Read Luke 1:1-4; Context of the Christmas Story

Recently we spoke on the context of the Christmas story in each of the Gospels.  Generally, the opening verse(s) of each of the four Gospels gives an idea of the context of that particular Gospel.  For example, Mark has no Christmas story because his context is the Roman world.  He presents Christ as the Servant and no one cares about the birth details of a servant.  The key word “immediately” (AV straightway) appears several times in Mark 1 and is a word that fits the context of the Messiah Slave.

Matthew begins, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.  You can’t miss the connection with Genesis where phrases similar to this appear, giving the order of the book.  The context of the Christmas story is the way it fits into the course of history, and especially the Messianic lineage from Adam and Eve to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Judah. 

John also does not have any of the stories of the birth of Christ.  But he begins, In the beginning was the Word.  His context for writing about Christ is seen in His Deity, the way the Eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

The context for Luke is also clearly stated: an orderly account … that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed (1:1-4).  His point is to set the record straight, if you will.  The result is that, in the story of Christmas, Luke contains several parts of the story that required Him to talk to eyewitnesses, or at the least, people who spoke with eyewitnesses.  Luke emphasizes historical and geographical facts: the days of Herod (1:5), priestly divisions (1:8), Nazareth of Galilee (1:26), the hill country of Judea (1:39) and the shepherd’s fields (2:8).  These are real people and real places. 

Perhaps Luke is concerned with the context of world, and the worlds approach to stories such as the story of Jesus’ birth.  Luke’s world, like our world, tended to see the story in the context of certain biases. 

·        There is the bias of “rationalism” which cannot allow for the supernatural.  A virgin birth, for example, is out of the question for this kind of person.  In Scripture the supernatural is spoken of often, involves events open for many to see, and are critical proofs of message of Scripture.  In addition, since we are speaking of the Word of God we actually expect there to be records of supernatural events.  To this bias we simply say that it is foolish to assume that whatever we can’t explain is not real.  It makes more sense to expect these types of events.

·        Second, there is an “archaeological” bias by which we refer to the idea that, if archaeology hasn’t found it, then it likely doesn’t exist.  It is easy to say, as many do, that science is the bottom line of truth.  But to be honest, archaeology as a science is still a work-in-progress.  When archaeology speaks today of things found that are hundreds and thousands of years old, one must always remember we are seeing yesterday through today’s filters.  If the Bible speaks of an event or person or situation in ancient times it is sensible to listen to the Bible.  We have appreciated this about archaeology conducted by people of Israel these days.  They learn from the Bible about places and events and this often helps them know where to start digging.  In addition, there are many illustrations of cities or people that were thought not to have existed because archaeology and history had no record, only to find in a later dig that they did exist.  It is foolish to have the idea that archaeology is greater than the Bible or that the Bible’s statements of history are unreliable.

·        Third is the “mythological” bias.  Since there are older stories found in mythology that are “similar” to the stories of Scripture, and especially the birth of Christ, it is assumed that the more recent story of the Gospels was taken from the older stories of mythology.  There are ancient myths (and they are certainly myths) of gods and goddesses and child gods found all over the world.  The god dies; the goddess somehow is impregnated by the dead god; the child born is a savior of some sort.  This would have been something very prevalent in Luke’s world.  These mythical stories are not like the story of Scripture; they only seem similar on a very surface level.  Further, Scripture insists on presenting a factual story.  It includes history, geography, governmental leaders by name, aspects of specific societies, and precise language where mood, tense, person, number and parts of speech must be recognized.

We have not gone into specific detail to deal with these things.  As is often said, this might be “above our pay grade.”  However, we have said all this to lay a foundation for the next post where we will consider the veracity of Luke’s Christmas story.  He claims to be striving for accuracy.  Did he achieve this?