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Steve Brown: Luke is a friend of ours, and we're going to introduce him on Key Life.

Matthew: This is Key Life. We're here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Jerry Cupery to do the teaching this week. Jerry is a pastor, an author, and has served the ministry for more than 35 years.

Steve Brown: Hey Matthew, thank you. Hey Jerry Paris.

Jerry Paris: Yes sir.

Steve Brown: Dr. Paris. Uh Jerry, as you know uh is a voice of Key Life, and he comes in pretty regularly. And we are in the process uh he is of teaching us about the different gospels. Uh the gospel writers all had a different perspective from each other, and that's why all four are included in the scriptures. And Dr. Paris has been looking at Matthew and Mark. And this week we're going to look at the gospel of Luke. And Jerry, it's good to have you with us.

Jerry Paris: Man, it is good to be here. I'm always excited to come into Key Life and hang out with you.

Steve Brown: And we're excited when you come. Hey listen, let me pray and then we'll get into the gospel of Luke. Father, we come into your presence, and we come thankful. Thankful for the people that you ordained to tell the story in your word. We thank you particularly for the gospel writers and the way they lift up Jesus in ways we can understand and in ways we recognize when we see him. Father, you know everybody who's listening to this broadcast, and you know the stuff that's hard, you know the stuff that's easy. Remind us that you're in charge of both.

And we can trust you because you're good all the time. Father, we do praise you. And we give you this broadcast. Be with the two guys that do the teaching. Forgive their sins cuz they're many. We would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jerry Paris: Amen.

Steve Brown: Jerry, the gospel of Luke opens with these words. Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. This is in Luke 1 and 1 through 4. They use the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus. So you can be certain of the truth of everything you are taught. That is a good way to open a book. That would make me want to read it. Keep tell us about Luke.

Jerry Paris: Yeah. Um you know when you read uh the book of Luke first of all, you want to know where did this guy come from? Who is he? You know what

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: uh Luke he wasn't one of the 12 disciples. Who who is Luke?

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: You know? And so uh that's what we're going to try to unfold and give you some information on this week. Uh Luke was a close companion of the apostle Paul and was also known uh as a physician. Traditionally, he is credited with writing both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. You know, some believe that Luke was a Gentile, and others believe that he was Jewish. I kind of believe that he was Jewish, but that's for another story.

Steve Brown: Okay, we won't go into that.

Jerry Paris: Yeah. However, most agreed that Luke was a physician. And that background gave him a unique perspective in his writings. Because he was a physician by trade, Luke carefully examined the evidence. You know, when you got a doctor and they're looking uh a doctor looks at every

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: aspects of something to make sure that he's getting it right. And so Luke, when he wrote uh his uh gospel, he went back and and and looked for all the evidence, uh made sure that he had uh uh the people that he interviewed. Everything was in order, and so he writes in complete details uh about um um the stories of Jesus and what happened in that time. And he was also an evangelist. Um many people don't know that he was one of the 70 uh disciples, or they call apostles, that Jesus sent out. You know, Jesus Jesus chose 12 that we all read about, but there were 70 other

Steve Brown: Uh huh. Yeah.

Jerry Paris: apostles and disciples that he sent out two by two. And And Luke writes about this in his book. He was one of those. Jesus sent them out in pairs to preach, heal, and prepare the way of his ministry. Their assignment show that the mission of Jesus extended beyond the 12 apostles and reach both uh Gentiles and Jews. Luke is traditionally believed to by some to have been one of those disciple.

Steve Brown: Yeah, and probably was.

Jerry Paris: Yeah, probably was one of those disciple. He gathered his information from firsthand eyewitnesses. That's why you could really uh believe And And what's amazing about the book of Luke uh Steve uh is that it parallels so with Matthew's and Mark. It It It's amazing. They wrote their books separately, but when you read them, they parallel together. You know, this is great.

Steve Brown: You know, they have those um those um Bible that combine those gospel writers to show how they were simply providing different details in each of their books. And Luke's is a long one.

Jerry Paris: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown: That's because he If you want to know more about Jesus, go to Luke. And you'll see Jesus through the eyes of a Do I dare say it? A scientist. He really is sort of that way, isn't he? I mean, he sees things that others don't see.

Jerry Paris: He He really does. You know, I was listening to a gentleman, friend of mine. He's an incredible preacher. And I asked him, I said, what how is it that you see things in the text that other people don't see?

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: And he says is because you have to look in the text like a detective. And look at every word, and you will see things, and things will be revealed. And that's the way Luke wrote the gospel of Luke. He looks at the details of things, and it's just incredible.

Steve Brown: It's a great book, too.

Jerry Paris: Yeah. You know, it's interesting uh how God approaches people in different ways depending on their language, their proclivities, what they think about the world. And God speaks to each of those people, and often through their own language and their own proclivities. And you see Luke as being somebody who does that too.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: He's saying to the world, look, this is for everybody. This isn't just for a few Jews over in a corner worshiping in a synagogue. This is for everybody. And Theophilus, the guy he's writing into is a Gentile.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that And that's what makes the gospel so incredible is because God includes everybody in the gospel. You know, and if And And And sometimes um depending on your denomination, you know, you have a tendency to feel that you have a upper uh uh one on. Baptists feel they're better than Methodists. Methodists feel they're better than Presbyterian. Pentecostal feel they're better than You know, and we all got the truth. We were talking about this in your office.

Jerry Paris: So true. We were, and that was a great You said something that I'll never You said God does not provide all the answers for anybody.

Steve Brown: No, he doesn't.

Jerry Paris: Listen, talk about the Peter situation. We've got a little bit of time, and I love that.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Um Peter came Jesus was talking about how Peter was going to die.

Jerry Paris: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And then Peter just will say, oh lord, well, if I'm going to die this way, what about John? And Jesus says, what does that have to do with you? You know, why why are you asking about John's death? And And the Bible says that there was a rumor that went out that John would never die because of Jesus' statement. Jesus knew their thoughts, but didn't correct them. And so they went around spreading a rumor that John would never die, and they got it wrong. And I said to I said to you Steve, how many times we read scripture and we think we got we got the answer, and we get it wrong.

And as we grow immature, especially in grace, we realize we had a whole lot of stuff wrong.

Jerry Paris: Yeah. Oh yeah. Listen that true.

Steve Brown: You know? And And And I believe that God sometimes makes us study so that Cuz if we had the answers, we wouldn't study. But he makes it a mystery so that we always have to dig into scripture to find out exactly what he's saying.

Jerry Paris: You know, one time Mr. and Mrs. Graham, Billy Graham uh were worshiping in a church I was serving. And I got to go out to lunch with them, and as we were driving to the restaurant, an issue came I forget what it was. And Mrs. Graham was in the backseat with her Bible thumbing through it. She said, I love these issues cuz they send me to the word.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Paris: And uh Luke does that too.

Steve Brown: Yes he does.

Jerry Paris: Well, we're going to find out a lot more the rest of this week as we study with Dr. Paris on the gospel according to Luke. Meanwhile, everybody's wrong some. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew: Thank you Steve and Jerry. That was Steve Brown and Jerry Paris introducing us to our series for this week, a survey of the gospel of Luke. This is going to be so good. Tomorrow we'll continue and meet a guy named Zechariah. Hope you'll join us for that. Well, there's a certain phrase you may have heard before, something along the lines of we live in the already but not yet. What does that mean? And what does it mean for us? Steve spoke to those questions in a sermon called we will be restored. In this sermon, Steve offers three insights into how we should live in a world so darkened by sin.

Get your copy of that sermon on CD for free right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to ask for that CD, or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for your absolutely free copy of the CD called we will be restored. And I know you 're busy, but one last thing. Would you partner in the work of Key Life through your giving? It's easy to do. You can just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope, or you can simply text Key Life to 28950.

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