Sixty Days with Luke:: A New Devotional-Study Excursion Through the Third Gospel

By Larry Althouse, Valere Althouse and Bishop John Wesley Hardt

The purpose of this book is to help the reader to spend sixty rewarding days in the Third Gospel, following a schedule of readings taking the reader through Lukes 24 chapters. All too often the Gospels are experienced in bits and pieces. This book will expose the reader to the whole Gospel of Luke, providing a fuller sense of the scope and continuity of this marvelous tract of faith. The daily interpretations are intended, not as exhaustive expositions of all that is intended by the various passages, but as meditations, suggestive of contemplation, musing, pondering, reflection, study or thought,. With each days reading and meditation, there is a daily suggestion of a thought to ponder and prime the pump of the readers own mind and heart. Stimulated by these thoughts and questions, readers may find the Holy Spirit leading them to what is important and relevant for their own lives. Each day ends with a prayer-starter intended to suggest the direction in which the readers own prayers might be directed. No Amen is added because they are intended to be open-ended for the reader to complete. The study and prayer sections are equally important.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426946776

Larry Althouse

Larry Althouse, a native of Reading, PA is a retired United Methodist clergyman and since 1964 the writer of a weekly syndicated newspaper column, “The Bible Speaks,” as well as the author of Youth Guide on Affluence and Poverty (Friendship Press) and Rediscovering The Gift of Healing (Abingdon Press). For twenty years he regularly wrote curriculum materials for the Evangelical United Brethren and United Methodist churches. Larry earned a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania and the Master of Divinity from United Theological Seminary in Dayton OH. He also did graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, including Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr’s last course before retirement. He served parishes in Harrisburg PA, Crestwood NY and Mohnton PA, before joining the staff of First United Methodist Church in Dallas TX as Director of New Dimensions Ministries. Valere Fuller Althouse was born on a North Texas ranch near Buffalo Springs and worked as a ramp and photographic model before associating for thirty years as a lecturer and consultant at the famous health spa, The Green House in Arlington TX. She also has been a popular speaker for conventions and organizations across the USA, as well as in Europe. She has spoken to a number of medical organizations on her experience as a breast cancer patient. Her fascinating life and career are chronicled in her autobiography, My First Eighty (Trafford). Together, the Althouses have written of her experience with breast cancer, You CAN Save Your Breast (W.W. Norton) and What You Need Is What You’ve Got: Discover, Develop and Use Your Inner Resources (Samuel Weiser). For 22 years they wrote a newspaper column, Travel Talk for a Dallas newspaper and conducted a holistic Spa Holiday program in Badgastein, Austria. For the United Methodist Church they served as consultants for The Upper Room program, “An Experience in Heath and Wholeness,” and conducted that program in churches across the country. After retirement, they wrote and conducted intensive premarital weekend seminars, “Fit To Be Tied” at First UM Church in Dallas, where they continue to be active in various roles, as well as in the community. They have four adult children and two grandchildren.

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the late Barbara Mantooth, her daughter and son-in-law, Debbie and Chris Teesdale, who graciously shared their cottage in Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island, Texas for the writing of Sixty Days with Luke. Several weeks of ocean breezes, glorious sunrises and sunsets, long walks on the beach and solitude made it all possible.

Contents

Foreword

How to Use This Book

Introducing Luke

Acknowledgements

Day 1 Passing It On

Day 2 Because You Did Not Believe

Day 3 Magnificat!

Day 4 The Second Duty

Day 5 When The Angels Have Gone

Day 6 Have You Seen The Leopard?

Day 7 The Holy Family

Day 8 Of Fruits and Puddings

Day 9 Roots

Day 10 Into the Wilderness

Day 11 Home Country

Day 12 The Healing Christ

Day 13 Into the Deep

Day 14 Body and Soul

Day 15 Bleeding Hearts

Day 16 The Wrong Questions

Day 17 Does It Show?

Day 18 Thorns On The Fruit Tree

Day 19 Not Even In Israel

Day 20 Credentials

Day 21 Do You See This Woman?

Day 22 The Good Soil

Day 23 Family Circle

Day 24 On Not Being Afraid

Day 25 Twelve Baskets Full

Day 26 Crosses: One-Half Off

Day 27 Of Mountains And Valleys

Day 28 Cosa Nostra

Day 29 The Jerusalem Face

Day 30 The Curse

Day 31 Easier Done Then Said

Day 32 The Good Portion

Day 33 Hurrying The Chicken

Day 34 On Drawing The Right Circle

Day 35 The False Peak

Day 36 And Then?

