St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

The Saviour of the world

Our church is named after St Luke, the one who wrote Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. In 2007 our gospel readings in Sunday services are mostly taken from Luke’s gospel. We’re supposed to ask ourselves what lessons we learn from his writings.

We don’t know how Luke became a Christian (that means, as he explains in Acts 11, a follower of Jesus). Luke first pops up in the story when he comes to meet Paul in “Asia Minor” (N. Turkey, Acts 16), after which Paul goes to Macedonia (N. Greece) to tell people about Jesus. Luke travels with Paul on three different occasions in Acts, mostly on sea or coastal journeys. Paul is the one who tells Luke how the gospel has spread all round the Roman Empire, and he writes it up as the Acts.

But Luke also sees the need to write down the life of Jesus before the eyewitnesses get too elderly to tell it. He researches the history. He looks at the documents and weighs up the evidence. He checks the dates, and he probably does some fact-finding of his own (for instance, he probably interviewed Mary). And he writes it all down for “Theophilus” - that’s a name meaning “God-lover”, so it may be a code word for anyone who wants to know the truth.

From Luke’s keen interest in healings (he uses lots of medical terminology when reporting them) we can see how his doctor’s mind worked. From his keen interest in the gifts of the Holy Spirit we can see that he believed in a living and dynamic faith where people walked closely with God and God answered their prayers. From his careful research we can see that he was nobody’s fool and he believed that faith had to be firmly rooted in facts.

But perhaps the most striking fact about the two books he wrote is this: he believed that when Jesus said: “those who believe in me will do even greater things than I do”, Jesus meant it! Because the Acts of the Apostles shows that Peter and Stephen and Paul himself all took after Jesus, and God used them to push the good news of Jesus to the ends of the known world.

And that’s important for us, because it means God can transform us by his Holy Spirit so that we start taking after Jesus too. And it means God wants to use us to push the good news of Jesus into all the corners of Eccleshill. So as we read these gospel readings this year, let’s ask ourselves how we can be God’s channels just like they were.

John Hartley

	*St Luke's Church, Eccleshill - The Link* magazine** The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period. January 2007, Page 4.
Home Page. Index of articles: by subject, by date. In this issue: (January 2007) New gifts, Welcome, Luke, Song, Question. Other articles on the bible.	The Saviour of the world Our church is named after St Luke, the one who wrote Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. In 2007 our gospel readings in Sunday services are mostly taken from Luke’s gospel. We’re supposed to ask ourselves what lessons we learn from his writings. We don’t know how Luke became a Christian (that means, as he explains in Acts 11, a follower of Jesus). Luke first pops up in the story when he comes to meet Paul in “Asia Minor” (N. Turkey, Acts 16), after which Paul goes to Macedonia (N. Greece) to tell people about Jesus. Luke travels with Paul on three different occasions in Acts, mostly on sea or coastal journeys. Paul is the one who tells Luke how the gospel has spread all round the Roman Empire, and he writes it up as the Acts. But Luke also sees the need to write down the life of Jesus before the eyewitnesses get too elderly to tell it. He researches the history. He looks at the documents and weighs up the evidence. He checks the dates, and he probably does some fact-finding of his own (for instance, he probably interviewed Mary). And he writes it all down for “Theophilus” - that’s a name meaning “God-lover”, so it may be a code word for anyone who wants to know the truth. From Luke’s keen interest in healings (he uses lots of medical terminology when reporting them) we can see how his doctor’s mind worked. From his keen interest in the gifts of the Holy Spirit we can see that he believed in a living and dynamic faith where people walked closely with God and God answered their prayers. From his careful research we can see that he was nobody’s fool and he believed that faith had to be firmly rooted in facts. But perhaps the most striking fact about the two books he wrote is this: he believed that when Jesus said: “those who believe in me will do even greater things than I do”, Jesus meant it! Because the Acts of the Apostles shows that Peter and Stephen and Paul himself all took after Jesus, and God used them to push the good news of Jesus to the ends of the known world. And that’s important for us, because it means God can transform us by his Holy Spirit so that we start taking after Jesus too. And it means God wants to use us to push the good news of Jesus into all the corners of Eccleshill. So as we read these gospel readings this year, let’s ask ourselves how we can be God’s channels just like they were. John Hartley
Top of page.	This web page was last updated on 3rd April 2007.