favor of the passion of the passionate God, as Moltmann puts it.²⁸ The personal and persevering commitment of the biblical God to God’s people and world involves a deep divine dive into the full human condition—passions and all. God allows God’s self—indeed, positively embraces the opportunity—to be fully affected by, as well as to actively affect, the lives of God’s beloved people in all their ups and downs, faithfulness and fickleness. I track this move more fully in the section Passional Theology in the concluding Integration section. For now, I simply alert the reader to my perspective that Luke’s Jesus is emotionally invested with God in the saving mission to God’s needy people. Though granting that Luke’s emotional profile of Jesus is somewhat less raw and edgy than Mark’s, I do not find that Luke has chiseled Jesus into some sort of stoic supermartyr. Luke’s Jesus grieves, gets frustrated, even snippy from time to time, and he becomes surprised (confused?), along with displaying remarkable compassion (we have always allowed that emotion, though usually elevating divine love to a superhuman level). In other words, the passion of the Lukan Jesus is not just a convenient handle we use for the last week of his life. His fully embodied life and ministry is filled with passion, both positive and painful.

Accordingly, the many characters in Luke’s Gospel who come to know the saving Lord in various ways inevitably do so through their embodied-impassioned selves engaged with Jesus’s embodied-impassioned life. Without mutual emotional investment, the knowledge of God suffers and diminishes. More than most commentaries, this one stays alert to emotional elements provided in the narrative as signals of what matters most to characters (Jesus included), what concerns them most deeply,²⁹ drives them hardest, and imbues them with purposeful passion.

Introductory Addenda

The reader will have wondered by now when I am going to get to standard matters treated in commentary introductions related to a book’s author, date, audience, provenance, style, themes, and such. These introductions can be quite extensive, constructing a detailed profile based on the text, to be sure, but designed to be read before delving into a careful, sequential study of the book’s contents. That is why it is called an introduction and why it is placed before the running commentary on the text itself. Though these introductions are chock full of valuable information, they can be problematic for at least three reasons.

First, after receiving such a thorough introduction to a book, why bother with reading through the text and commentary? You can just dip into here or there whatever verses or passages you might be interested in at the time and simply slot them into the framework the introduction has provided. We’re all busy people after all. It is not quite like depending on CliffsNotes or SparkNotes, but it’s in the ballpark. Of course, every commentator insists that the introduction is no substitute for careful engagement with the biblical text—the whole text. But we commentators have no power of enforcement: as with all texts, when it leaves our hands, readers do with it as they will.

Second, and more critically, profiling a text before working through it can guide the reading (assuming one then goes ahead and does read the text) too much. That is, it constructs guardrails that are too rigid along a track that is too narrow for the reader’s journey. It tells the reader what he or she will or should find, thus foreclosing elements of surprise and challenge. The reading process becomes a scavenger hunt, which has its own joys, but remains limited in comparison with a closely attentive, step-by-step (orderly) journey of discovery cued by the reflective previews and reviews provided within the narrative (or another biblical genre).³⁰ The pitfalls of preprofiling a book are analogous, though not as perilous perhaps, as profiling a person before getting to know them (we all do this to some degree; we consciously have to resist snap judgments about people).

Now, to be clear and fair, serious commentators always write their introductions after they have plodded through their study of a particular writing. Ideally, then, the introduction simply summarizes and categorizes the results of close engagement with the text and related historical data supporting and illuminating the text. But nothing is ever fully ideal in the writing and reading of texts, including Scripture. And problems of circularity routinely raise their heads. Material in the text suggests something about something or someone outside the text (like the author, audience, or setting), which then lodges in our minds (consciously or not) and influences (controls) what or who we find in the text and external sources, and so the process keeps swirling. There’s no way to escape this circle fully—even by reading linearly!—but we can try to minimize its most egregious traps. Particularly for the less-experienced reader, but sometimes even for seasoned scholars, a certain profile formed mostly outside the text becomes the dominant force shaping interpretation of the text. An extreme case in point related to Luke’s Gospel, which has gone out of fashion but once fueled the preaching and teaching tradition, concerns the supposed authorship of this book by a physician. If we accept up front that Dr. Luke wrote the Third Gospel, then we become poised, to one degree or another, to see medical touches in the narrative, not least in the numerous healing stories. Such a reading strategy, however, is as imaginatively frivolous as it is historically dubious.³¹

Third, and most patently though oddly downplayed, with most biblical books—and certainly with Luke—we do not know with any great assurance who wrote this gospel to whom (other than Theophilus, whoever he was, if he was a historical individual) from where at what point in time. Our earliest manuscripts, the most complete of which stem from the fourth century CE, do not come with book jackets and copyright pages indicating author, date, publisher, and ISBN number. Educated guesses are worth making but not building much interpretation upon.

Anyway, to round out this introduction, here, in