Day 37 Beyond Being ‘Sorry’

Day 38 Christ And The City

Day 39 To Get The Cheaper Rate

Day 40 The Prodigal Father

Day 41 Of Telelphone Booths And Cathedrals

Day 42 The Other Samaritan

Day 43 To Sing The Dawn

Day 44 Continue, Continue!

Day 45 One Thing Lacking

Day 46 The Zaccheaus In Your Backyard

Day 47 In Us, God Trusts

Day 48 When The Shouting Is Over

Day 49 God And/Or Caesar

Day 50 When Belief Becomes Arrogance

Day 51 Beyond Arguments

Day 52 The Greatest?

Day 53 When There’s Nowhere Else To Go?

Day 54 And Peter Remembered

Day 55 On Saving Yourself

Day 56 The Glorious Beginning!

Day 57 The Resurrected Life

Day 58 The Serendipity Road

Day 59 A Life After Birth

Day 60 Low Sunday

FOREWORD

The opening words of the Gospel of Luke tell us Many people have shared their understanding of Jesus and the closing words of the Gospel of John remind us that the whole world cannot contain the books that could be written.

From a lifetime of traveling, writing and sharing in a rich variety of Bible study and fellowship groups seeking a deeper understanding of sacred scripture, the authors of this devotional treatment of the Gospel of Luke have invited other pilgrims to take an extended trip with them. 

Through the creative arrangement of words and the wide experiences of traveling Larry and Valere Althouse have produced a stimulating and challenging opportunity for those who would claim the Third Gospel in an intimate and personal experience by following this travel guide that will produce timely and timeless memories of another journey with the authors.

John Wesley Hardt

Bishop in Residence, Emeritus

Perkins School of Theology, SMU, Dallas, TX  

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The purpose of this book is to help you to spend sixty rewarding days with the Gospel According to Luke. We propose to accomplish this in four ways.

First, we are providing a 60-day schedule of readings in Luke’s Gospel that will take you, the reader from chapter one through to the very close of Luke. All too often we experience the Gospels in bits and pieces, taking a text here, a reference there. This schedule of sixty readings will lead you to read the Gospel According to Luke, giving you a fuller sense of the scope and continuity of this marvelous tract of faith.

Our division of Luke into sixty segments is, of course, arbitrary, reflecting not some inherent structure so much as the writers’ own perspectives and responses to Luke’s style. It was not feasible for us to divide Luke into sixty equal portions. There are twenty-four chapters in Luke with 1,145 verses, but Luke did not write in chapters nor did he number any verses. That was done later by an unknown editor whose choices, while generally wise and helpful, were also arbitrary. Nor are the editor’s chapters equal in length; they may have as many as 80 verses or as few as 31. You will also find that some of the groupings we have assembled are quite brief, while others are lengthy. Some passages will group together a number of incidents or teachings which may or may not appear to be related.

Second, Sixty Days With Luke is composed of sixty interpretations that have arisen from our personal study of Luke. For want of a better term, we will call them meditations, which can denote contemplation, musing, pondering, reflection, study or thought. So we offer these meditations as think-pieces, some things to think upon. We do not intend these to be exhaustive explanations and expositions of all that is intended by the various passages. If we were to address ourselves to this task a second time, very likely some, probably many of the meditations would be quite different. This is inherent in Bible study: each time we come to a passage of scripture there may be new light that God can bring forth, even from passages that may be quite familiar.

It is our intention and prayer that what these passages have suggested to us may point the way for further thought or even inspire a new and entirely different approach for the reader.

Third, with each day’s reading and meditation, there is a daily suggestion of a thought to ponder. The purpose is to simply prime the pump of the reader’s own mind and heart. Stimulated by these thoughts and questions, you may find the Holy Spirit speaking to you of something that is important and relevant for your own life.

Obviously, this book can be used as canned devotions, but we hope that you will give more than merely the time it requires to read each day’s entry. If the Bible seldom or even never speaks to you, it may well be that you simply do not take the time and effort that can be so rewarding. So this book will be most helpful when the reading of it is mixed with your own meditation and prayer that takes you more than a few steps beyond the perfunctory ritual that many think of when daily devotions are mentioned.

