The Distinctive Gospel of Luke

he Gospel of Luke was written by a physician.  Colossians 4:14 tells us that Luke was called “The Beloved Physician.”  It is an interesting study to see some of the characteristics of a doctor’s mindset revealed in this Gospel.

Luke’s Gospel is marked by thoroughness.  The time span he covers is greater than that of the other Gospels.  He dates the coming of John the Baptist in chapter 3 with many cross-references to current leaders in the Roman Empire.

Luke has the physician’s habit of specification.  Other Gospel writers talk about the man with the withered hand; Luke says it was the right hand (6:6).  Others describe the man whose ear was cut off by Peter.  Luke says it was the right ear (22:50).  Just as a doctor grades his diseases, Luke says the leper Jesus healed was full of leprosy (5:12).  In other words, it was a bad case—a 4 plus.  Luke takes note that after raising Jarius’ daughter, the Lord Jesus told Jarius they should give her something to eat (8:55).  He uses a medical word for the eye of a needle in 18:25;  it’s literally a perforated orifice of a sharp, pointed needle.

Luke knew that there are often precipitating factors involved in any behavior, and he takes note of the psychology of men.  The other writers speak of the Disciples being asleep in the garden;  Luke adds that they were “sleeping from sorrow” (literally, “from the grief”).  Because of sorrow they were emotionally drained and exhausted (22:45).  He also describes the Disciples after the Resurrection as not believing because they were too overjoyed to take it all in (24:41).

Luke mentions women more than the other Gospel writers.  He  includes Mary, Elizabeth, the sisters – Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susannah and the weeping daughters of Jerusalem.  Perhaps Luke had the experience of having a nurse who was as smart as he and appreciated God’s gifts to women.

Luke also takes more note of children.  He includes a reference to the childhood of John the Baptist and of Jesus.  He describes the infants being brought to Christ.  He was obviously a doctor who loved children.

The Gospel of Luke is also the gospel of joy.  There are more references  to joy in this Gospel than in the others.  He tells of the angels’ message of good tidings of great joy.  That Zaccheus received Jesus joyfully.  When reunited, the prodigal son and his father began to “make merry” (15:24).  He must have known that a merry heart does good like a medicine.  It is also the Gospel that has the most references to praise.

Perhaps most significant of all, Luke was a physician who had an eye for the lowly—the outcast, the suffering, the rejected.  It’s a Gospel for those who, if left to the world’s ways, would have no Gospel.  He describes the shepherds, the elderly saints, Simeon and Anna, the prodigal son, the story of the good Samaritan and the man half-dead from the robber’s beating.  He tells the parable of Lazarus as the poor man whose sores the dog licked.  He describes the sinful woman in Luke 7, who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  He describes the ten lepers.  In 14:21,22 he describes the parable where Jesus said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor, the maimed, and the halt and the blind.”  And, the servant said, “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.” He also takes note of the conversion of the thief on the cross who seemed to be apparently hopeless until the very end.

Luke was a man who knew the importance of discipline.  It’s only in the Gospel of Luke that we find the statement, “To deny ourselves and take up the cross daily.  He knew it must be a habit of life.

Luke is the only writer who takes note in the very last verses of the Gospel that when Jesus went to Heaven, He was actually in the act of blessing his Disciples.  He knew the importance of “the blessing”.

Also, the Gospel of Luke has more references to the Lord Jesus spending time praying than any of the other Gospels.  It’s a Gospel that commends us to prayer, as well as compassion (3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 11:1, 22:31-32, 22:44, 23:46, and also see 18:1).

It’s the Gospel of the Compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Great Physician, who said, “Father, forgive them fore they know not what they do.”  Luke is obviously an example to us of the physician who was a true Christian caregiver.  As we read in the Gospel of Luke, may we as caregivers go and do likewise.

Note:  A helpful book on studying the Gospels in a manner that presents the distinctives of each Gospel is A Guide To The Gospels by Graham Scroggie, published by Revell.