A Bible Study Plan, Part 3: Luke 18:18-27

 

I.                   Background to the passage

 

A.    Who wrote it?  The authorship of the Gospel of Luke is anonymous.  According to Fred B. Craddock, we can “sketch a general portrait of the writer.”  The author was not an eyewitness to the story; he relied on other sources.  His writing style demonstrates that he is a person of education, familiar with the “narrative current in that culture.”  Traditionally, the author of the Gospel is Luke, a companion of Paul’s (Craddock 1988, 925).  We believe that Luke and Acts were written by the same person – a two-part volume.

 

B.     When was it written? The time of the writing is also under debate. It was written before or after A.D. 70. (Campbell and Pennington 2020, 120). If we estimate the work was completed between A.D. 60 and 90, then we can see that at least one and maybe more generations have passed since Christ’s ministry.  There is a need of an orderly account – Luke even talks about this in the prologue to the book.

C.     To whom was it written?  It is most likely that the first readers of the Gospel were gentile Christians, probably from a Greek background. (Craddock 1988, 926).   The Greco-Roman world that Luke encountered would have been controlled by the Romans, although still influenced by Greek culture. (Campbell and Pennington 2020. 22-51)

 

D.    Why was it written? Luke’s purposes were to provide an orderly and trustworthy account of the life of Jesus while at the same time sharing the “good news” of Christ, especially for the marginalized. 

Luke’s themes include:

 

1.      Luke helps readers understand that salvation is for all. “Although Jesus’s initiatives towards all persons regardless of their social standing are a common feature of all the Gospels, no other Gospel is so clear and emphatic on this point.” (Culpepper 1995, 21).   Imagine for a moment that the man was present when Jesus was telling the disciples, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  (Luke 18:17 – right before our passage). 

 

Q: How would a rich ruler react to the idea that he had to come to the kingdom as a child would come? Would this have been part of his motivation for his question?

 

“If children are paradigm-setters for God’s reign, what place will a member of the social elite have?” (Carol 2010, 701). His expectation would have been that he would be honored because of his status; Jesus turns that upside down and tells him that his status, based on wealth, is his prevents him from entering the kingdom.

 

2.      In Luke we see Jesus’s focus on the marginalized – women, the poor, and the outcast. Adam Hamilton, in his book Luke, writes that one of the overarching themes in the Gospel of Luke is that the author wants “to appeal to the same people he notes Jesus appealed to: the outsiders, the outcasts, and even the outlaws…. (Hamilton 2022, XVI).   

 

Q: Where do you see that in the passage?

 

3.      The Gospel focuses on questions relating to not only the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Kingdom of God, but also the continuing loyalty of God for the Jews. Luke works to ensure people God had not abandoned the Jews while welcoming the Gentiles.   We’re assuming that the man is a Jew, because he follows the commandments. 

 

Q: What would this passage have said to a Jewish listener?

 

Q: What would it have said to a Gentile listener?