1:1-4 The author of Luke also wrote the book of Acts. Acts 1:1 connects the two books. The author himself remains anonymous, and nowhere in the gospel or in Acts does he identify himself. For convenience, we will refer to him as “Luke,” recognizing that this is merely traditional, and in no way indicates the name of the actual author. The author’s introduction to the gospel indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events he relates. We see this by his statement that the accounts of eyewitnesses were “handed down to us” (v.2) from an earlier time. In this introduction, Luke sets a goal of writing out events “in consecutive order.” (NASB) The Greek word kathexeis here means “in a continual order or series, successively, consecutively” (William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, p. 257). The NASB translation expresses this more directly than the “orderly account” of the RSV. As we shall see, Luke, who used Mark’s gospel as a source, rearranged the order of some of Mark’s events. Note that Luke makes no claim to divine inspiration as the basis for his account, but relies instead on research into the existing sources (v.3). “Theophilus,” to whom the gospel is addressed, may or may not have been a real person. Etymologically it means “lover of God,” so could symbolically represent any of the faithful. Luke’s introductory sentence rambles on for four verses. Contrast this with the tersely elegant opening of John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word.”
1:6 Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as “righteous” and “blameless” with regard to “all the commandments and ordinances” of God. Paul obviously was not thinking of them when he wrote that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The story of Zechariah and Sarah also questions the notion of original sin and the rationale for Jesus’s sacrifice. If they could lead a blameless life, obeying all of God’s commandments, why couldn’t this be the path to salvation for others as well?
1:15 The son of Zechariah and Elizabeth will be John the Baptist, who among other things, “shall drink no wine nor strong drink.” The same could not be said for Jesus himself, who had a reputation of being a drunkard and a glutton. (Luke 7:34, Matthew 11:19)
1:18-20 Zechariah dares to question the angel’s promise, for which he is punished. Free speech is obviously not a highly esteemed value in God’s organization.
1:27 Although Mary is here described as a virgin, there is no suggestion in Luke’s gospel that Mary remained a virgin up until the time Jesus was born, as is claimed in Matthew 1:25. The earliest Christian writings, i.e., Paul’s letters, as well as the gospel of Mark, mention nothing about a virgin birth.
1:32 The angel predicts that “the Lord God will give to him [Jesus] the throne of his father David.” By asserting Jesus’s descent from David’s son Nathan (3:31) Luke avoids the awkwardness of Matthew’s conflicting genealogy descending from David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), because Matthew’s line includes the accursed Jehoiakim, whose offspring were barred by God from ever “sitting on the throne of David, and ruling again in Judah.” (Jeremiah 22:28-30) Matthew deals with this by simply omitting Jehoiakim from his genealogy, while Luke switches to an entirely different branch of David’s family tree. 1 Chronicles 3:15 includes Jehoiakim in his proper sequence. See the comment to 3:23-38 on the conflicting genealogies of Luke and Matthew. There are many discrepancies between the genealogies of Matthew and Chronicles as well, as outlined in the comment to Matthew 1:8-9 and 1:11.
Of course, the predictions of verses 32 and 33 never came to pass. Jesus never ascended to the throne of David, and did not re-establish the kingdom of Israel.
1:34 Mary’s comment about her marital status is literally, “since I know not a man,” which is rendered in RSV as “since I have no husband,” and in NASB/NIV as “since I am a virgin.”
1:35 The angel tells Mary that the holy spirit will “come upon” her and cause her to conceive a child. Thus, Joseph is not the baby’s actual father, which makes the lengthy genealogy given in chapter 3 pointless. Also, the notion that Mary was impregnated by the holy spirit, and not by Joseph, contradicts Paul’s assertion that Jesus was “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” (Romans 1:3)
Note that Mary is not yet pregnant at the time the angel gives her the news. Compare this to Matthew 1:18-20, where Joseph’s visitation from the angel takes place after she is already pregnant. Thus, if we are to believe these two accounts, Mary withheld the angel’s announcement from Joseph, and did not speak up even when Joseph was preparing to divorce her. Why would she have withheld such important news from her husband-to-be, and waited until Joseph received his own angelic visitor?
1:36 Elizabeth is identified here as a kinswoman of Mary. We learned in 1:5 that Elizabeth was “of the daughters of Aaron,” i.e., from the priestly tribe of Levi, implying that Mary is also of that tribe. “Luke appears to assume that Mary was of priestly (non-Davidic) descent.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.8, p.40) Thus, apologists who try to explain the glaring contradictions between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus by claiming that Luke’s genealogy in chapter 3 is that of Mary, are misguided.
1:48 “All generations will call me blessed.” Mary rejoices in the fact that God has chosen her to be the mother of the holy child, but it turns out that not even the first generation, i.e., Jesus himself, called her blessed. We see this later on in Luke’s gospel, where a woman approaches Jesus and exclaims, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” (Luke 11:27) But Jesus responds “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28) The NASB translation brings out the contrast even more, rendering verse 28 as: “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it.” This retort from Jesus can hardly be considered as calling his mother “blessed,” and this public rejection of his mother is in no way consistent with the fifth commandment, which commands, “Honor your father and your mother.” (Exodus 20:12)
2:2 Luke places the birth of Jesus during a census conducted in Judea when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Quirinius became governor of Syria in 6 AD, when Herod the Great’s son Archelaus was deposed. However, Matthew’s gospel has Jesus being born during the reign of Herod the Great himself (Matthew 2:1; 2:22), who died in 4 or 5 BC. Thus, there is approximately a ten-year discrepancy in the dates of Jesus’s birth, according to the two versions. The dates of Herod’s reign and Quirinius’s governorship are easily determined from historical records. The Christian apologists, realizing how damaging this contradiction is for their cause, have advanced many speculations to account for the discrepancy, including the invention of a previous governorship for Quirinius that would fit with the years of Herod’s rule. However, the previous governors of Syria are also known through historical records, and there are various other reasons why Quirinius could not have been governor of Syria while Herod was king. For a thorough discussion of the evidence, and refutations of the Christian rejoinders, see Richard Carrier, The Date of the Nativity in Luke. See also the comment to Matthew 2:1. A noted New Testament scholar weighs in with the comment that Luke’s timing of Jesus’s birth “is fraught with problems: There never was a census of the whole Empire under Augustus (but a number of local censuses), and the census of Judea (not of Galilee) under Quirinius, the governor of Syria, took place in AD 6-7, probably at least ten years too late for the birth of Jesus. The best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately.” (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, New York: Doubleday, 1997, p.233.) See also the Oxford Bible Commentary, pp.928-929. Note that Matthew mentions nothing about any census and does not venture to explain how Joseph and Mary happened to find themselves in Bethlehem when the time came for her to give birth.
2:4 It is very odd that a resident of Nazareth, which is in Galilee, would be required to register for a census in Judea, where Bethlehem was located. The purpose of the Roman census in Judea was to take stock of the region’s wealth for purposes of taxation. Recall that Galilee was at this point still ruled semi-autonomously by Herod’s son Antipas, and so was not part of the census. Unless Joseph owned property in Bethlehem, there would be no reason for him to take part, and certainly no reason for Mary to accompany him on the journey. “It is improbable that any Roman census would have required a man to report to the home of his ancestors. Such a procedure would have been almost as impracticable in Roman times as it would be in our own, and the Roman state was interested in a man’s property, not in his pedigree.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p. 50.) However, if Joseph did own property in Bethlehem (an assumption not warranted by Luke’s narrative), it is very difficult to explain why he and Mary stayed in a stable, instead of at his own property. The overall impression is that the census story is a literary device, intended to link Jesus with Bethlehem, the city of David, for messianic purposes, and escape the awkwardness of the supposed messiah hailing from Galilee. The author of John’s gospel seems to know nothing of the Bethlehem legend, as his characters assume that Jesus is from Galilee: “Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he?” (John 7:41, NASB, which captures the nuance of the Greek text better here than the RSV.)
2:7 Finding no room in the inn, Mary lays the baby Jesus in a manger (i.e., a trough for feeding livestock in a stable). And in 2:16, the shepherds find Jesus in the manger when they come to visit him. However, in Matthew’s version, Joseph and his family were more fortunate in finding accommodations, as the wise men visited them in a house, rather than in a stable. (Matthew 2:11)
2:8 If the shepherds were watching their flocks at night in the fields, then it is unlikely that Jesus’s birth actually took place on December 25, as tradition would have it. “The implication of Luke’s story is that Jesus was born at a time when sheep could still be kept in the field—sometime between April and November.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.8, p.53)
2:11 The angel bestows the title of Savior upon the baby Jesus. Neither the gospel of Mark, nor Matthew, uses this term in referring to Jesus. However, numerous passages in the Old Testament reserve the title for God (Yahweh) himself. For example, “I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.” (Isaiah 43:11). “I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.” (Hosea 13:4) See also Isaiah 43:3; Psalm 106:21.
2:17 While visiting the baby Jesus, the shepherds make known “the saying which had been told them concerning this child.” This would include the angelic announcement that Jesus is “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (2:11). Given this announcement, and Mary’s previous visit from the angel Gabriel (1:30-33), it is very difficult to explain his parents’ lack of understanding in 2:50, as well as the reaction of the townspeople in 4:22.
2:21 The circumcision of Jesus. According to Paul in Galatians 5:3, the act of circumcision obligates Jesus to keep the entire Jewish Law: “I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is bound to keep the whole law.” Yet there were numerous instances where Jesus did not keep the Jewish law, from breaking the Sabbath (John 5:18), to dishonoring his mother (Luke 11:28; Matthew 12:46-50; John 2:3-4), to coveting another person’s donkey, and possibly stealing it (see comments to Mark 11:1-6; also Matthew 21:2-7); to refusing to answer the charges brought against him (Matthew 27:13-14, in violation of Leviticus 5:1).
2:22 The baby Jesus is brought to Jerusalem after the 33-day purification period prescribed by Leviticus 12:2-4. There are two problems raised here. First, the trip to Jerusalem contradicts Matthew’s version of events, where he says that Joseph took his family from Bethlehem into Egypt, to escape the murderous plans of King Herod. (Matthew 2:14) Even after Herod died, Joseph was afraid to go anywhere near Jerusalem, because Herod’s son Archelaus was then ruling, so he took the family instead to Nazareth in Galilee. (Matthew 2:21-23) This contradiction cannot be refuted by claiming that they went to Egypt and to Jerusalem, because Matthew explicitly says they were afraid to go to Jerusalem at all. Furthermore, Luke’s timeline leaves no time for any such trip to Egypt. In Luke, we have the birth of Jesus, his circumsion eight days later, and 33 days after the circumcision (according to the purification period in Leviticus) Jesus is in Jerusalem. In order for Matthew’s events to fit into this timeline, the sojourn in Egypt, and the death of Herod (Matthew 2:19) would have had to take place within these forty days. But based on Matthew 2:16, Jesus was in Egypt possibly up to the time he was two years old. If Jesus had been less than forty days old at the time of Herod’s death, which he would have been if this attempted refutation is to work, there would have been no point in Herod’s killing the babies up to two years old. Thus, the contradiction stands. The trip to Egypt in Matthew cannot possibly have occurred if the event timeline recorded in Luke is accurate.
A second embarrassing circumstance arises in relation to the days of purification, which Luke 2:22 describes as “their” purification. The purification law applies only to the mother, so it is actually “her” purification, not “their” purification. Leviticus 12:2 states that a woman who gives birth to a male child “shall be unclean seven days.” This means that Mary would have been unclean for that length of time. During the following thirty-three days of purification, “she shall not touch any hallowed thing.” (Leviticus 12:4) “Hallowed” is simply another word for “holy,” and if anything is holy in Christian theology it is Jesus himself. Are we to believe that Mary did not touch her baby during these forty days because she was prohibited by the Law of Moses from touching anything holy? Yet this is what Luke’s story implies. In fact, we are told directly that Mary “wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7), so there is no doubt that she did touch him before the purification period had passed, in violation of the law stated in Leviticus. There are many Church writings that proclaim the absolute purity of the Virgin Mary, so Luke’s off-handed comment about the days of purification from uncleanliness is at odds with a central teaching of the Catholic Church, and with the belief of many non-Catholics as well.
2:27 Luke refers to Joseph and Mary as “the parents” of Jesus, momentarily forgetting (or ignoring) his earlier story of the virgin birth.
2:33 Again, the virgin birth is forgotten, and Joseph is now Jesus’s “father.” Oddly, Joseph and Mary “marvelled at what was said about” Jesus, even though they previously had similar announcements from the angel Gabriel (1:30-33) and the shepherds who came to visit (2:17).
2:39 Their religious duties having been fulfilled, Joseph and family return to their home in Nazareth. Here they arrive in Nazareth from Jerusalem, in contrast to Matthew’s gospel where they go directly to Nazareth from their sojourn in Egypt. (Matthew 2:21-23) See the comment to Luke 2:22 showing that the sojourn in Egypt is inconsistent with Luke’s timeline.
2:43 Once again, Joseph and Mary are referred to as Jesus’s “parents,” thus overlooking the virgin birth. And when addressing Jesus in verse 48, Mary refers to Joseph as “your father,” failing to understand when Jesus replies that he could be found in his "Father’s" house (verses 49-50). After the story of the virgin birth is told in chapter 1, Luke consistently treats Joseph as Jesus’s real father. There is a hint at the virgin birth again, however, in 3:23 when Luke notes that it was “supposed” that Jesus was the son of Joseph.
3:1 The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar puts these events in about 28-29 AD. The Herod referred to is Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great.
3:3 John preaches “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Later (3:21) we find that Jesus himself was baptized, but we are not told why he did so, or what sins he had committed.
3:4-6 This quotation is from Isaiah 40:3-5, and follows for the most part the Greek translation (Septuagint) of the Hebrew scriptures. A slight variance is found at the end of verse 4, where “make his paths straight” deviates from “make straight the paths of our God” found in Isaiah. This may not be a trivial substitution. Luke obviously wants the words to refer to Jesus, but the original passage in Isaiah refers to God (Yahweh), so changing the wording slightly helps to obscure the fact that in Isaiah, the words do not refer to Jesus. Also, the passage would not work if John were not preaching in the “wilderness” (v.2) but the alleged wilderness in which John preaches seems to be quite heavily populated, given the crowds of people who came to him. The word translated as “wilderness” has as its basic meaning “desert” or “uninhabited place.” It is the same word used in 4:1 to refer to the place where Jesus was tempted by the devil.
3:7 John the Baptist castigates the multitudes by labeling them a “brood of vipers.” Here these words are addressed “to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him.” But in Matthew 3:7, it is only the Pharisees and Sadducees who receive this scolding. Pharisees and Sadducees were two opposing groups of religious scholars and officials, with the Sadducees representing the interests of the Temple and priesthood, while the Pharisees were an independent scholarly group, characterized by a less strict interpretation of the Jewish law than the Sadducees, as they attempted to reconcile the Law with the practical requirements of everyday life. For more information see the article “Sadducees” at the JewishEncyclopedia.com. (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=40&letter=S)
3:16 “He who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” These are the words of John the Baptist, who obviously implies that Jesus will be greater than John himself. But Jesus states just the opposite in 7:28 when he tells the crowds that “among those born of women none is greater than John.” Recall that Jesus himself was “born of woman,” as we are reminded in Galatians 4:4, so cannot be greater than John, according to Jesus’s own words.
3:21 “Jesus also had been baptized.” Why was Jesus baptized? Recall that this was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (3:3), but Luke gives no explanation of why Jesus would receive such a baptism. What sins had he committed that needed to be washed away?
3:22 Here the voice from the sky is directed at Jesus himself (“Thou art my beloved son.”), whereas in Matthew 3:17 it seems to be addressed to the crowd in general (“This is my beloved son.”
3:23-38 Luke’s genealogy of Jesus has long been recognized to be in major conflict with the one presented in Matthew 1:2-17. Luke’s genealogy comprises 42 generations from David to Joseph, while Matthew’s comprises 27 generations for the same span. Luke traces the ancestry of Jesus through David’s son Nathan (3:31), while Matthew claims the descent was from David’s other son Solomon (Matthew 1:6). According to Luke, the father of Joseph was Heli (Luke 3:23), while Matthew identifies Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16). There are many other discrepancies as well between the two accounts. There is no way to reconcile these contradictions. A desperate attempt by some Christian apologists to see Luke’s genealogy as that of Mary, instead of Joseph, fails completely, for reasons outlined in the comment to Matthew 1:6.
4:2-13 The temptation of Jesus by the devil. Note that Luke refers only to “the devil” and not to “Satan.”
4:3 The devil here asks Jesus to tell “this stone” to become bread. Matthew’s version has the devil asking him to tell “these stones” to become bread.
4:5 If the world were flat, then one might indeed be able to see “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” from a sufficiently high place. And this is no doubt the assumption taken by Luke in presenting this story. However, as the ancient Greeks knew even at that time, the earth is spherical, and so Jesus would not have been able to see the kingdoms on the opposite side of the globe, including the ancient civilizations of Central and South America. If the apologists appeal to Jesus’s divine omniscience, or perhaps x-ray vision, to claim that he was nevertheless acquainted with the kingdoms on the other side, then what was the point in taking him up to a high place? He could have seen the kingdoms just as easily from the ground. There is an out available, however, because the phrase translated as “of the world” is in Greek the oikoumeneis, which generally meant the known, inhabited world – equivalent to the Roman empire in Jesus’s time. So this phrase would not necessarily encompass any kingdoms from the opposite hemisphere, and not even those of China and other parts of Asia.
4:9 The order of the temptations is different here than in Matthew 4:3-9. Luke has: first, command the stone to become bread (4:3); secondly, offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship (4:7), and finally, throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple (4:9). Matthew reverses the second and third of these. (Matthew 4:3-9)
4:16 Luke places the Nazareth rejection at the beginning of Jesus’s career, just after his return from the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. This is a reordering from Mark’s sequence of events, where Jesus’s appearance in his hometown takes place after much teaching and healing and working of miracles in other locations. (Mark 6:1-6) See also Matthew 13:54-58, where the rejection at Nazareth also comes later in Jesus’s career.
4:22 “Is not this Joseph’s son?” The townspeople of Nazareth are amazed at the “gracious words” coming from Jesus’s mouth, the amazement being at least partly related to the fact that he is merely the son of Joseph, a man they all know. Thus, the people of Nazareth do not refer to Jesus as the son of God, but merely as the son of one of their own villagers. The townspeople display absolutely no familiarity with the stories of Jesus’s divine birth, nor of the great and wondrous things that were prophesied for him when he was born, even though the shepherds who visited the baby Jesus “made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them” (2:17-18), and even though Jesus at the age of twelve amazed and astonished those who heard him in the temple as he discussed with the teachers there (2:47-48)
4:23-24 Jesus declines to perform miracles for his fellow Nazarenes, as he had done in Capernaum, and declares that no prophet is acceptable to his native country. Perhaps he was concerned that they were not gullible enough to fall for the magic tricks that had impressed those towns where he was less well known.
4:28 The admiration of the Nazarenes is short-lived, as they take offense at Jesus’s teaching and run him out of town. Jesus narrowly avoids being thrown off a cliff by “passing through the midst of them” and escaping. Remember, these were the people who knew Jesus best, and they weren’t buying any of this “son of God” stuff.
4:38 The healing of Simon’s (Peter’s) mother-in-law occurs here after the rejection at Nazareth. But in Mark’s gospel (Mark 1:29-31) it occurs well before the Nazareth episode (6:1-5). The fact that Simon had a mother-in-law means he also had a wife, but we do not hear anything about her. We learn from Paul (1 Corinthians 9:5) that other apostles had wives, too, as did “the brothers of the Lord.”
4:39 The sequence of events in the curing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is also different here from that given in Mark 1:31. Here, Jesus rebukes the fever, then the fever leaves her, and then “immediately she rose and served them.” In Mark’s version, Jesus first raises her up, and then the fever leaves her.
4:41 Here Jesus refuses to let the demons reveal that he is the son of God or “the Christ.” Why would he want to conceal this important piece of information? If he was not including this in his preaching, what then was the message that he preached? In 4:43 we find that he is preaching “the kingdom of God,” but apparently this did not include anything about Jesus being the Christ or the son of God.
5:1 The “lake of Gennesaret” is another name for the Sea of Galilee. (Oxford Bible Commentary, p.933)
5:4-8 This story of the many fish that are caught resembles in many details the story found in John 21:6, except that in John, it is told as a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to the remaining disciples. In Luke, it forms part of the calling of the first disciples. The calling of these first disciples appears here in a different sequence than is found in Mark 1:16-20 and Matthew 4:18-22. Mark and Matthew both have the first group of disciples being called at the very beginning of Jesus’s preaching career, but here in Luke it occurs later. For example, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law has already occurred here in Luke, but in Mark it follows the calling of the first four disciples. Luke mentions by name Simon Peter, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, but there is no mention of Andrew, who is named in Mark and Matthew as the fourth disciple called in this first group.
5:14 After healing the leper, Jesus admonishes him “to tell no one,” contradicting Jesus’s own words in John 18:20 where he says, “I have spoken openly to the world.”
5:20 Jesus tells the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven you." But Christian theology holds that atonement of sins through Jesus’s death was necessary in order for sins to be forgiven. “All things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22) If Jesus could forgive the paralytic of his sins without dying on the cross, why couldn’t he do the same for all of us? This verse undermines the rationale for the crucifixion and resurrection as central events in the theory of salvation. Jesus forgives again in 7:48, again showing that his death on the cross is not necessary in order for people to be saved from their sins, nor is it necessary that blood be shed in order to forgive.
5:24 Jesus heals the man’s paralysis as proof of Jesus’s own claim to have authority to forgive sins. This is a very strange theological argument, and implies that anyone who can heal physical illness can also forgive sins.
5:27 A tax collector by the name of Levi is called to follow Jesus. He is not, however, named in the list of the twelve disciples given in 6:14-16, nor in Mark 3:14-19, nor in Matthew 10:2-4. Levi is sometimes identified with the disciple Matthew, but none of the gospel authors make this connection. There is no Levi mentioned in Matthew’s gospel, but there is a disciple Matthew who is described as a tax collector. “The author of the Gospel of Matthew has apparently confused Levi with Matthew, substituting the latter name in Matt. 9:9 and describing him in Matt. 10:3 as a ‘tax collector.’” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.108.)
5:33 Jesus’s disciples do not practice the self-denial of John the Baptist’s disciples. Instead, they “eat and drink.” Life as a disciple of Jesus had its rewards. See the comment to Matthew 9:14 for examples of the good life on the road with Jesus.
6:1-5 The controversy here is over whether the disciples violated the Law by working on the Sabbath. The work in question is that of harvesting and threshing grain. Eating would not in itself violate the Sabbath law, but by plucking the heads of grain and separating the kernels from the plant, the disciples are open to the accusation of “working.” Jesus tries to justify their action by appealing to David’s actions in taking the holy bread for his men (1 Samuel 21:1-6), but that episode did not involve the Sabbath law. Luke omits Jesus’s mistake, captured in Mark’s version, where he incorrectly names the priest who gave David the holy bread. (See the comment to Mark 2:26.)
By saying that “The son of man is lord of the sabbath,” (v.5), Jesus is giving himself the right to violate the Sabbath law, i.e., to violate the fourth commandment found in Exodus 20:10: “The seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work.” It may seem that picking a few heads of grain by hand would not constitute enough work to invoke the Sabbath law, but in Exodus 16:26 Moses warned the Hebrews in the desert that there would be no gathering of manna on the sabbath, although it would be provided on the other six days of the week. They were required to gather double the amount on the sixth day in order to have enough left over to eat on the Sabbath.
6:11 After Jesus heals the man with the withered hand, the Pharisees are “filled with fury” because of Jesus’s healing on the Sabbath. But in Mark’s version of the same episode, it was Jesus himself who was angry (Mark 3:5).
6:14-16 The twelve disciples are named. Luke’s list differs slightly from those of Matthew 10:2-4 and Mark 3:14-19. Here, and in Acts 1:13, Luke lists Judas, son of James, as the twelfth disciple, while Matthew and Mark have Thaddaeus in his place. The gospel of John does not include a full list of the twelve disciples by name.
6:17-49 The Sermon on the Plain. This sermon overlaps in many respects with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, but is shorter. Jesus’s modern reputation as a moral teacher rests in large part on his sayings in these two sermons.
6:27-28 This is worth quoting in its entirety, because it is one of the many sayings of Jesus that are rarely observed by his modern followers: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
6:40 “A disciple is not above his teacher.” See the comment to Matthew 10:24. Luke adds, “every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher.” There is no notion that a disciple might ever exceed his teacher in knowledge.
7:2-10 Healing the centurion's servant. Here in Luke’s version the centurion himself does not meet Jesus, but instead sends a deputation of Jewish elders to ask Jesus to heal the centurion’s slave. In Matthew 8:5-6, however, the centurion makes his request to Jesus in person. There is no credibility in claiming that two separate incidents are being related here, for the large number of common details makes it clear that the same story is being told. In both versions the man is a Roman centurion, in both cases the sick individual is a servant of the centurion, in both cases the centurion protests that he is not worthy for Jesus to come into his house, and in both cases the centurion beseeches Jesus to heal the servant remotely, and offers the analogy of his own authority over the soldiers who serve under him. And both Matthew and Luke set the story as Jesus is entering Capernaum.
7:14-15 This story of the widow’s son being raised from the dead contradicts Paul’s words as reported in Acts 26:23, which claim that Christ will be the first to rise from the dead. There are yet other reports of individuals being raised from the dead before Jesus’s own crucifixion and resurrection. For example, Lazarus (John 11:43-44) and the ruler’s little girl (Matthew 9:18, 23-25). There is also an Old Testament story about Elisha raising a child from the dead. (2 Kings 4:32-35).
7:19-20 John the Baptist sends emissaries to Jesus to find out if he is indeed the one “who is to come.” But in chapter 1 of John’s gospel, verses 15, 29-30, and 34, the Baptist already knows before his imprisonment that Jesus is the one, and he has no problem recognizing Jesus right away as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Luke’s version creates difficulties, e.g., how could John the Baptist perform his mission to prepare the way (7:28) if he doesn’t even know whether Jesus is the one expected, and if he is already in prison (3:20) before finding out? Note, too, that Jesus did not even give the Baptist’s emissaries a straight answer to his question. They ask Jesus directly, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” But Jesus evades the question and instead tells them to inform the Baptist about all the healing and preaching that Jesus has done.
7:28 Jesus says that no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist. But if Jesus himself is no greater than John the Baptist, how can Jesus possibly be divine? And Jesus was born of a woman, as we are reminded in Galatians 4:4. John the Baptist himself contradicts Jesus on the point of greatness, however, in 3:16, saying that he himself is not fit to untie Jesus’s sandals. Furthermore, in John 10:8, Jesus says that “all who came before me are thieves and robbers.” But John the Baptist came before him. Therefore, John the Baptist must be a thief and a robber. But if so, how could he have been the greatest of all those born of woman? Jesus’s sayings about John the Baptist are thus a hopeless muddle of contradictions.
7:34 Unlike John the Baptist (see 1:15), Jesus enjoys his food and drink.
7:37-50 The woman with the ointment. This story appears in all four gospels, with major discrepancies in the details. For a discussion of the differences, see the comment to Mark 14:3-8. The different versions of this story give rise to a typical response from the apologists, who seize on the differences to claim that these are really four different stories about four separate events, and thus not contradictory at all. But there are enough similarities in the stories to suggest that it is one story, handed down and retold, with slight changes accumulating with each retelling to the point where the stories begin to diverge and contradict each other. And if Jesus was really going around to multiple locations repeatedly allowing himself to be pampered with expensive perfume in such royal fashion, it really portrays Jesus as a self-indulgent lover of luxury, taking advantage of his fame in order to secure comforts for himself. We can accept it happening once, to illustrate a lesson or prove a point, but if it happened again and again, we may rightly suspect Jesus’s motives. Then again, Jesus was branded as a glutton and a drunkard because of his indulgent lifestyle (Luke 7:34; Matthew 11:19), so perhaps it was, after all, his custom to invite such attention from the women on his travels.
7:44-48 Jesus forgives the woman’s sins, showing that his death on the cross is not necessary in order for the sins of humanity to be forgiven. In this case, the woman was not forgiven because of her great faith, but only because she kissed Jesus’s feet and anointed them with oil. See also the comment to 5:20, another instance of Jesus forgiving sins without the necessity of having died on the cross. The necessity of the crucifixion as the means of atoning for the sins of mankind, is thus called into question.
7:50 Now Jesus tells the woman that her faith has saved her, in contrast to his words to the disciples in verses 46-47.
8:3 Here we learn the source of Jesus’s financial support. The women who accompanied Jesus and the disciples “provided for them out of their means.” Thus, “Jesus and his disciples did not depend on chance hospitality but were supported by women of means.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.146.)
8:6 In Luke’s version of the parable of the sower, the seed which falls on the rock withers away for lack of moisture. However, in Matthew 13:5-6 and Mark 4:5-6 the seed falling on rocky ground withers because of lack of soil and inability to put down roots.
8:10 Luke is consistent with Matthew and Mark on the purpose of the parables. They are told for the purpose of preventing understanding by those who are not elected to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. The same thought is expressed in Mark 4:11-12 and Matthew 13:11-15. What then is the purpose of Jesus’s ministry if he is only traveling around hiding the truth from his listeners? Note that his use of parables to prevent understanding contradicts his statement to the high priest that “I have spoken openly to the world. . . . I have said nothing secretly.” (John 18:20)
8:12 The one who snatches away the word of God from those listeners who are like the seed sown along the path is the “devil” here in Luke, “Satan” in Mark 4:15, and “the evil one” in Matthew 13:19.
8:13 Luke’s interpretation of the parable deviates from that of Mark and Matthew with respect to those listeners who are like the seed sown on rocky ground. Luke explains that they fall away “in time of temptation,” but Mark 4:17 and Matthew 13:21 tell us that these ones fall away because of “tribulation or persecution.”
8:18 “To him who has, more will be given.” But this maxim implying that Jesus will reinforce the existing order seems at odds with his other statements, which stress the need to give up one’s possessions in order to follow Jesus (Luke 14:33; 18:22; Mark 10:21; Matthew 19:21), and that the last shall be first and the first shall become last (Luke 13:30; Mark 10:31; Matthew 19:30).
8:20-21 Jesus again publicly denies his mother, as well as his brothers, by saying that his real mother and brothers are “those who hear the word of God and do it.” In Matthew, the rejection is even stronger, as Jesus stretches out his hand toward his disciples and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” (Matthew 12:49) See also Mark 3:34, as well as the comment to Luke 1:48.
8:24 “Master, master, we are perishing!” The storm on the lake arouses fear in the hearts of the disciples while Jesus sleeps. Mark’s parallel version allows the disciples a note of impatience, as they complain, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (Mark 4:38)
8:25 At this stage of the narrative, the disciples still do not know who Jesus is: “Who then is this, that he commands even wind and water, and they obey him?” This is a strong contrast with John’s gospel, where immediately after meeting Jesus, the disciple Andrew tells his brother Simon (Peter), “We have found the Messiah.” (John 1:41)
8:27 Luke’s version of this story has Jesus encounter only one demoniac in the land of the Gerasenes. Mark 5:2 agrees, but Matthew 8:28 has him meeting two demon-possessed men.
8:28 “What have you to do with me?” These words from the demonic spirit are exactly the same as those uttered by Jesus himself to his own mother in John 2:4. The RSV translates both the same, but some translations soften the tone of Jesus’s words to his mother, to obscure the harshness. Nevertheless, the underlying Greek text is the same in both instances. The parallel accounts in Mark 5:7 and Matthew 8:29 have the same phrase, except that Matthew puts it in the plural due to his story having two demon-posessed men.
8:37 The Gerasenes ask Jesus to leave “for they were seized with great fear.” In the versions told by Matthew 8:28-34 and Mark 5:1-17, Jesus is also asked to leave, but no reason is given. Destruction of a large herd of pigs would be as good a reason as any to ask him to leave the area. We know that they were not wild pigs, because there were herdsmen minding them (8:34). So they must have belonged to someone, and the loss must have been a severe blow to the livelihood to their owners, whoever they were. Remember that Jews would not have kept pigs, so these would have belonged to someone other than Jesus’s Jewish followers. See also the comment to the parallel version in Matthew 8:32.
8:41-56 The raising of Jairus’s daughter. Parallel versions are found in Mark 5:22-43 and Matthew 9:18-26. See the comment to Mark 5:22-23 for a discussion of the discrepancies in the three versions.
8:43-48 The story of Jairus’s daughter is interrupted by the story of the bleeding woman. Luke agrees here with Mark’s version (Mark 5:25-34) in having Jesus ask “Who was it that touched me?” (v.45), and in having the woman healed immediately, before Jesus speaks to her. Matthew 9:20-22, however, has Jesus recognize the woman as soon as she touches his garment. And in Matthew’s version, the woman is not healed until after Jesus speaks to her.
8:45 In response to Jesus’s question, “Who was it that touched me?” Luke drops the sarcastic response given by the disciples in Mark 5:31 (“You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’”) and replaces it with a more respectful one from Peter: “Master, the multitudes surround you and press upon you!”
8:56 Once again Jesus commands secrecy for his miraculous deeds, again contradicting John 18:20 where he testified, “I have said nothing secretly.” (John 18:20) See also the comment to Luke 8:10.
9:1 Jesus gives the twelve disciples power and authority over all demons. Yet in 9:40 we find that the disciples were unable to cast out a demon that possessed an epileptic boy. Luke gives no explanation for the disciples powerlessness in this instance, perhaps to avoid choosing sides with Matthew and Mark who give conflicting answers. In Matthew 17:20, we read that the disciples could not cast out this demon because they had “little faith,” but Mark 9:29 explains, “this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
9:3 In sending the twelve out to preach and heal, Jesus instructs them to take no staff. Mark 6:8, however, has Jesus instructing them to take nothing for their journey “except a staff.” Luke mentions nothing about their wearing sandals, thus taking no part in the contradiction between Mark and Matthew, with Mark 6:9 instructing the disciples to wear sandals, and Matthew 10:10 advising them to take no sandals.
9:6 According to Luke, the subject of the disciples’ preaching is “the gospel” (literally, “evangilizing”), while Mark 6:12 tells us that they “went out and preached that men should repent.”
9:7 This Herod is Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, whose father Herod the Great figures in the birth stories of Matthew and Luke. Luke gives him his correct title, tetrarch, which in the context of the Roman Empire designated a prince or governor of a subordinate province. The tetrarch administered his province in lieu of direct Roman administration. Mark 6:14 incorrectly refers to this Herod as “king.”
9:9 Here, Jesus’s fame has come to Antipas’s attention and he wonders who this Jesus could be, asking, “John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?” However, in both Mark 6:16 and Matthew 14:2, Herod Antipas is convinced that Jesus and John the Baptist are one and the same: “This is John the Baptist, he has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him.” (Matthew 14:2) Notice that the popular mind equates Jesus variously with John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the other prophets of old, but not with the Messiah. (See also 9:19.)
9:10 Upon returning from their mission, the disciples accompany Jesus to the city of Bethsaida. Mark 6:31 has them instead going to “a lonely place” in order to rest from their travels. But even though Luke sets the scene in the city of Bethsaida, he suddenly in 9:12 shifts it to “a lonely place” with no transition or explanation. In Mark’s version Jesus and his disciples do not sail to Bethsaida until after the five thousand are fed.
9:14 Luke is consistent with Mark 6:44 and Matthew 14:21 in saying that five thousand men were fed, but Matthew alone adds that, besides the men, women and children were fed as well. Mark 8:1-9 and Matthew 15:32-38 also have a second story about the miraculous feeding of a crowd of four thousand, but Luke omits this.
9:20 When asked who he thinks Jesus is, Peter responds, “The Christ of God.” “Christ” is a Greek term meaning “anointed one,” equivalent to the Hebrew “messiah.” It does not mean “son of God,” which we find in Matthew’s version of the same conversation. In Matthew 16:16, Peter’s words are “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” This is a much broader claim than we find here in Luke’s version. Peter’s words in Luke are entirely consistent with the possibility that Peter thought Jesus was indeed the expected Hebrew messiah, who would lead Israel in a war of liberation against the foreign occupiers and restore Israel to its presumed former independence and greatness. See also the comment to Mark 8:29.
9:22 As in Matthew 16:21 and Mark 8:31, Luke has Jesus explain to the disciples that he must suffer and be killed, and then rise again. But Luke omits the passage in which Peter objects and rebukes Jesus for this prediction, which leads Jesus to respond to Peter (in Matthew’s and Mark’s versions) with “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
9:27 “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” This is one of several instances where Jesus predicts the arrival of the kingdom of God within the lifetime of those who were listening to him. Two thousand years later, the end still hasn’t come. This was not a vague prediction that could be subject to interpretation. Jesus explicitly declares that when the end comes, “they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (21:27) And Matthew 24:29 adds dramatically that in those days “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Other examples include Matthew 24:34 and Mark 9:1 and 13:30. See the comments to those verses for further discussion of the Christians’ attempts to escape the embarrassment resulting from these failed predictions of Jesus’s second coming.
9:28 Here the transfiguration occurs about eight days after the previously related events, while in Matthew 17:1 and Mark 9:2 the interval is six days. Note that the events leading up to the transfiguration are the same in all three versions, so it cannot be argued that the eight days and six days are counted from different starting points. Christian apologists seize upon the equivocation “about eight days” in Luke to claim that this is not really a contradiction. Thus, in their view, the six days of Matthew and Mark are “about eight days.” Following the same logic, six days would also be “about four days,” and by transitivity, four days would be “about” eight days. So this very quickly dilutes any specific meaning that the original phrase may have had. But the question is: Did the author of Luke mean to say something different from what Mark and Matthew said, or did he mean something consistent with it? Remember that the author of Luke had Mark’s gospel as a source to work with, so why would he change the specific “six days” to a fuzzy “about eight” when he has adopted Mark’s exact language in so many other places? The author of Luke must therefore have made a specific decision to reject the language of Mark’s gospel and substitute “about eight days” as an alternative to “six days.” The only reason to do this would be to express a different meaning, i.e., not six.
See the comment to Matthew 17:1-8 for additional discussion of the transfiguration itself.
9:35 The voice from the cloud utters slightly different words in the three versions. Here we have “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” But Matthew 17:5 has “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him,” while Mark’s version is “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” (Mark 9:7)
9:40 The disciples were supposed to have authority over all demons (9:1), but here the disciples were unable to cast out the unclean spirit from the child.
9:45 The disciples do not understand Jesus when he says that “the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.” But this is not due to their own limitations, but because “it was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it.” Yet they were “afraid to ask him” to explain. Apparently, the disciples were on a need-to-know basis, and it seems they did not need to know what it meant for Jesus to be delivered up into the hands of men.
9:49 This unknown exorcist is not identified, but we may well ask where he got his power to cast out demons in Jesus’s name. The twelve were explicitly given this power by Jesus in 9:1, but if this unidentified exorcist could cast out demons without being granted such power by Jesus himself, why then could not the disciples themselves do the same?
9:50 Jesus tells the disciples “he that is not against you is for you.” But in 11:23 he expresses just the opposite view: “He who is not with me is against me.”
9:54 In one of the most bizarre verses in all the New Testament, the disciples James and John ask Jesus if they should bring fire down from heaven in order to destroy the Samaritan village that refused to receive Jesus. Although Jesus rejects their suggestion, the mere fact that they offered it indicates that James and John considered mass arson to be one of the solutions at their disposal when dealing with unwilling populations. Notice that they do not suggest that Jesus set the village aflame, but instead ask if they should do it themselves. This would indicate that they had some confidence in their ability to do so, implying that they had done it before. The suggestion recalls an episode from the book of Kings where the prophet Elijah brings down fire upon a delegation from the king. (2 Kings 1:10)
9:59 This man attempts to honor his father by burying him before following Jesus. This would appear to be consistent with the intent of the fifth commandment (Exodus 20:18), but Jesus rebukes him, saying to “leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Family values were not Jesus’s strong suit, as we see in Matthew 10:34-36; 23:9; Luke 12:51-53; 14:26.
10:1 This commissioning of the seventy–to go ahead into the villages where Jesus expected to pass on his way to Jerusalem–is similar in many details to the instructions already received by the twelve in 9:1-5.
10:13-15 Although Capernaum was the scene of Jesus’s early work, including several miracles, he now condemns the town to Hades. Perhaps his reception there was no more favorable than at Nazareth (see 4:28). At least this passage associates both Capernaum and Bethsaida (v.13) with cities that have rejected Jesus and his miracles. Bethsaida was the site where Jesus required a do-over in his attempt to heal a blind man (Mark 8:22-25), and was also the hometown of at least three of Jesus’s disciples – Philip, Andrew, and Peter (John 1:44).
10:21-22 No one can know God except those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. And the truth is revealed only to “babes” (v.21) and hidden to the wise. Our ability to know God depends on Jesus’s willingness to reveal him. Far from making it easy to believe in God and Jesus, they are putting obstacles in the way and deliberately hiding the truth from potential believers.
10:25-28 This story is similar, but not identical, to the one told in Mark 12:28-34 and Matthew 22:35-40. However, both Matthew and Mark have the story occur after Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, while in Luke it occurs when Jesus is on his way to the city.
10:29-37 This story of the good Samaritan appears only in Luke’s gospel. A Samaritan was someone who lived in Samaria, a district between Galilee and Judea, with a large non-Jewish population.
11:2-4 Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray. But this version of the Lord’s prayer differs from the one given in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:9-13. Luke’s version omits certain phrases, such as “thy will be done” and “deliver us from evil.”
11:9-10 Everyone who asks shall receive. A similar sentiment is expressed in Mark 11:24 and Matthew 7:7-8 and 21:22. In this passage from Luke, there is no requirement that faith accompany the request in order for it to be fulfilled. And the promise is not simply that prayers will be answered–which would leave open the possibility that the answer might be “no”– but that the requests will be granted.
11:13 Here Jesus refers to the disciples as “evil,” but no reason is given for doing so. Why would Jesus choose evil men to be his followers? Or was Jesus suggesting that all men are evil? A similar saying is found in Matthew 7:11, but the ending is changed. Instead of Luke’s “Holy Spirit,” Matthew’s heavenly Father will give “good things” to those who ask him.
11:15 Jesus is accused of being in league with Beelzebul, the “prince of demons.” Similar accusations are made against him in Mark 3:22 and Matthew 12:24. On the meaning of the name Beelzebul, see the comment to Mark 3:22.
11:18 Jesus’s logic is flawed. Satan’s ability to command his followers does not mean that his house is “divided against itself” but that Satan is in full command. It is the same type of authority commanded by the centurion in 7:8 and attributed there to Jesus himself. See also the comment to Mark 3:23-26.
11:23 “He who is not with me is against me.” But in 9:50 Jesus gave the opposite advice to the disciples: “He that is not against you is for you.”
11:27-28 Jesus challenges the woman who called his mother Mary “blessed,” thus rejecting his mother in public and violating the fifth commandment to “honor your father and your mother.” See also the comment to 1:48.
11:29 The present generation seeks a sign, but Jesus declares that “no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Mark’s version does not allow even this exception, having Jesus state flatly that “no sign shall be given to this generation.”
11:31 The “queen of the South” who will rise and condemn the men of “this generation” is the Queen of Sheba, whose story is told in 1 Kings 10:1-13. Sheba has traditionally been identified with southwestern Arabia, i.e., the current Yemen. (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.212.) Jesus says she came “from the ends of the earth” to hear Solomon. Despite his reputation for divine omniscience, it appears that Jesus was no more immune from geographical ignorance than most people of his day.
11:36 In this metaphor of the light and the darkness, Luke reverses Matthew’s concluding statement to say that “If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright.” By contrast, Matthew 6:23 concludes this saying with “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
11:37-38 Jesus is invited to lunch by a Pharisee, but he repays the hospitality by launching a diatribe against the Pharisees, calling down woes upon them, all because his host was surprised that Jesus did not wash his hands before dining. Mark 7:5 expresses the same concern of the Pharisees, that Jesus’s disciples “eat with hands defiled.”
11:39-52 This diatribe against the Pharisees parallels the passage from Matthew 23:25-35. However, Luke omits the reference to Zechariah the son of Barachiah in Matthew 25:35 where Jesus refers to the wrong Zechariah. It was not Zechariah the son of Barachiah, but Zechariah the son of Jehoiada who was murdered, as we can read in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21. See also the comment to Matthew 25:35.
11:50-51 “The blood of all the prophets” incorrectly includes Abel and Zechariah, neither of whom were prophets. (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.219.)
12:1 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Here, Jesus does not elaborate on what the leaven represents, but we learn in Matthew 16:12 that the leaven stands for “the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Yet, in Matthew 23:3 Jesus reverses himself, counseling his followers to “practice and observe whatever they [the Pharisees] tell you.”
12:10 Here we find that not all sins can be forgiven, because “he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” And we read the same in Matthew 12:31-32 and Mark 3:28-29. Elsewhere, however, we are told that there are no exceptions to what can be forgiven. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Paul, or perhaps someone writing under his name, tells us in Colossians 2:13 that God has “forgiven us all our trespasses.” “All things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22)
This verse also raises serious questions for the doctrine of the trinity, because Jesus tells us that speaking against the Son of Man (i.e., Jesus himself) can be forgiven, but doing the same to the Holy Spirit cannot. But under the doctrine of the trinity, aren’t Jesus and the Holy Spirit (along with God the Father) one and the same divine being? How can you speak against one and not the other unless they are separate beings?
12:15 “A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” There is much wisdom in this little saying, but of course modern Christians rarely apply it to their own lives.
12:22-31 Jesus appears to counsel against preparing for one’s future needs. The parallel text is in Matthew 6:25-34 and was delivered as part of the Sermon on the Mount. This guidance would make sense if the kingdom of God is going to arrive in the next few days, but is poor advice for those who expect to live a normal lifespan on this earth. As we have seen, Jesus’s ideas about the approaching end of the world were mistaken. (See, for example, the comments to Matthew 24:34; Mark 9:1; 13:30; Luke 9:27.) For an opposing point of view, see Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper.
12:51 “Prince of Peace” is an odd title to give a man who said that he came not to bring peace, but division. See also Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
12:52-53 Jesus comes to create division, not harmony, within families. See also the comment to 14:26.
12:54 Jesus’s meteorological skills leave something to be desired. As we all have observed, clouds in the west do not invariably mean rain.
13:5-6 This parable of the fig tree does not really illustrate Jesus’s point in verse 5. Instead of showing us how a refusal to repent will lead to destruction, the parable shows us that we can get a second chance.
13:6-9 By treating the parable as an allegory, we can make it fit Jesus’s intended meaning, but at the cost of some unflattering imagery. The owner of the vineyard is God, and the vinedresser (gardener) is Jesus. God has found his garden lacking in production, but by letting it live a little longer while putting on manure, there is a chance that it may yet bear fruit. Thus, the manure symbolizes the word of God, i.e., Jesus’s message of salvation, and so the meaning of the parable is that God has given his wicked creatures a second chance, and all those who bear fruit because of the manure, will be saved, but those who do not respond to the manure will be cut down.
13:12 Jesus once again heals on the Sabbath, in violation of the law against working on the Sabbath. It is the same controversy that arose in healing the man with the withered hand in 6:11. It will occur again in 14:1-6, and also appears in Matthew 12:9-13 and Mark 3:1-6. The prohibition against working on the Sabbath appears as the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:10. And Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. The controversy could have been avoided by simply waiting until the next day to heal the woman, since she did not have a life-threatening condition that required immediate attention. By choosing to heal on the Sabbath, Jesus provokes the religious authorities, who justifiably see him as a rebel and a lawbreaker. See also the comment to Luke 6:1-5.
13:19 In his version of the mustard seed parable, Luke omits the reference to it as “the smallest of all the seeds on earth” found in Mark 4:31. It is now known that there are seeds smaller than the mustard seed, but apologists try to excuse Jesus’s statement by claiming that the mustard seed would have been the smallest seed likely to be planted by a farmer in ancient Palestine. One may well ask whether Jesus's words generally apply only to Palestinian farmers, but in any event, this argument might work for Matthew’s version of the parable, which refers to the mustard seed as “the smallest of all seeds” (Matthew 13:32), if we assume a Palestinian context. Mark, however, refers to it as the smallest of all seeds on earth, which takes away any assumed contextual limitation. Luke, avoids the whole controversy by eliminating any reference to the size of the seed.
13:23 Jesus is asked whether only a few will be saved. Although he does not answer directly, the implication of his response is that few indeed will be saved, and that many who ate and drank with him (v.26) will be rejected as evildoers (v.27). If this is the case, then it seems like a very poor return on investment for his salvation plan. What is the point of a salvation scheme that only benefits a few, and leaves most people just as wretched and condemned as they were to begin with?
13:31 The Pharisees warn Jesus to flee, saying that Herod wants to kill him. (Again this is Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, son of Herod the Great.) Recall also the lunch invitation from the Pharisee in 11:37, and the dinner invitation in 14:1. Passages such as these remind us that the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees was not universally hostile. But this supposed threat from Herod lacks credibility, for we read later (23:8) that Herod had long wanted to meet Jesus in order to see him work a miracle. Furthermore, we are told that Herod did not find Jesus guilty of any charges brought against him, nor did he find that Jesus had done anything deserving death (23:15).
14:1 Jesus is once again invited to dine at the home of a Pharisee. See the comment to 13:31.
14:5 The situations are not similar. If a child or an ox falls into a well, there is an immediate danger that they might drown. This urgency would justify breaking the Sabbath to save a life. But dropsy would not entail any such life-threatening situation. “Dropsy” is an obsolete term that signified swelling caused by excess fluid buildup in the tissues. (www.medterms.com) On the question of healing on the Sabbath, see the comment to 6:1-5 and 13:12.
14:16 There is a parallel to this parable in Matthew 22:2-14. However, Luke’s version does not contain the unfortunate man who was bound up and thrown into the outer darkness because he failed to wear a wedding garment to the banquet. Since the man was invited in off the street on short notice, it’s no wonder he had no wedding garment, and we might consider his punishment to be a bit unfair. Other differences between Luke’s version and that in Matthew are that Matthew has the banquet given by a king, instead of just “a man,” and Matthew’s king sends out servants (plural) rather than just a single servant. None of these differences are properly contradictions, because the whole story is only a parable, and could be told in multiple variations without making any statement about real events.
14:26 In order to be a follower of Jesus we must hate our own family. This sounds shocking to the modern family values crowd, but Jesus’s own words confirm that creating loving, close-knit families was not part of his agenda. A similar sentiment is expressed in 12:52-53. However, these words of Jesus telling us we must hate our own “father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters” in order to be his followers are a stark contradiction to what we find in the first letter of John, where we are told that “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3:15)
14:27 Jesus implies here that the burden of discipleship is great. (See also v.33.) But in Matthew 11:30 we find him saying that “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
14:33 No doubt most modern Christians would prefer to take this verse metaphorically. If we must give up all that we have in order to be a true disciple of Jesus, then he would have few followers indeed.
15:1-2 “Sinners” is obviously meant to refer to only some individuals, and not to all of mankind. The doctrine of original sin receives scant support in the gospels. The doctrine is more closely associated with Paul’s writings.
15:7 If all have sinned (Romans 3:23), how could there be “ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”? Wouldn’t everyone be a sinner and need to repent? And if there are people who need no repentance, they also would not need Jesus’s death on the cross in order to be saved.
15:11-32 This famous story of the prodigal son appears only in Luke’s gospel, having no parallel in Matthew or Mark.
16:1-9 This parable of the dishonest steward has puzzled commentators with its obscurity. It is not precisely clear what principle it is intended to illustrate, unlike the preceding parable of the prodigal son. The steward is about to be dismissed by the master, and concerned about his future livelihood he induces those who are indebted to the master to falsify their accounts so they owe less. Presumably, they owe the steward a favor for this subterfuge, and the steward intends to cash in the favor later when he is unemployed. In 16:8, the master has apparently discovered the steward’s dishonesty, but instead of dismissing him immediately (or worse), the master “commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness.” Jesus’s advice in v.9 to “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon” seems to be encouraging dishonesty and bribery. Generally speaking, this parable is a very difficult one for Christian exegetes to interpret.
16:13 Jesus is very clear here that it is not possible to pursue riches and righteousness at the same time, in contrast to what many contemporary Christians believe. “Mammon,” as the Oxford Annotated Bible notes, “is a Semitic word for money or riches.” (OAB, p. 1178, note x) See also Luke 18:24-25 on the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of God.
16:18 Jesus teaches that “Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.” But Matthew 5:32 adds an exception: “except on the ground of unchastity.”
16:20 The Lazarus of this parable is not to be confused with the Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead in John 11:43-44.
16:22 The parable conveys some odd notions of life after death. When the poor man dies, he is “carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.” The rich man winds up in Hades “in torment.” However, this obviously does not occur at the end of the age, on judgment day, because the rich man’s father and brothers are still living in their home (v.27). Apparently the two locations are close enough that residents of one can speak to those in the other.
17:2 Luke does not tell us who these “little ones” are, but in Matthew’s version we find that Jesus calls a child over to him (Matthew 18:2), and uses the child to illustrate the saying about causing “these little ones” to sin (Matthew 18:6).
17:3 Unlike Matthew 18:15, Luke does not say that the rebuke must be delivered privately. Nor does he include the escalatory steps described in Matthew 18:16-17 in case the brother rejects the rebuke.
17:4 Luke also does not go so far as Matthew 18:22 in explaining how many sins we must forgive our brother. Luke stops at seven, but Matthew has Jesus proclaim, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
17:6 Luke’s illustration of the power of faith is not so ambitious as those given by Matthew and Mark. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus assures his disciples that even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains, and Mark 11:23 also promises that faith can move mountains. Luke, however, is content to say that faith as small as a mustard seed can merely move a sycamine tree.
17:10 Here Jesus teaches that even those who follow God’s commandments are “unworthy slaves,” who deserve no reward. The theological point raised here is that people do not deserve and cannot earn any type of reward from God. Anything they might hope to receive from God can only be freely given by God’s grace, not because he owes it to them, but because he has chosen them to receive it. (The Greek word douloi which is used here is variously translated as “slaves” or “servants” depending on the taste of the translators.)
17:20 Jesus teaches that “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.” By contrast, Mark 13:4-30 and Matthew 24:3-34 both give very elaborate descriptions of the signs which will be observed in the end times. And in Luke 21:7-32, Jesus describes signs comparable to those of Matthew and Mark, thus contradicting his words here in this verse.
17:21 “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” What did Jesus mean by this? Did he mean that the kingdom of God is merely an internal condition of our own mind? The Greek preposition entos has as its basic meaning “inside” or “within.” And so a plausible translation would be “The kingdom of God is within you,” and this is the more common rendering, which is taken by the KJV and the NIV. RSV translates it “in the midst of” in the sense of “among” you, and NASB takes a similar approach. The difference is whether the kingdom of God is within each person, or alongside each person in the community at large. We will not be able to settle the translation issue here, but note that the “kingdom of God” as used in Luke 21:31 and elsewhere throughout the synoptic gospels appears to refer to an event that will come from outside the world and be accompanied by many spectacular catastrophes, including the end of the world as we know it. Thus, for Jesus to say that the kingdom of God is “within you” in the sense of an internal state of mind, would be inconsistent with how the term is used throughout the rest of Luke’s gospel. Keep in mind that Jesus here is responding to the Pharisees, and it would be strange and even absurd for him to tell the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is “within” them. Jesus most likely means that he is the vanguard of the kingdom of God, and thus already in their midst, but the kingdom’s arrival in full force will follow the path outlined in Luke 21:7-32.
17:24 This verse promises that the coming of Jesus in his day will not be a subtle and inconspicuous event. It will be as obvious as the lightning that flashes from one end of the sky to another.
17:27 The author warns that it will be like the days of Noah, when “a flood came and destroyed them all.” But verse 34 doesn’t fit this description at all, because in the examples of verse 34 they are not all destroyed - only half of them are taken. (“One will be taken and the other left.”)
17:29 Here we get another description of what it will be like “on the day when the Son of man will be revealed.” Fire and sulfur will rain from heaven and the destruction will rival the destruction of Noah’s flood or the tribulations of Sodom. Thus, Jesus warns that it will not be anything subtle or easy to miss. This makes his failed predictions in 21:32, as well as Matthew 24:34 and Mark 13:30, all the more damaging, as they cannot be said to have already occurred in some symbolic sense.
18:1-7 The lesson of this parable seems to be that God may not grant your prayer the first time, but keep nagging him and he’ll finally give in.
18:16 Luke omits Mark’s comment that Jesus “was indignant” (Mark 10:14) when he saw that the disciples were turning the children away. The Greek word used by Mark (aganakteo) is capable of an even stronger translation: “to be angry.” (William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, p.48.) In their retelling of Mark’s stories, Luke and Matthew often strip away the passages which portray Jesus as angry, impatient, or annoyed.
18:18 The rich young man? This story is told in all three synoptic gospels. The parallel versions are Matthew 19:16-23 and Mark 10:17-22. The man is variously described in the three versions in ways that are not totally consistent. Matthew 19:22 refers to him as a “young man” (neaniskos), but in Mark’s version he cannot be young, because in Mark 10:20 he tells Jesus that he has observed the commandments “from my youth,” with the implication that some significant period of time has elapsed since then. Luke 18:21 follows Mark in this regard, but Luke identifies the man as a “ruler” which normally would signify “a member of the governing body of some synagogue.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.312.)
18:19 “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jesus thus objects to being called good, and in doing so, points out that God is both distinct from and superior to Jesus himself. Mark also includes this statement from Jesus in Mark 10:18, but it apparently causes some discomfort for Matthew, as he alters it to read “Why do you ask me about what is good?” (Matthew 19:17) Was Matthew possibly concerned that the original statement from Mark might suggest that Jesus himself had sinned, and was therefore not “good”?
18:24-25 Once again Jesus vividly portrays the difficulty that rich people will face trying to get into heaven. In a famous saying, Jesus declares that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” “Some interpreters have tried to weaken the rigor of Jesus’ words by claiming that the needle’s eye was the name of a small gate in the wall that surrounded the city of Jerusalem or that camel is a mistake in the Greek text for a word that means ‘rope’ or ‘cable.’ Neither suggestion carries conviction.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.314-315.)
18:31 Jesus does not cite any scriptural passage to support his claim that the prophets predicted the events he describes in verses 32 and 33. There is, of course, no such reference in the Old Testament to either the “son of man” or the messiah dying and rising again after three days, and certainly no reference to Jesus at all in the entire Old Testament. The closest we can come to a verse that is even remotely similar to this passage in Luke is Hosea 6:2, which says, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” However, this attempt fails, because Hosea cannot be referring here to Jesus, nor to any single individual, because the pronouns “he” and “him” explicitly refer to Yahweh (God) in verse 6:1, and the pronouns “we” and “us” are all plural. He will revive us. And he will raise us up, that we may live before him. So it cannot be Jesus himself who is being raised up. The reference in Hosea is actually to the people of Israel, who have strayed from the LORD’s commandments. Yahweh himself is speaking in this quotation, speaking as the Israelites might speak if they should ever return to the path commanded by Yahweh. One can hardly imagine that the Christians really believe that this image of the wayward, sinful people actually refers to Jesus. This is another instance of a passage taken out of context, to mean something other than what it originally intended.
18:33-34 After Jesus tells the disciples that he must be killed and rise again on the third day, the disciples “understood none of these things.” This was not the first time they had been told, either. Jesus gave them the same message in 9:22. But did the disciples really not understand what Jesus was telling them? In Matthew 16:21 Jesus gives them the same message, and Peter understands well enough to exclaim, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” And we are told in Mark 8:32 that when Jesus told the disciples of his coming death and resurrection, “he said this plainly.”
18:35 Jesus encounters the blind man while approaching Jericho. The same incident occurs in Mark 10:46 as Jesus is leaving Jericho. In Matthew 20:30 there are two blind men and Jesus is also leaving Jericho, as in Mark, but in contradiction to Luke. See the comment to Matthew 20:30 to see why the apologists cannot escape the contradiction by claiming that these three passages describe three different events.
19:7 The crowd (perhaps including the disciples?) voice their disapproval as Jesus “has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” The implication is that those in the crowd are not sinners, and that it is possible to identify certain types of people (tax collectors, prostitutes) as sinners, while others remain free of that appellation. Romans 3:23 reminds us that all have sinned, but this is not consistent with the numerous examples where specific individuals are singled out as sinners, in contrast to those who are not. This is more than just a contradiction over details, because there are theological implications. If there really are any people who are not sinners, then they do not need Jesus’s sacrifice and he is not the universal savior of humankind. It also implies that there are alternative paths to salvation besides accepting Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. There are examples in the New Testament of sinners who are forgiven before Jesus sacrifices himself on the cross (see comments to 5:20 and 7:44-48 above). And there are also examples of individuals who are described as non-sinners who would therefore not need saving. (For example, those referred to in the comments to 1:6 and 15:7 above.)
19:8-9 Zaccheus promises to give half of his possessions to the poor, and this is enough for Jesus to proclaim salvation on his house. Apparently, Jesus has lowered his standards, because in 18:22 he advised the rich young ruler that he must sell all that he possessed in order to inherit eternal life. And Zaccheus has not given anything away yet, he is only promising to do so. Jesus’s comment that salvation has come to the house of Zaccheus because “he also is a son of Abraham” is difficult to interpret. Does he mean that salvation is only for Jews? This would certainly fit with his comment in Matthew 15:24 that “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
19:11-27 This story is known as the parable of the pounds, although the parallel version in Matthew 25:14-30 makes the monetary units to be “talents” rather than “pounds” (Greek mina). A talent was worth much more than a mina, so the sums involved are much larger in Matthew’s version. There are many other differences between the two versions. Matthew speaks only of “a man” who went on a journey, while Luke tells of a “nobleman” who went to a far country to receive a kingdom. Another difference is that Matthew’s man gave the servants different amounts “each according to his ability,” while Luke’s nobleman gives each the same amount. Also, the rates of return on the investments are different. Matthew has the servants only doubling their money, but Luke’s enjoy returns of 500 and 1000 percent. The servant who declines to invest buries his money in the ground in Matthew’s version (25:25), but keeps it wrapped in a napkin in Luke (v.20). Finally, the unambitious servant in Matthew’s parable is dealt with much more severely, being cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Luke simply has the money taken away from him.
What then is the lesson of this parable? Jesus says it is that “to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (v.26) However, this saying does not really fit the story, where the outcome is not due to how much the men had, but to their willingness to invest. At the beginning of the parable, there was no distinction between those who have and those who have not, since they all received the same amount – one mina – from the nobleman. Note that it is unlikely that the nobleman represents God, because he admits to being “a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow.”
19:30 Jesus sends two disciples into the village to find a colt, as he does in Mark 11:2. But in Matthew 21:2 they are to look for both a donkey and a colt.
19:33-34 Note that the owners of the colt are not reported as giving their permission to take the colt. In Mark 11:5 there are bystanders who question the taking of the colt, but they are not identified as the colt’s owners. So did Jesus take the colt without permission? At the very least he coveted another person’s animal, violating the tenth commandment (Exodus 20:17), and if he took it without permission, he also violated the eighth commandment against stealing (Exodus 20:15). See also the comments to Mark 11:5-6 and Matthew 21:2, 5, 7. Matthew’s version involves two animals, a donkey and a colt, and the absurd image of Jesus riding into town on both simultaneously.
19:35-36 Unlike Mark 11:8 and Matthew 21:8, Luke’s version does not mention anything about the crowd spreading leafy branches on the road.
19:45-46 The disruption of the temple. There was nothing sacrilegious about the moneychangers and the animal vendors, as these were required for the performance of required ritual sacrifices according to Jewish law. See the comments to Mark 11:15 and Matthew 21:12. Jesus’s behavior in Luke’s version of this episode is much milder than what we find in the other three gospels. In Mark 11:15 and Matthew 21:12 Jesus not only drives out those who bought and sold in the temple, but he also overturns their tables and their seats. John 2:15 has him pouring out the coins of the moneychangers and driving them out with a whip. Luke includes none of these outbursts. Note that this incident in the gospel of John takes place much earlier in Jesus’s career, well before his final week in Jerusalem.
20:2 With good reason, the chief priests ask Jesus by what authority he justifies his actions in the temple, but Jesus refuses to give them an answer (v.8).
20:9-16 In this parable of the vineyard, the owner sends only three servants, who are beaten and mistreated by the tenants, before he sends his own son. In Mark’s version the third servant is killed, rather than being merely wounded, and the owner proceeds to send many others (Mark 12:5), who are also beaten or killed, before sending his own son.
20:19 The scribes and chief priests, being more perceptive than Jesus’s usual audience or his own disciples, correctly perceive that “he had told this parable against them.”
20:35 There are few glimpses in the New Testament of what life in heaven is like, but this verse gives us one hint – there will be no marriage. Obviously anyone who expects to be reunited with their dearly departed spouse will be disappointed.
20:41 “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?” With this argument Jesus repudiates the notion that the Christ (Messiah) will be a descendant of David. He makes the same argument in Matthew 22:42-45 and Mark 12:35-37. In doing so, he contradicts Paul’s claim that Jesus was “descended from David according to the flesh.” (Romans 1:3) Also contradictory is Revelation 22:16 in which we read, “I Jesus . . . am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.” In addition, Matthew 1:1 refers to Jesus as “the son of David” and Luke 1:32 speaks of Jesus inheriting “the throne of his father David.” Jesus’s argument here in 20:41-44 refutes all these claims by using Psalm 110:1, supposedly written by David, to show that the Messiah cannot possibly be a son of David.
21:6-7 Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, and his disciples ask him “when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to take place?” Jesus’s response is not limited to the destruction of the temple, but goes on to describe the signs of the end of the age and the coming of the kingdom of God itself. Historically, the temple was in fact destroyed in 70 A.D. by the future Roman emperor Titus and his legions. Most scholars believe that the gospel of Luke was written after this event, and so had the benefit of hindsight in putting these words into Jesus’s mouth. Luke had to deal with the failed hopes of those who thought that the war against the Romans in Jerusalem would signal the arrival of the kingdom of God inaugurated by the Son of man. When the Roman armies crushed the Jewish defenders and destroyed the city, Christian writers were faced with the challenge of explaining that the arrival of the kingdom was still imminent, but less imminent than had been previously thought. Hence the long drawn out sequence of events encompassing wars, famines, earthquakes, persecutions, etc., all of which were seen as leading up to the end of time and the arrival of the Son of man, but could be drawn out for as long as necessary to accommodate the embarrassing absence of the principal character. Thus, predicting that the end will come during “this generation” is actually a pushing out of the originally expected timeframe - but not indefinitely. The lifetime of those living in that generation set a natural limit to the prediction. The phrase “imminent delayed eschatology,” which has been invented to describe this state of affairs, is an exquisite oxymoron. (See, for example, L. Michael White, From Jesus to Christianity, p.257.)
21:8-17 In response to the disciples’ question in 21:7, Jesus now begins his long apocalyptic discourse, which also appears in Mark 13:5-30 and Matthew 24:4-34. He reveals the signs that will herald the end times. There will be false christs (21:8), wars among nations and kingdoms (21:9-10), as well as earthquakes, famines, and pestilences (21:11). All these, of course, are common in any age, and certainly have been ever since Jesus’s time. Jesus also predicts that the disciples will be persecuted (21:12) and hated (21:17) on account of their support for Jesus’s “name.”
21:18 “Not a hair of your head will perish.” This is a very strange thing to say after warning his disciples in verse 16 that “some of you they will put to death.”
21:20-24 In Luke, this passage applies specifically to Jerusalem, but the parallel versions in Mark 13:14-20 and Matthew 24:15-22 seem to have broader application. In v.20, Luke has replaced Mark’s “when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be” with “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies.” It is not clear whether Mark’s reference to the “desolating sacrilege” refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., or to some earlier sacrilege.
21:25 Luke does not say what these “signs in sun and moon and stars” will be, but Mark 13:24-25 is more explicit: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven.” The same words are found in Matthew 24:29.
21:27 This is the one specific detail that remains in Luke’s reworking of Mark’s description of Jesus’s coming. The Son of man will come “in a cloud with power and great glory.”
21:32 “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all has taken place.” Jesus falsely predicted that he would return in clouds of glory (21:27) during the lifetime of the generation that he was speaking to. But the generation did pass away, and none of the signs predicted by Jesus ever occurred. It cannot be plausibly argued that “this” generation refers to any other than the one Jesus was speaking to. “This,” in both English and Greek, refers to an object close to the speaker. If some far away object is meant, then the writer would use “that” instead of “this.” Jesus made many such failed predictions of his imminent and glorious return. See, for example, the comments to Luke 9:27; Mark 9:1, Mark 13:30, Matthew 24:34.
Notice the slight difference between this prediction and the comparable predictions in Mark and Matthew. Both Mark 13:30 and Matthew 24:34 say that this generation will not pass away until “all these things” take place, while Luke 21:32 has until “all things” take place. “These” things would refer to the events mentioned directly before Jesus’s prediction, such as, in Mark, the sun being darkened, the stars falling from the heaven, and the Son of man coming in a cloud with great power and glory. (Mark 13:24-26) Luke’s “all things” is broader, but he has avoided listing most of the specific cosmic signs mentioned by Mark and Matthew, and his “all things” does not tie explicitly with what has gone before. He may have thought that Mark’s explicitness created some awkwardness due to the delay in Jesus’s return, and thus introduced some fuzziness in the prediction.
22:3-6 Judas makes a deal to hand over Jesus to the authorities, and the chief priests and officers “engaged to give him money.” The actual exchange of money is not included in Luke’s description, but Matthew 26:15 has the chief priests paying Judas the thirty pieces of silver on the spot. Matthew’s version is the only one that mentions a specific price for Judas’s cooperation with the authorities.
Here Satan enters into Judas before the last supper. But in John 13:27, Satan enters into Judas while the supper is in progress.
22:8 The upcoming last supper is here identified as the Passover meal. This clearly contradicts the gospel of John, where the last meal with the disciples is before the Passover (John 13:1), and where Jesus is already in custody on the day of preparation for the Passover (John 19:14).
22:34 Jesus predicts Peter’s rejection of him, saying that “the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me.” The prediction appears in all four gospels, but in Mark alone the rooster is predicted to crow twice. This may seem easy to refute as a contradiction, because it could simply be argued that the rooster did crow twice, but Mark was the only one to mention it. However, when all the details are put together, it becomes clear that the rooster cannot have crowed twice in Mark without contradicting Luke, as well as Matthew and John.
"Immediately" after Peter’s third denial in Mark 14:72, the rooster crows for the second time, meaning that it must have crowed for the first time before the third denial. However, here in Luke 22:34, Jesus says that “the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me.” Jesus’s words in Luke mean that the rooster cannot crow at all before the third denial. John 13:38 has similar wording: “the cock will not crow, till you have denied me three times.” But Mark’s version requires that it crow once before the third denial in order for the second crowing to follow “immediately” after the third denial is spoken. So crowing once versus crowing twice is a true contradiction, and cannot be refuted by claiming that Luke, Matthew, and John simply omitted one of the instances of the rooster crowing.
22:36 Jesus advises his disciples to buy swords, but when they try to use the swords to protect him from arrest in 22:49, Jesus rebukes them with, “No more of this!” (22:51) What then was the purpose of telling the disciples to equip themselves with swords? Nowhere in Luke’s gospel do we find out what the purpose of the swords was.
22:40-46 Jesus in Gethsemane. Luke’s version of Jesus’s distress is much watered-down from the vivid portrayal in Mark’s gospel. Luke omits “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” (Mark 14:34) and adds “Father, if thou art willing” to Jesus’s request to “remove this cup from me.” (Mark 14:36) Luke also does not capture the impatience that Jesus expresses with the sleeping disciples in Mark 14:37 and 41. Instead, Luke excuses the disciples who were “sleeping for sorrow” (22:45). Whereas Mark 14:33 singles out Peter, James and John as the sleepy disciples, Luke mentions none of them by name. Quite obviously, Luke has reworked the scene from Mark in order to present a more dignified picture of the disciples and a less emotional Jesus. See also the comment to Mark 14:33 for additional theological implications of Mark’s description.