Your use of Sixty Days With Luke is not intended to represent all that is normally thought of as Bible study. We have made no attempt to offer a thorough explanation or critical interpretation of each text. That discipline, called exegesis, is an important part of Bible study, but beyond the scope of this book. There are many fine commentaries from which you can choose. Among those you may want to consider are The Gospel of Luke: The Daily Study Bible Series by William Barclay (The Westminster Press), or Volume 8 of The Interpreter’s Bible (Abingdon Press). But there are many others from which to choose.

Why 60 Days? This was also an arbitrary decision reflecting two concerns. On the one hand, we wanted to allow sufficient time to cover the whole Gospel of Luke without making the readings too long. On the other hand, however, we wanted to be sensitive to the reality that readers may tire of a project if it is extended over too long a period.

Obviously, you don’t have to use sixty days. If you can make time for it, you might want to use this book twice a day (morning and evening) or even three times a day. Instead, perhaps, you might want to stretch each meditation over two or three days. Or you may decide to do thirty days now and another thirty days at another part of the year. For many of you, sixty consecutive days with Luke will probably be the most rewarding schedule, but we are aware that one-size-does-not-fit-all.

How does one meditate upon a passage of scripture? Actually, there is no one right way, because we do not all think in the same way and meditation is thinking, either actively or passively, sending or receiving. Turning over and over again an idea, incident or story may shake loose an insight for the meditator. Another way of meditating that we have used is to recreate the scene painted in the passage. You can put yourself in the picture, becoming one of the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, the rich young man inquiring about eternal life, or the thief hanging next to Jesus on a cross. Assuming one or more of these roles, try to imagine what the person in the text would think and feel. At times, you may imaginatively assume a second role in addition to the character in the story, becoming an interviewer who questions that character about the events and significance of a particular incident.

However, whatever methods you use, remember that you are not alone in these moments. God is present and he will bring forth from your heart and mind much more than you might ever expect–if you give him the opportunity.

Each day’s page ends with a prayer-starter intended to suggest the direction in which your own prayers might be directed. These prayer-starters can be used when they are suggestive to you and ignored when they are not. So we have provided no Amen to these prayers. They are intended to be open-ended for you to complete. Do not neglect this last portion of each day’s focus: study and prayer are meant to go together.

Although we recommend that you read the sixty scriptural passages in the consecutive order in which Luke wrote them—and in which they appear in this book–if you would prefer to use those relevant to particular days and seasons of the Christian year, you may turn to the following:

Advent: Days 2 and 3

Christmas: Day 5

Post-Christmas: Days 6 and 7

Epiphany: Day 8

Good Friday: Day 55

Easter: Days 56 and 57

Sunday after Easter: Day 60

Finally, for a brief introduction to Luke and his Gospel, we recommend you turn to the following INTRODUCING LUKE. But, if you are anxious to begin with Day 1, you can skip ahead and return to the introduction at your convenience.

INTRODUCING LUKE

The Gospel According to Luke:

—Is the first volume of a two-volume work, Luke-Acts, by the same author.

—Is the longest of the four gospels with 19,404 words; with Acts, 37,774 words, comprising approximately one-fourth of the New Testament.

—With the exception of the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews, Luke-Acts is reputed to contain the best Greek in the New Testament and uses the most varied and most extensive vocabulary.

—Is the gospel with the most human interest stories: for example, The Good Samaritan,

The Prodigal Son, The Good Thief.

—Is the gospel with the most obvious sensitivity to women and their role as Christians.

—Is the gospel that gives most prominence to the work of the Holy Spirit.

There are 17 references to the Spirit in Luke, 57 in Acts, 12 in Matthew, six in Mark, and 22 in John.

—Is the gospel with a special emphasis on the prayer life of Jesus.

—Is believed to have been written somewhere between 80 and 100 A.D., fifty to seventy years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

—Was probably written for Gentiles by a Gentile converted to the Christian Way.

—Provides us with the only account of Jesus’ birth (Matthew’s narrative begins with the post-natal visit of the Magi, and neither Mark nor John mention it).

—Shows us Jesus as the friend of sinners and outcasts:

despised tax collectors (19:1-10),

Simon the Pharisee (7:36-50),

Roman soldiers (7:2-6),

prodigals (15:11-32),

Samaritans (10:33; 17:16),

children (18:16),

the poor (6:20; 16:19-31),

lepers (4:27; 7:22; 17:12),

and even penitent criminals (23:39-41).

Furthermore, the Good News of Jesus, Luke shows us, is not to be restricted to the few, but to all people everywhere (3:4-6; 13:29). Luke’s is the universal gospel for the whole world.

So, who is this Luke with whom we’ll be spending the next 60 days?

