Volume IV
The Gospel According to Saint Luke.
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. IV, p. 142
Luke was a physician, Col. 4. 14: and attended Paul about seventeen years after his coming into Macedonia, Ac. 16. 10: probably till his death, 2 Ti. 4. 11. He wrote this history of the life of Christ, perhaps about twenty-two, or rather thirty years after his ascension; and includes therein a multitude of things, not mentioned by Matthew nor Mark, concerning the birth and private life of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, ch. i. ii.; Christ's genealogy, ch. iii.; his preaching and persecution at Nazareth, ch. iv.; his sermon on the plain, ch. vi.; his raising the widow's son, and parable of the debtors, ch. vii.; his mission of the seventy; direction of the lawyer as to the way of eternal life; parable of the Samaritan, and reproof of Martha, ch. x.; his directions to pray; parable of the importunate friend, ch. xi.; and of the rich fool, ch. xii.; his alarm to repentance, &c.; his parable of the barren fig-tree; his healing the deformed woman, ch. xiii.; his cure of the dropsy; parables of the supper, builder, and king intending to make war, ch. xiv.; his parables of the lost sheep, piece of silver, younger son, unjust steward, and of Lazarus, ch. xv. xvi.; his parable of the servant; his healing ten lepers: his warning as to the awful manner of setting up his kingdom, ch. xvii.; his parable of the importunate widow, and of the Pharisee and publican, ch. xviii.; the conversion of Zaccheus; parable of the pounds; mournful prediction of Jerusalem's ruin, ch. xix.; his abuse by Herod, ch. xxiii.; and conversation with the disciples going to Emmaus; and with the eleven, &c., ch. xxiv.
[The references of Luke to the Old Testament are Ge. 7. 27; 18. 19; 19. 26; Ex. 23. 15-17; Le. 19. 18; De. 6. 5-13; 16. 1-16; 2 Sa. 7. 11, 12; 1 Ki. 10. 1; 17. 9; 2 Ki. 5. 14; 1 Ch. 24. 10-19; 2 Ch. 8. 14; 24. 20, 21; Ps. 91. 11; 118. 22, 26; 132. 11; Is. 8. 14; 9. 2; 35. 5; 46. 3; 50. 6; 52. 10; 53. 1, 2; Da. 9. 26, 27; Mi. 3. 12. C.
The origin and object of Luke's Gospel are stated by himself. Others had taken in hand to draw up narratives of our Lord's life and labours, he resolved to write a more complete history. The other narratives to which he refers were not the canonical Gospels; they appear to have been fragmentary biographies written without divine authority, and consequently imperfect, and probably erroneous. Luke, with these before him, undertook in the interests of the church, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to draw up a full and authentic narrative. He was not himself an eye-witness of Christ's labours; but he received his information from
those who were; he arranged his materials and constructed his narrative with philosophic skill; and his Gospel is in some respects historically more complete than any of the others. It gives details of the events preceding and accompanying the birth of our Lord which we do not find elsewhere, and which were probably obtained from the Virgin Mary. It unfolds more fully some of Christ's discourses and parables; it enlarges upon the great facts of the resurrection; and it supplies the only account we possess in the Gospels of the last earthly interview between Christ and the apostles at the ascension. Luke attached himself specially to Paul; joining him at Troas on the eve of his entrance into Greece, he remained with him during the greater number of his later missionary journeys. He accompanied him to Jerusalem, where he was seized by the Jews; he remained with him at Caesarea; he went with him to Rome, and was his companion during a long imprisonment. The character of Paul's oral teachings, the varied nationalities of the churches he founded, his logical acumen and burning eloquence—all contributed more or less to give this Gospel its distinctive form, and to make it equally applicable and acceptable to Jewish and Gentile converts. P.]