Luke in the Land: Walking With Jesus in His First-Century WorldНамуна

Jerome (AD 347–420), an early church father from Croatia, moved to Bethlehem and gave almost forty decades of his life to translating the biblical texts from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek into Latin. He contributed to a translation called the Latin Vulgate, which the church used for about a thousand years as a primary translation of the Bible.1 St. Jerome is commonly believed to have said that there is a “fifth Gospel.”

“Five Gospels record the life of Jesus. Four you will find in books and the one you will find in the land they call Holy. Read the fifth Gospel and the world of the four will open to you.” (Commonly attributed to St. Jerome.)

In other words, the land of Israel is the “fifth Gospel” accompanying the four we read. The land is the “Gospel” we walk. We take in the biblical four by reading, but we experience the “fifth” with our five senses.

As the author of the third Gospel, Luke had lived and walked the “fifth Gospel.” He interviewed eyewitnesses to the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus and sat down to write his Gospel—the Gospel of Luke, from these accounts. Luke’s Gospel reminds me of a photo album full of snapshots.

We don’t take and collect photos of every single moment of our lives (such as shopping on aisle three at Target®, taking out the trash, picking up kids from school, sitting in a doctor’s office, packing for a trip, etc.). But we do take photos to remember significant moments—important moments lived with the people we lived them alongside (school, holidays, babies, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, vacations, beautiful sunsets that made us cry, etc.)

I could get a really good sense of who you are, whom you love, what you care about, and the world that has shaped you and your worldview simply by looking at your photo albums and your snapshots—the snapshots you chose to keep along the way.

Similar to our photo albums, in the Gospel of Luke every single moment is not recorded. Every single story is not told. Every miracle, or teaching, or city visited by Jesus is not recorded. Rather, Luke told the stories he learned and heard from others. He provides gospel-gorgeous snapshots of the gospel story. The full testimony of Jesus could never be fully captured in human words in any one Gospel account. The very last verse of the very last Gospel, John's Gospel, ends with this truth.

Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Luke recorded the exact stories the living God wanted us to have. This makes me want to EAT my Bible and carry it around inside me. I want to see the snapshots He wants me to have, to hold, to carry within me as I live, move, and have my being in this life.

We are a people who are meant to experience Jesus. The four written Gospels and the “fifth Gospel” of the land of Israel invite us to experience Jesus and to understand Him in His first-century world—His life, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection—so that we might follow Him, being like Him in our own world.

Luke’s Gospel is the third of four Gospels located in the canon of the New Testament. However, originally it was seen as part one of a two-volume work that included the book of Acts.2 We can easily forget this point because the placement of John’s Gospel as the fourth separates Luke’s Gospel account from his further writings that follow in Acts. The earliest readers of the text would have read Luke and Acts as one continuous story. What began in Luke would see fulfillment throughout Acts and on and on until this very moment you and I find ourselves in. We too are part of this story.

The original work, known as Luke-Acts, makes up approximately one-fourth of the entire New Testament!3We don’t often think of Luke as one of the most prolific contributors to the New Testament writings, but with 24 chapters in Luke and 28 chapters in Acts, his literary contribution is a substantial gift to us who feast on the life, ministry, stories, and kingdom work of Jesus and His earliest disciples.

The Gospels and Acts are first-century teaching documents, rather than personal correspondence like much of the rest of the New Testament. As such, these texts do not provide Luke’s name as the author. However, reliable early Christian sources, such as the M. Canon (AD 170) and writings from Iranaeus (AD 180), confirm Luke as the writer of Luke-Acts.4

Luke was most likely a Gentile physician, well-versed in Greek culture and language, a follower of Jesus, and a companion of Paul on some of his missionary journeys and adventures. Paul refers to him as “dear friend Luke, the doctor” (Col. 4:14) and as a “fellow worker” (Philem. 24).

While Luke is not specifically mentioned as the author of Luke-Acts, one unique feature of Luke’s Gospel is that it is the only one that names its recipient—“most excellent Theophilus,” and “Theophilus” (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1). Theophilus means “beloved by God.” The phrase “most excellent” indicates that he was most likely a person of high social rank and financial status. We see this term used of other upper echelon people in the book of Acts (23:26; 24:3; 26:25). Theophilus was most likely the literary patron who financially provided for the copying of these Luke-Acts scrolls for himself and others.5

We often do not think of Luke as the one who wrote one-fourth of the New Testament, and we certainly don’t think of Theophilus as being the financier of one-fourth of the New Testament! The partnership between these two men giving what they had to further the story of the gospel being written and shared moves me deeply. Luke was educated and fluent in the Greek language, while Theophilus was a Jesus-follower with bank! One gave his reed pen or metal stylus to write it. One gave his money to pay for it.

And here we are, two thousand years later, still reading the gospel-gorgeous story of Jesus and His followers that those two wrote and financed. This reminds me of a simple principle I try to live by as a follower of Jesus: Give what you got!

It is beautiful to imagine Luke, some two thousand years ago, writing the third Gospel as he walked the “fifth Gospel,” interviewing eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus and the early church, and scribing these stories as the Holy Spirit led him (Luke 1:1-4). In Acts 27:1 and Acts 28:1, Luke used the word we, indicating that he was with Paul in Jerusalem and Caesarea during that two-and-a-half-year time frame. This would have most likely been the time Luke interviewed his eyewitnesses and wrote his Gospel account, even as he was walking, embodying, seeing, and experiencing the land of Israel for himself.7

Endnotes:

1. W. John Burghardt, “St. Jerome,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed March 15, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Jerome.

2. Don Stewart, “Why Is the Bible Divided into Chapters and Verses?,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed October 10, 2023, https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/bible-special/question8-why-is-the-bible-divided-into-chapters-and-verses.cfm.

3. “Introduction to the Gospel of Luke,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed March 21, 2024, https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/intros/luke.cfm.

4. Ibid.

5.Frank E. Dicken, “Luke,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

6. Flavius, Josephus, Against Apion (Germany: Books on Demand, 2019).

7. Alan J. Thompson, “Acts: A Commentary,” The Gospel Coalition, accessed March 22, 2024, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/commentary/acts/#section-1.