The short answer is that he is possibly the Luke mentioned as a companion of Paul in 2 Timothy 4:11 and Philemon 1:24, and/or Luke the beloved physician appearing in Colossians 4:14. But, and this is still part of the short answer, we do not know for certain if there is any connection between these Lukes. It was not an uncommon name. There are good arguments both for and against the writer/editor of Luke-Acts being identified in the epistles listed above.

If the author of Luke-Acts is the Luke of the epistles noted above, he may be identified as a part-time fellow traveler with Paul in the first-person-plural passages of Acts where we replaces they. (See: Acts 16:10-18; 20:5—21:18; 27:1—28:16.)

Keep in mind that the writers of the four gospels did not affix their names to the gospels they wrote. We know this because the earliest copies of the gospels do not name the authors and the authors do not name themselves within the texts of the gospels. These names were not attached to the gospels until sometime in the 2nd century. That doesn’t prove that a man named Luke did not write the Gospel that bears his name, but there certainly is no proof to the contrary either–evidence, yes; proof, no.

Most scholars agree that the writer of the Gospel of Luke is also the writer of the Book of Acts and that these two books were written as one story in two parts. Scholar Joel B. Green notes that Luke is the only Evangelist who regarded the story of Jesus as somehow incomplete without an accounting of its continuation in the life of the community and mission of Jesus’ followers.[1]

Is it likely that the writer/editor of Luke-Acts knew Jesus in the flesh? Answer: possible, but not likely. Rather than being an eye-witness to many of the events of his gospel, Luke is believed to have used Mark’s gospel as a major source–approximately 60 per cent of it–but about 50 per cent of his gospel is original with Luke, based upon supplementary tradition, oral and written, much of it preserved by eye-witnesses and passed on. So Luke was probably both a writer and an editor.

Luke obviously didn’t just sit down and put together a lot of random pieces of material on Jesus and the early church. His purposes determined what he chose and rejected for his gospel. That purpose: to provide a faithful accounting of the meaning of the events both before and after Jesus’ resurrection. He is interested only in proclaiming this narrative, not proving it. So we may say that this is history with a purpose.

Luke also wants to counter the popular charge that Christianity was a subversive sect. Its purpose was not to overthrow the Roman empire. Yet, at the same time, the view of the Christian faith that Luke is proposing is obviously dangerously contrary to the world of the empire where politics, personal honor and material power prevail. Luke also strives to present Christianity, not as a rejection of the old in Judaism, but in the fulfillment of God’s historic relationship with Israel

Both Luke and Acts are addressed to Theophilus, literally one who loves God. It has been suggested that Theophilus may have been a convert to the Christian Way and Luke’s Gospel and Acts are presented as a confirmation of what he has been taught. Others believe Theophilus was not a Christian, but a man of high estate who pondered the origin and purpose of this movement.

All of the above speculations are interesting and even intriguing, but regardless of which are or are not true, the core of Luke’s gospel is neither enhanced nor diminished by them. If we focus on the trees we will likely fail to see the forest. The facts, known and unknown, that surround the gospel do not comprise the central fact that Luke is proclaiming to Gentiles and Jews: Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and of the whole world.

William Barclay reminds us that each of the four gospels was written from a distinctive point of view. They witness to the same Christ, but testify to him from four different vantage points. Tradition has identified each of the four gospels with different symbols drawn from Ezekiel 1:4-14.

—The Gospel of Mark is symbolized simply by a man because of its realistic, human approach.

—Matthew is represented as a lion because he wrote his gospel primarily for Jews, symbolized as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

—The eagle is symbolic of John’s gospel because the eagle flies higher than other birds and the theology of John’s gospel soars to the greatest heights.

—That brings us to Luke’s gospel which traditionally has been characterized by the ox or calf, animals of sacrifice, because Luke presents Jesus as the sacrifice for the salvation of the world. Luke thus portrays a world religion that has outgrown its racial and geographic boundaries.

The 19th century biblical scholar, Ernst Renan, labeled the Gospel According to Luke the most beautiful book that ever was. We pray that in the next sixty days you may discover or rediscover the beauty and profound power of Luke’s witness to Jesus Christ.

A ROADMAP OF LUKE’S GOSPEL

We will be traveling through the Gospel of Luke, day by day, from 1:1 through 24:53, the final verse. Read this way, it is possible that the reader may not be aware of the essential structure of the book, a structure that reveals Luke’s purpose and plan.

A. The Prologue (1:1-4)

B. The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

1. The Birth Narratives of