Day 1 - Luke 1:1-5

I have spent the last week pondering over where to begin in my walk through the Bible. As a Christian, do I want to start in the chapters that interest me? Do I want to start in a chapter that is a staple in my faith? As a writer, who am I writing to? Last week, I said that I hoped the blog would reach anyone, and that my words would aid in the faith of non-believers, new believers, and veterans alike? But who am I writing to? I found some "reading tracks" in my Bible - guides to assist you in where to go to read the bible. Because yes, it is massive. Yes, it can be confusing. Yes, it is like a library all wrapped and compressed in one volume with a variety of authors, all directed by The Author. The three track options are 1) an introduction to the bible, a "beginner's course" to Christianity. These passages are often quoted and are easy to read. 2) a guided tour of the bible. This route is closer to a chronological view of events. And option 3) every word of the bible. This is where I want to end up. This bounces back and forth from Old Testament to New Testament so you don't get bored, but this is more for the veterans. I don't want to scare away the newbies.

I think I'll choose track 1. We will go through the bible based on the topic. This will hopefully ensure maximum knowledge absorption before we move on to another subject. And the great thing about this being a blog is that isn't rushed like churches can be. You take notes one week, you're sick the next week, and you come in again and you feel lost because of what you missed. Read this blog at your own pace. If it takes you three days to go through what I write in one day, that's perfectly ok!

Quickly before we start, a note to newbies: (I really should stop calling you that. But what else is there to call you? First-timers?) the Bible is divided up into the Old Testament and the New Testament. Think of it like how we date things. BC - before Christ - is the Old Testament, and AD - Anno Domini, which means "In the Year of our Lord" - is the New Testament. The New Testament only takes up 1/3 of the Bible, but it is what separates us from Jews. Jesus was a jew. But He called people to believe in Him forever after. Those who didn't follow Him, but kept to the teachings of the Old Testament (the Torah in their day) are what we now know as Jews.

Subject 1: The Life and Teachings of Jesus.
Day 1: Luke 1: Preparing for Jesus' Arrival.

Luke 1

Something I totally love about my Bible is that is has an introduction page to each book of the bible. Who will you meet in this book? What kind of mindset should you take while reading it? And throughout, there are what I like to call commercial breaks to explain a particular phrase or idea. Not to mention footnotes. If you are using your Bible, don't forget to read these footnotes. They will help your understand a lot. But if you are doing this purely from the internet and don't have a Bible next to you, well, that's why I'm writing this blog. To do my best to explain it for you.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are known as the 4 gospel books. They basically tell the same stories, but from different points of view, as the various people saw the event. Luke's style of writing shows the events of Jesus' life if it were a broadway musical. People break out into song and dance. Which is awesome. It is so joyous. This is the story of the savior of the world. Why wouldn't you break into song and dance? Yet with the unlikeliness of people breaking out into song and dance, Luke is the one to record the most facts from eyewitnesses, since he probably wasn't there to witness it himself. Luke was a man who traveled with Paul the apostle on his missionary trips. He was a good friend of Paul. Luke was a doctor. Which means that he was the most learned of the gospel authors and he was the type of personality to strive for knowledge and getting down facts. He felt the need to record the story of Jesus, so he sought out people who knew Him in order to get a full understanding. Luke's story of Jesus begins before His birth, and ends when Jesus ascends to Heaven after rising from the grave. No, we won't get that far today.

v 1-4 The introduction. The prologue. Luke is writing to Theophilus. It has been debated whether this is the name of a single person or group of people in particular, but in Greek, the language Luke was originally written in, Theophilus meant "friend of God". In these 4 verses, he is simply stating that while others had written accounts of Jesus' life, he wanted to write an account also, so that people could compare the stories and the comparison would prove the validity of the stories.

v 5-25. The birth of John the Baptist is foretold. The first verse gives us a setting.
"In the time of Herod king of Judea". Google is awesome. Herod the Great ruled from 37-4 BC. So that one phrase tells us when this is happening.
"A priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah". In 1 chronicles, it talks about the different divisions of priests. They were not ranked in any way, but they were descendants of Aaron. Aaron was the older brother of Moses and he became the first High Priest of the Israelites. Aaron was survived by two sons when he died, Eleazar and Ithamar. Both of them were priests. From theirs descendants were 24 heads of families. Each head of family became a different division of priests. So Abijah was one of the heads of families descended from Aaron. And Zechariah was a descendant of Abijah. You still with me? We're still on v 5.
"His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron". We don't know which division Elizabeth hails from, but this is saying that two descendants of Aaron: two godly, priest-in-their-blood people are married.


Hey guess what?!?!? It's 2:35 am so let's hit the pause button here and come back later. God is the biggest cause of my insomnia because He gets me reading things that He KNOWS I'm interested in and then I don't want to sleep. It's a bittersweet relationship that I have with the Bible. And my pillow often loses when I choose between it and God.