The Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of Luke

Jesus, the Perfect Human

     As I mentioned in my previous entries, each gospel has a unique perspective on the mission of Christ. Luke's target audience were the Greeks and his portrayal of Jesus was to show that he was the perfect human, someone we should all aspire to be like. The reason for this was because the Greeks of Luke's day spent a lot of time debating on what the perfect human should be like, so through out the text Luke gives examples of why Jesus is this ultimate person.

Luke the Physician

Luke was a doctor and a historian and this is reflected in his style of writing. He was very concerned with not only depicting accurately the ministry of Jesus, but also Jesus' past. He tells of how an angel came to John the Baptist's mother(John is Jesus' cousin) and told her that her child would prepare the way for the Messiah and tells what happened between that event and his birth. He next covers the events of what lead up to Jesus' birth, but instead of focusing on the nativity story he talks about Jesus as a child. This is the only account were Jesus' youth is covered. Really, this is normal for a good doctor, right? Most doctors who have a patient are concerned with their patients family history, even it is to trace an illness. Here we see Luke having a concern for the family of Jesus and his past because he thought it was relevant for the case of Christ. 

Luke the Feminist?

The society back in Luke's day was different from today's westernized world. It was a patriarchal system and women basically had no rights, they had to shut up and do what they were told. They also couldn't worship in the same parts of the temple that men could and then you have verses in 1st Timothy like this "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet" (1 Tim 2:12), ouch. The Church has had a huge history with taking this verse out of context and has not helped women feel very welcomed into the Kingdom. Luke however clearly illustrates that women have played a monumental part in furthering God's kingdom when he tells of Elizabeth's(John's mom) faith and Mary's faith and obedience to the message of God(Luke 1:41-55). Really though, if you look at the whole picture God has included woman at crucial points through out the Bible. For example, one would only need to look at Ruth and Naomi, Esther, Hannah the mother of the prophet Samuel and of course Mary. Not to mention, women disciples of Jesus helped financially fund his ministry as we learn in Luke 8. Before that we have the old woman Anna who gave a prophecy when she met Jesus' parents in the temple (Luke 2:36-38). This  passage not only showed her devout relationship with God, but proved God is also willing to use women in his work. Even though Jesus' main disciples were 12 men, it is my belief that Luke thinks that women are equals in the Kingdom of God. It seems that like the men of this time, the ones during Jesus' ministry were kind of a disappointment, but then a man appeared who women could count of fully, who treated them the way they are supposed to be treated. Truly, when all other men fail/failed, this man doesn't. Jesus restored the women he came into contact with, he lifted them up, treated them like the creations of God that they were. I am willing to say that he will do that now.

Conclusion

So then, what shall we say? Is Jesus the perfect human? Other than his divinity, if we take into consideration the way he treated people, I would answer yes. What we really have here though is a picture of God's character saying that anyone can come to God regardless of Gender, nationality, occupation or social status. I wish I could do this book a little more justice, but my goal is to get people to read it, to spark a curiosity, hopefully that is the case.