Book Review: Luke by Adam Hamilton

 

Information about the book

Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws. by Adam Hamilton. Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2022.  Cokesbury / Amazon

Summary

From Amazon: In Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws, pastor and bestselling author Adam Hamilton explores the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Luke. Through Luke’s stories we find Jesus’ care and compassion for all as he welcomes sinners and outcasts. As we study Luke and see Jesus’ concern for those who were considered unimportant, we hear a hopeful and inspiring word for our lives today.The book can be read alone or used for a group study and church-wide Lenten program. Additional components include video teaching sessions featuring Adam Hamilton, a comprehensive leader guide, free downloadable resources for children and youth, and a digital worship and sermon helps. The book includes a link to download the free teaching resources for children and youth.

Impressions

My initial plan was to read this book one chapter a week while tandem reading the Gospel of Luke. I found that I read it much faster than a chapter a week, and I did not read the Gospel of Luke with it. (Side Note - I did, a week or two later, complete the reading of the Gospel for a class I was taking, so it did work out).  There is reading plan you can download to go with the book at this link.

I liked the book and would recommend it. Each chapter focuses on a few chapters from the Gospel, leading the reader through the book of Luke.  The focus is - as the title suggests - on the outcast.  Reading this book inspired several blog posts (linked below).

I think this book would be a very appropriate source for a Lenten Study; I think its structure and topic would lend themselves to this type of group work. In addition to the book itself, there are several resources that would be helpful.

Posts about book

Find my posts about the book at this link.

Go to the Priest

 

From Adam Hamilton's book, Luke, as Hamilton describes what Jesus told the 10 lepers in Luke 17:

He told them to go find the priest - the biblical requirement for a leper who had been healed.  Jesus told them this before they were healed, and the act of going to find the priest would be an act of faith.  On the way, they were healed.

Maybe I've known this before, but I don't remember it, and was startled by it as I read this paragraph this morning.  Jesus sent them to the priest - which would be what a healed leper would do - before they were healed.  What could have been their response? "Sorry, Jesus, I can't go to the priest. I have leprosy.  Maybe you haven't noticed?"  But, no, they have enough faith to go to the priest, and when they get there, they are healed.

What path do we avoid because we don't have enough faith in the power of God? 

Cleansing Generosity

 

Read the following Adam Hamilton's book, Luke. He's talking about Jesus' response to the Pharisees criticizing Jesus for not ritually washing his hands (Luke 11:37-38).  Jesus tells them that they are foolish for worrying about what is outside when it is what is inside that is unclean:

It would be like, he says, washing the outside of a cup but not the inside.  Then he offers this one little line that touches on what we learned in the last chapter, "Give to those in need from the core of who you are and you will be clean all over." (11:41). The act of generosity to the poor actually serves to cleanse our hearts and souls?  Yes, in that act we lift up the lowly, we become instruments of God.  We deny ourselves and take up our cross.

I talk about generosity a lot in the work I do.  I often talk about generosity as part of discipleship, and I talk about how being generous is one of the ways we fulfill our potential of being the image of God, God who is generous.  I talk about generosity as one of the ways we respond to God's generosity towards us.  Amid all of that, I've never thought of generosity as a way we are cleansed. 

It does make sense, though. I do believe generosity is transformational, and what is transformation if it is not changing who we are on the inside.

Do we see the women?

What is the status of women in today's United States?

1. The National Gender Gap widened in 2023 for the fist time in 20 years. Women make 82.7 cents on the dollar compared to men.  (link)
2. Abortion bans not only remove women's choice regarding their bodies, but they also endanger women's health and harm state economies.  Most states with the lowest gross domestic product per capital also have total abortion bans.
3. Women experience higher poverty rates than men, women face specific adverse health conditions, and women are under represented in political office (link)
4. According to Pew Research, there have been gender gap gains  and gaps.  Women outnumber men in the U.S. college-educated workforce.  While women have increased their presence in almost all of the higher-paying jobs, they are still a minority in many of them.  The gender pay gap has remained flat over the last 20 years, and women still lag in leadership positions in business and government. (link)
5. In 1994, the Violence against Women act was signed into law (with bipartisan support).  This law improved law enforcement response to violence against women and provided critical services to women.  Since 2019, it has not been extended due to political disputes (Link)

Adam Hamilton, in the book Luke, says, "Regarding violence and harassment against women, the United Nations reports that 741 million women around the world have been victims of some kind of violence, usually at the hands of a spouse or boyfriend.  In the United States one our of every six women experience either attempted or completed sexual assault - this is over 463,00 women in the US every year. In a recent national survey of 2,009 Americans, eight-one percent of women reported that they had been sexually harassed at some time in their lives."

The full title of Hamilton's book is Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws. The second chapter is called, "Simon, do you see this woman?"  In it, Hamilton makes the point that one of Luke's themes is that Jesus saw the women.

Do we see the women?

 

More Like the Tax Collector

I'm currently reading the book Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws by Adam Hamilton.  In the third chapter, he talks about parables, and how to read them to find the spiritual truth the author is intending to convey. He says we should first be cognizant of the context, and then look for the contrast - usually there are two or more people or ideas being compared to each other.  We can then ask ourselves two questions:

1. In what ways am I like each of the characters or objects in teh parable?
2. What does Jesus want me to know, think, or do in response to this parable?

Those are good questions, and they remind me of some of the Bible study techniques I've seen before.

He then goes on to use the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector as an example.  It's in Luke 18:10-14.  The Pharisee prays, "God I thank you that's I'm not like everyone else - crooks evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive."

First, I wonder what God thinks when someone prays a pray like this?  I wonder what God thinks when God's church acts like this. 

You can't miss the declines in our church membership. We talk about it a lot, and we search for solutions. Should we change our worship style? Should we ask for a younger minister? Should we have lessons about our stained glass so that everyone can admire them and know their stories (truthfully, I'm not making that up).

No one ever says, "Should we be more like the tax collector and less like the Pharisee?"  Maybe we should have that conversation.