"This book will change your life"

Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you...so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught. Luke 1:3, 4 The Message

I've begun the new year with the intent to spend all of my personal Bible reflection in the Gospel of Luke. Having spent all of last year in the Story of the Patriarchs (see Parked in the Story of the Patriarchs), I have been longing to return to the Jesus Story, the best story of all stories. So, this past Monday I opened to the third gospel and read the lines I quoted above. In the times before when I've read Luke's account, I've glossed right over these verses, a sort of “blah, blah, blah, yes, yes, I see” kinda gloss. But right away I was struck by something he wrote: it's the claim he's making to those who read his book seriously. He tells me (and any one who else who may be listening) that if I read this treatise carefully it will change me.

As I reflected upon that, I immediately imagined myself at some future book-signing event at long last a published author. People are standing courteously in line in hopes to have my signature inside the cover of their copy. They gush, “I really loved your book” and I somewhat embarrassingly respond, “Gee, thanks. I'm glad you did” or as they walk away with my latest edition in hand I wish them well and say, “Hope you like it.” But if that day ever comes I can't imagine ever writing something so good that I would have the audacity to say, “Hey, read this book, man. It'll change your life.” But that's just exactly what Luke has told me – that if I read his words carefully I will be strengthened in the things I already know about Jesus. That's quite a claim for any man to make, let alone someone who's imploring you to read his book. Read this so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught (Msg).

Not being the scholarly type but having read a few things by those who are, it is not just happenstance that the word “certainty” is at the end of the long sentence that makes up verses 3-4. It's Luke's way of underlining the point he is so emphatic about:

“I have written all this, Theophilus, so that you may be sure”...my Gospel, says Luke, will offer you certainty. And in saying this he grasps...another twentieth-century nettle. For the word is asphaleia, which might be translated “infallibility” - a concept around which long warfare has been waged. Without apology Luke claims it for his Gospel, and its real meaning becomes plain. Read what I have written, he says, and you will see the facts on which Christianity is based; and you will find there something firm and solid and absolutely trustworthy, a sure foundation for faith.

The Message of Luke by Michael Wilcock, pp. 30-31

Who makes such a claim like that? Someone who is either a selfishly motivated promoter or a true believer who after “carefully investigating everything from the beginning” (v. 3) is fully persuaded that if I do the same as he I, too, will be persuaded about what I already believe about Jesus. It's a reminder to me long catechized in the faith that I cannot read this account at arm's length. I like what Michael Card has to say about the identity of Theophilus:

[while] we can never be sure of the identity of the mysterious Theophilus [his name means

“lover of God”]...that is not, strictly speaking, true either. He is you. He is me. For we have received some initial instruction on Jesus' life and ministry. We need to know with more certainty the truth of what we have heard. And you would not be holding Luke's book in your hands if you weren't in some sense a “lover of God,” or at least someone who longed to become one.

Luke: The Gospel of Amazement by Michael Card, p. 34

So I plan to read Luke's account with that intent – as a lover of God who aspires to love him more and know him better. May the Teacher of hearts instruct mine as I hear the Story all over again.

Reader beware