This journey of awakening my heart to Jesus through the book of Luke has me excited. I’m glad we’re on this journey to the cross together!
We are going to read one chapter each day from the book of Luke from March 9th – April 8th Easter weekend. The weekends are reserved for catching up or pondering on what you learned during the week but there isn’t assigned reading.
Why the book of Luke? Well, there isn’t any specific reason I chose the book of Luke, other than, I realized I have not done an in-depth study of the book of Luke. I also liked that the book of Luke ends with the resurrection as we studied this over Easter.
As we get started studying the book of Luke you’re going to gain some tips and encouragement to study the Bible for yourself. One of the things that’s important before you study a book is to find out some background information.
Often you can discover this background information after you’ve read the whole book but sometimes you just can’t so we can search for it. Don’t worry, I”ll show you how!
If you don’t have a commentary of the Bible there are several places to gather this information. A study Bible often has this information about each book at the beginning. You can also look it up online but you need to make sure you’re getting information from reputable sources. Here are a few places where I do online searches: blueletterbible.org, bibleproject.com, gotquestions.com and insight.org.
Who wrote the book of Luke?
The book of Luke does not tell us who it’s written by but there is quite a bit of evidence to believe it was written by Luke a gentile physician who accompanied Paul on his many journeys. (Col 4:14, Philemon 1:24, 2 Tim. 4:11) Luke and Acts are both written by the same author to the same recipient–Theophilus. Theophilus is believed to be a Roman dignitary or a person of influence in that time. Also several commentaries believe it was written to the gentile believers of whom Theophilus was one of them.
When was the book of Luke written?
The concuss is that the book of Luke was written between AD 58 and AD65 before Acts was written.
Why was it written?
In the beginning verses, Luke tells us that he is adding eye witness accounts to the other accounts that have already been given. His are orderly accounts so that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (1:3-4) Being that Luke is a physician we see great detail in his book that’s not in the other gospel accounts.
The book of Luke is said to be unique because it focuses on Jesus’ interactions with the marginalized, sick, sinful and forgotten. Luke’s portrayal of Jesus emphasizes how he shows compassion to all people, no matter their station in life. The gospel truth of Salvation is for all, Jews and gentiles.
Often it is said that Matthew portrays Jesus as king, Mark portrays Jesus as servant, and Luke as Jesus the Son of Man.
Genre of the book:
The book of Luke is considered narrative. It’s the history of the life of Jesus and is one of the 4 Gospels along with Matthew, Mark, and John.
How to Study the Bible Tips:
- Start by praying and asking God to give you wisdom and understanding. Ask Him that what you learn is not mere knowledge but also heart transformation.
- Grab your free Easy Bible Study Method printable from HERE.
- Read. Read each chapter in its entirety. I highly recommend you read the whole book over the weekends when there’s no reading assigned.
- Time yourself. Often we don’t read the Bible because we don’t think we have time but if you time yourself you’ll realize you only need 10 minutes to read the chapter. It took me 8 minutes to listen to the chapter 1 and 9 minutes to read it for myself.
- Use a version of the Bible that you’re most comfortable using. I use ESV, NIV and I like listening to the whole book in NLT.
- Get a Bible app that you can listen to the Bible on. I use the free YouVersion Bible App.
- If you have little ones– I used to tell my kids —I’m going to study God’s word so give me 20 minutes. If they came to me during that time (which they usually did) I’d just hold them and continue reading out loud. If they needed something that wasn’t an emergency I’d tell them —wait I’ll be done soon.
Our schedule for journeying through the book of Luke:
