by Matt Privett

This is the beginning of what will be a lengthy, and I pray beneficial, walk through the Gospel of Luke. The word gospel is derived from a Greek word meaning “good news,” and its application to those first four books of our New Testament make sense, for it is those four books we see the incarnation, birth, earthly life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, and the Son of God. It’s in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we see Yahweh in the flesh.

Regrettably, these four books, while perhaps the most familiar in all of the Scriptures, are also among the most abused and misunderstood. I hope to demonstrate that throughout the course of the study. Sometimes that with which we think we are most familiar can become our biggest blind spot. Humbly then, and by the grace of God, I want to set the record straight about what is going on in these books.

It is my sincere desire that the reader, the student, will be able to read the Gospels with fresh eyes, with a love of the word of God, and an increasing love for the God of His word.

Before delving into the text, though, it is necessary to think through how we are to read the Gospels. How should we study them? How do we understand them?

The answers to those questions really apply to how we read all of the Bible, so if we are to be serious about loving the Lord and wanting to know Him, we must know how to understand how He, in His sovereign will, has chosen to communicate with us today. We must know how to read the Bible.

If that sounds elementary, or even condescending, that’s not the intent, because nothing could be more important to understanding the Scriptures than to have a basic framework for how to approach the very words of God.

You may have heard it said that we must take the Bible literally, and I will say that’s true, depending on what we understand about the word “literally.” Many scoff at the idea of taking the Bible “literally.” Most believe it is ridiculous we could take these ancient texts, the most recent of which was written over nineteen centuries ago, and accept all of what it says. This, as far as I can tell, even includes a great majority of those who profess to be Christians. And even among those who say we should take the Bible literally, the majority of that minority don’t mean it — at least not in practice.

For example, Jesus said, “I am the door.” But Jesus isn’t really a door, is He? He’s not really a Light. And for that matter, we have no documentation of Him actually being a shepherd either.

Or how about this? Jesus says to cut off your hand if it causes you to sin. If that’s the case, why do you still have two hands? Two eyes?

The issue is the term literal. 

Ultimately, it’s not very helpful term, and we should probably avoid it — at least when we’re thinking through how we should interpret the Bible. Literally literally doesn’t communicate the best way to describe how we should read God’s word.

Let’s take a cue from the Bible itself. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:1–4, wrote:

“Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

The apostle isn’t really telling us how to interpret as much as he’s telling us not to adulterate the word of God. Paul is saying Satan, the god of this world, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so they can’t see the light of the gospel. Satan has obscured the truth of God’s word to those who are still, to use words Paul wrote in another place, “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). They don’t have eyes to see. They don’t have ears to hear. They don’t have hearts to understand. So they don’t.

Paul adds in 1 Corinthians 2:14 the natural man (still dead in his sins) cannot discern spiritual things.

To go back to the Old Testament, God communicates in Proverbs 8:8–9: “All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straightforward to him who understands, And right to those who find knowledge” (emphasis mine).

There is nothing twisted or crooked in the word of God. Unlike Satan, God is not a god of confusion. He is a God of peace and order, not chaos (1 Cor 14:33). God’s words are straightforward… to him who has ears to hear.

To put it plainly, we are the read and understand the Bible plainly — in a normal, natural manner. 

This is usually what we mean when we say we take the Bible literally. When we see Jesus use a metaphor for how we should think about sin, we understand it’s a metaphor. We don’t go cutting off our hands or gouging out our eyes. When we see Jesus call Himself the Good Shepherd, we understand He is using that imagery to tell His audience how He relates to His people.

Reading the Bible plainly, in a straightforward manner, also means that, while we don’t dismiss any part of the Bible, we also don’t go looking for super spiritual meanings and allegories everywhere. We don’t try to seek out profound truths hidden under every surface of every passage. In other words, we don’t try to find what’s not there, which has historically been a mother of all kinds of heresies and false teachings, and is as prevalent in the twenty-first century as ever (see also The Prayer of Jabez).

This ministry and this study will approach the Bible plainly, in a straightforward manner, and that means we seek to discover authorial intent. The importance of authorial intent cannot be overstated. To understand the correct interpretation of any biblical passage, one must seek to discover the meaning as the original author would have intended, and as the original hearers would have understood it.

A great many people do not understand the Old Testament, or the Gospels (which is why I’m doing this!) because we have been conditioned to divorce those writings, even the words of Jesus, from their contexts.

One of the great errors in modern biblical interpretation — and I say modern but it really goes back to at least the second century — is that we tend to want to flatten out the text and try to find a way to apply everything we read in the Old Testament and Gospels to the body of Christ, what is commonly called “the church.” And we do this forgetting the body of Christ was not a thing in the Old Testament or the Gospels. Whether we realize it or not, that’s well-intended interpretive arrogance.

The New Covenant is an example of this. It is not a strange thing to hear pastors or teachers or others talk about the New Covenant, or even say that we, today, are “New Covenant people.” Indeed, we do see the New Covenant mentioned in the New Testament, but that doesn’t automatically mean we can apply every promise of the New Covenant to the body of Christ (the church). On the contrary, we read plainly who made the New Covenant, and with whom it was made:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of at the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, but I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh. “But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jer 31:31–33 LSB, italics mine)

If we believe every word of Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Tim 3:16), and it is, then we must also understand this applies to pronouns and grammar and people names and place names. 

Many today would say the church is now the recipient of all the blessings Yahweh promised the house of Israel and the house of Judah in the New Covenant, as if God didn’t make those specific promises to specific people. But if we read the Bible in a plain, straightforward manner, these things tend to be rather obvious. God did not reveal Himself in a confusing manner.

Words mean things.

We are the ones who make it confusing. 

Does that mean we don’t have to study? To work hard to understand God’s word? Of course not. After all, even toward the end of his life the apostle Peter said some things Paul wrote were difficult to understand (2 Pet 3:15–16 — There’s a lot behind that statement, by the way). 

Paul told Timothy to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling [or “rightly dividing”] the word of truth.” Studying and understanding the Bible takes effort on the part of those who love the Lord, but it is by no means impossible, if we take God at His own word, and let the authors of Scriptures mean what they said to those whom they said it.

We should be like the Bereans, who were more noble minded than their neighbors, those in Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures to make sure the things they were hearing were right. They fact-checked Paul against the word of God, and were commended for it!

With these things in mind, in the next article we will get into the text of Luke's Gospel, although we'll be in the other Gospels and more, seeking to understand them plainly, in a straightforward manner, the way those in those events would have understood Jesus’ words, understanding what the writers wrote like those who would have read them for the first time. 

I want to encourage you, borrowing a phrase from Yoda, to unlearn what you have learned. That doesn’t mean I want you to discard everything you think you know about the Gospels, but I encourage you to come to this study with fresh eyes, fresh ears, an open mind, and an eager heart.