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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
i was reading something about him here. apparently, he was a protocommunist.
c'est vrai, ca? |
I wouldn't say Luke was a socialist; he believed in everyone having the same opprtunity, not the same lack of opportunity!
(I'm a bit jaded when it comes to socialism)
By coincidence, I wrote this on another forum yesterday stating my favourite New Testament book:
I voted for the Gospel of Luke, because it's such a nice document. Whoever first called it the 'loveliest book in the world' was right.
Luke was unique among the gospel writers in that he was a normal person - a doctor in fact - rather than a big figure in the early church. Incidentally, he was also a gentile and not a Jew (the only New TEstament author who wasn't a Jew, in fact).
The gospel was written to a man named Theophilus, who seems to have been quite an important chap, and who seems to have asked Luke to tell him about Jesus. Luke does so with an honesty and sense of love that is rarely equalled. But apart from that, the idea one gets from reading Luke is that as a doctor, ie as someone used to dealing with knowledge, Luke has gone to great length to be historically accurate - to present the facts as they shold be presented.
Luke's gospel scores for other reasons too. He demonstrates the importance of prayer by showing JEsus praying at the great moments of His life. Also, he overturns the old conventions by allowing an true acknowledgement of the role of women in the story; it is Luke who tells of the birth from MAry's point of view, Luke who who tells of Elizabeth and of Anna. It is Luke also who portrays with the greatest of skill MArtha and MAry, and also Mary Magdalene.
Luke's gospel is also the gospel of universality, by which I mean that he shows that Jesus is for all people, without barrier or distincion (Luke, for instance, is the only gospel author who relates the tale of the good Samaritan - a tale that no-one should let slip from their mind).
I think I admire Luke because he saw Jesus take away the power of the scribes and pharisees, take away division ('There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus'), but it was Luke who was the apostle who saw that and made it clear. He helped give the faith to the world rather than to those who passed innumerable tests and satisfied man-made rules.