Why start with the book of Luke?

There’s a variety of reasons we chose to start our studies off in the book of Luke, some deeper than others.

Probably the most straightforward answer is that Luke was the book that Redeemer Church was preaching through when I started How Can This Happen, so it seemed like a good place to start seeing as I was hearing preaching from Luke every Sunday, so it was an easy place to start.

However, there are a couple of deeper reasons as well.

Firstly How Can This Happen was born out of a needed for an attractive, affordable, and thoroughly Biblical series of Bible Studies that we could use as a part of the ministry I work in. We wanted studies that would help our campers see who Jesus is and get to know the overarching message of the Bible.

While the whole Bible points us to the person and work of Christ, we get to see him most clearly in the Gospel accounts. To borrow from Timothy Brindle's exposition of Luke 24:44 in Death & Resurrection Pt. 1 - Luke 24 

“So now let’s reword the verse literally:
‘IN THIS WAY SCRIPTURE IS WRITTEN
THAT THE CHRIST MUST SUFFER, THEN ON THE 3RD DAY BE RISEN!’
So Jesus wasn’t just quoting a verse
But rather He was laying out The Main Theme of the Whole of the Word”

So, by starting in a Gospel, we are beginning our studies in the easiest place to see the main theme of the whole of the Bible. The question then is which Gospel to start in?

For me, Luke stood out as I felt that Luke was written to someone who was in a similar position to the audience I had in mind for resources from How Can This Happen. Luke lays out his original reading audience and purpose in the first four verses of his book; he is writing to Theophilus who, like our campers, had been taught about Jesus already, and Luke was writing so that he could “know for certain the things you were taught.” (Luke 1:4 NET).

We hope that our work will help children see how they, like Theophilus, can have certainty about who Jesus is and what this means for them. If you want to support our work in producing studies that help children to see who Jesus is, then please support us.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash