Luke 1:1-4
Doubt is one of the most difficult feelings a person faces
in life. Doubt can lead to fear,
anxiety, anger and many other sins. Satan tries to fill our hearts with doubt
and it is one of the tools he uses most to attack the Gospel. It is of vital importance for Christians to
be assured of the truth of God’s Word and the Gospel. Skeptics are constantly trying to place the
Scriptures on the same level as fairy tales in order to cause believers to
doubt their faith. The history of Jesus
Christ is an account about which there must be no doubt in our minds. This is why Luke begins his Gospel in a way
that is designed to build our assurance of the truth of God’s Word and the
account of the life of Jesus. In this
passage we find two very convincing reasons as to why we should lay all doubt aside
and trust in the truth of message of Jesus Christ presented in the Gospels.
IT IS A CONFIRMED MESSAGE: The first argument Luke makes for
the confirmation of the Gospels is the argument of “quantity.” Luke tells us that many people had taken up
the task of recording in written form the life of Jesus. We must assume that Luke includes in this the
other three Gospel writers. There
certainly were many others who recorded things about the life of Christ in an organized
way. This fact lends great confirmation
to what we know about Jesus as well as attests to the importance of the life of
Christ. There are very few people who
lead a life that is significant enough to motivate others to record their life
story. Jesus was one of those few. In fact there were many authors inspired to
write about him. There were also many
who were convinced by what they read and believed in Jesus. Luke assures us that these authors had
recoded a true message that was confirmed as true by the original readers who
lived much closer to the actual events than we do. Luke’s second argument for the confirmation
of the Gospels is the argument of “quality.”
These people who wrote and read the writings about Jesus in the Gospel
were eye witnesses. They were not writing
down things that others told them about Jesus; rather they had seen Him and experienced
life with Him themselves. These authors
were recording their first-hand experiences and since there were many of them
that all recorded the same experiences we can have great confidence in this
message. These men were also given
greater credibility because they had become ministers of the Gospel. These eye-witnesses were fully committed to
the truth of their message to the point that they made the proclamation of that
message their life’s work. They lived
and breathed this message and died defending and proclaiming it. The quality of the Gospel writers is
unquestionable and confirms the authority of the Gospels beyond a shadow of a
doubt.
IT IS A CERTAIN MESSAGE: Luke now turns his attention to his
own task at hand. He too has accepted
the challenge of recording in a written form the life of Jesus Christ. The first argument he makes about the
certainty of his message is that he presents himself as an “authoritative
author.” Luke claims to have gained a
perfect understanding of all of the things about which he will write. Luke was a doctor and a highly educated man
who would not believe just anything. He
studied, read and observed all that was available to him until he was convinced
that he understood perfectly all that he would write about. All of us would do well to dedicate ourselves
to this task of understanding the Scriptures.
His knowledge and understanding of Christ goes back to the very
beginning. We do not know a great deal
of history about Luke’s life and how exactly he became a follower of Christ and
the traveling companion of both Peter and Paul.
However, we do know that he claims to have first-hand and personal knowledge
that goes all the way back to the beginning indicating that he too was most
likely an eye witness of the life of Christ.
Luke’s second argument as to the certainty of the message focuses on his
reader as a “respected recipient.” We do
not know much about Theophilus. His name
means a lover of God which should be a name all of us strive to attain for
ourselves. He was likely a wealth
Gentile who helped to support Luke in his travels, research and writing. Luke mentions him as the recipient of this
Gospel as well as Acts. Luke tells us
that the purpose of this book is to give Theophilus and all of us complete
certainty of the truth of the message of Christ. Luke’s reader had received much verbal
instruction as to the validity of the message but now Luke wants to write it
down so he will have a permanent and written record of the life of Jesus.
APPLICATION: Drive away all doubts about Jesus with the
truth of Scripture, we must trust God’s Word with all of our hearts. Demonstrate the validity of our faith by
ministering to others and proclaiming what we believe. Study God’s Word diligently in an effort to
come to a perfect understanding of it.
Care enough about the truth and about people to dedicate ourselves to
the task of convincing, instructing and reminding them of the Scriptures.
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