22:43-44 These verses about the visit of the angel and Jesus’s sweating great drops of blood are missing from many ancient manuscripts and are thought by many scholars to be “an embellishment of the Lukan text by some Christian scribe.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p. 390.)
22:47-48 Judas draws near to Jesus as if to kiss him, but these verses indicate that Jesus stopped him with the question, “would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?” In Mark 14:45 and Matthew 26:49 Judas actually does kiss Jesus, while in John 18:3-5 there is no kiss. We know that John’s gospel does not simply fail to mention the kiss described in Mark and Matthew, because at the moment when Jesus stepped forward the mob did not yet know that it was him, which they would have known if Judas had already delivered the kiss.
22:50 “One of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear.” The disciple who did this is not identified here, but in John 18:10 we learn that it was Peter. Jesus orders the sword to be put away, but his words are different in each of the four gospels. Here, Jesus rebukes Peter with “No more of this!” Matthew 26:52 has, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” In John’s version, Jesus orders, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me? (John 18:11) And in Mark 14:47, Jesus makes no comment at all about Peter’s use of the sword.
22:52 Here, the chief priests and elders are present at the arrest of Jesus, while in John 18:3 we only hear that their officers accompanied Judas with a band of soldiers.
22:53 Luke tells us nothing about the disciples fleeing from Jesus at this point, but their desertion is mentioned in Matthew 26:56 and Mark 14:50.
22:61 Peter denies Jesus for the third time, as predicted in 22:34. Note that Luke places Peter’s denials before Jesus’s interrogation by the council, while Mark 14:72 places it after the council’s verdict.
22:63 “The men who were holding Jesus mocked him and beat him.” They also blindfolded him and challenged him to “prophesy” who had beaten him. This is consistent with Mark 14:65, but Mark puts the time of the episode after Jesus’s interrogation, while Luke has it before.
22:66 “When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes; and they led him away to their council.” Here we have another clear chronological contradiction between Luke on the one hand and Matthew and Mark on the other. In Luke’s account, Jesus does not appear before the council until after daybreak. But in both Matthew and Mark, the interrogation before the council occurs while it is still dark. We know this because after Jesus was interrogated and found guilty at a meeting of “the whole council” (Matthew 26:59; Mark 14:55), we find that “when morning came” (Matthew 27:1) and “as soon as it was morning” (Mark 15:1) they led Jesus away to Pilate, the Roman governor.
22:67-69 Unlike in Mark 14:55-64 and Matthew 26:59-66, this description of Jesus’s appearance before the council fails to mention any specific charges against him. No witnesses are called, and we are not told about Jesus being sentenced to death. Also, Luke does not report Jesus’s alleged threat to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, as we find in Matthew 26:61 and Mark 14:58.
22:70 “Are you the son of God, then?” Jesus sidesteps this question from the Jewish council by responding, “You say that I am.” This is the literal translation of the Greek, as it appears in the RSV, and the KJV follows suit. But some translations, notably the NASB and NIV change Jesus’s answer from evasive to affirmative. NASB translates it as “Yes, I am,” and NIV has “You are right in saying I am.” There is no basis in the Greek text for translating Jesus’s response as an affirmative answer. Note that the question here is different from the one asked in Mark 14:61. There, the inquisitors ask Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed?” In that context, Jesus responded, “I am,” but remember that “Christ” does not mean “son of God,” and “son of the Blessed” is open to interpretation. It may have been intended to refer to God, but Jewish scripture did not consider the Messiah (Christ) to be the son of God, so it seems very unlikely that a Jewish official would ask such a question equating the two roles.
23:3 Here we have another passage that is often mistranslated. Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And Jesus responds with a noncommittal, “You have said so.” (RSV) Again, the RSV and KJV accurately reflect the Greek text of Jesus’s answer, but others render it as an affirmative answer. For example, “It is as you say,” (NASB) and “Yes, it is as you say,” (NIV).
23:7 Luke is the only one of the gospel authors who has Jesus appearing before Herod. Recall again that this is Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, which was under Roman domination. It does not appear that Pilate was handing responsibility for the case over to Herod, but simply involving him in a consultative role. “To hand over responsibility to a non-Roman would be unusual.” (Oxford Bible Commentary, p.956.)
23:14 Pilate finds Jesus not guilty, and reaches the same verdict in John 18:38. However, neither Mark nor Matthew report Pilate as rendering any verdict. (See Mark 15:2-5; Matthew 27:11-14.)
23:15 Pilate reports that Herod found Jesus guilty of no crime, which seems odd considering Herod’s reported wish in 13:31 to kill Jesus.
23:25 Here, Barabbas is identified as an insurrectionist and a murderer, while John 18:40 identifies him as a robber. As the apologists point out, this is not a contradiction, because it is not implausible that Barabbas could very well have been all three, but it does raise the question of why the author of John chose to mention only the robbery, and ignore the murder, which is undeniably a more serious crime and presumably more worthy of mention.
23:26 The authorities seize one Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’s cross for him. John’s gospel pointedly contradicts this, telling us that Jesus “went out, bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull.” (John 19:17) At least one apologist has tried to reconcile these conflicting circumstances by claiming that Jesus started out carrying his cross (John), but grew tired, at which point Simon of Cyrene picked it up and carried it the rest of the way (Luke, as well as Mark 15:21; Matthew 27:32). This is fanciful, and pure invention, unsupported by anything in the biblical text. Furthermore, in the passage from Luke, the present tense participle (“seizing Simon the Cyrenian”) indicates that the impressment of Simon occurred at the same time that Jesus was being led away from the meeting with Pilate, and not somewhere along the way in the middle of the trek. Similarly, the passage from John’s gospel states that Jesus went out to the place called “the skull” while “carrying himself the cross,” where “carrying” is a present participle corresponding to the time of the main verb of the sentence, i.e., “went out.” Thus, the text strongly suggests that there was no interruption in the carrying of the cross, and this attempted escape from the contradiction is refuted by an examination of the verb tenses in the actual passages. John’s gospel adds the reflexive pronoun eauto, which places added emphasis on the fact that Jesus himself carried his own cross. One gets the impression that the author of John’s gospel was deliberately “correcting” the other gospels by having Jesus carry his own cross, perhaps because he considered it demeaning that the son of God would need any such help, but perhaps also to refute the argument by some early Christian sects that Simon was in fact crucified instead of Jesus. (See The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.403.)
23:34 “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This supplication appears only in Luke’s gospel, and based on its absence from several early and reliable manuscripts, was probably not part of his original work at all, but was most likely added later by a scribe. See The Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 957; The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p.408.
“And they cast lots to divide his garments.” However, in John 19:23-24 it is only the tunic for which lots are cast. His other garments were divided equally among the soldiers who were present.
23:38 “This is the king of the Jews.” The inscription placed over Jesus on the cross proclaims the charge for which he was put to death. The wording is slightly different in the other three gospels. Compare Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; John 19:19.
23:42 In Mark 15:32 and Matthew 27:44, both the criminals being crucified with Jesus revile him. But here in Luke, one of them does not revile Jesus, but instead asks to be remembered in his kingdom.
23:43 Jesus assures the repentant criminal that “today you will be with me in Paradise.” But if this is true, then it means that Jesus did not remain dead, or even in the tomb, for three days, but instead went on the very day of his crucifixion into paradise to greet the repentant criminal. This contradicts the numerous statements made by Jesus to the disciples predicting that he would rise “after three days” (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33) or “on the third day” (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Luke 18:33, and afterwards by the men in the tomb in 24:7).
23:44 Here Jesus is on the cross “at the sixth hour.” But in John’s gospel, Jesus is still with Pontius Pilate at the sixth hour (John 19:14). The standard response from the apologists is to claim that John’s gospel uses “Roman time” counting the hours from midnight, while the other gospels use the Jewish system of reckoning the hours from dawn. But this is false. “Roman time” also counted the hours from dawn, so there is no different time system to choose from – not to mention that John’s gospel was not written in Rome, and did not describe events in Rome. For the Roman system of timekeeping, see J.P.V.D. Balsdon’s Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, pp. 1-2, as well as Joseph Francis Alward’s “Reckoning Time in Ancient Rome” at http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Ancient_Rome.htm.
23:45 “The sun’s light failed.” The failure of the sun’s light and the “darkness over the whole land” reported in the previous verse cannot have been caused by an eclipse of the sun, because the crucifixion occurred at Passover, which always occurs at the full moon, or close to it. If the sun had been eclipsed, the moon would have had to be between the earth and the sun to block out the sun’s light, and thus would be on the wrong side of earth for a full moon to occur. (See Paul A. Heckert, “
Solar Eclipses on Easter? at http://astronomyspace.suite101.com/article.cfm/solar_eclipses_on_easter.
The darkening of the sun, and the tearing of the temple curtain, are placed here before Jesus dies, in contrast to Mark 15:38 and Matthew 27:51, where the tearing of the curtain (and more, in Matthew) is delayed until immediately after Jesus’s death.
23:46 Jesus’s last words on the cross are variously reported in the four gospels. Here we have “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46 both have “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” John 19:30 reports simply, “It is finished.” Apologists quibble that in none of these accounts are the words explicitly described as the “last,” and so Jesus could very well have uttered them all while on the cross. But here in Luke’s version the words are followed by, “And having said this he breathed his last,” which clearly shows that these are intended to represent Jesus’s last words. After John’s “It is finished,” Jesus “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Again, this implies that the words are Jesus’s last. If everything is “finished” this implicitly rules out any additional words to follow. Finally, the whole despairing tone of “My God, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?” rules out any compatibility with the resigned acceptance of the words reported by Luke. There is no credibility at all in the apologists’ view that Jesus uttered all of these words while on the cross.
23:49 The women who followed Jesus from Galilee viewed the proceedings “from a distance.” John’s gospel, on the other hand, has several of them, including Jesus’s mother, standing “by the cross.” (John 19:25)
23:56 Despite the numerous incidents where Jesus failed to observe the sabbath day of rest (e.g., Luke 6:1-5; 6:10; 13:12; John 5:18), the women who accompanied him from Galilee rest on the sabbath, declining even to visit the tomb to attend the body.
24:2 Upon arriving at the tomb, the women find the stone already rolled away from the tomb. But in Matthew 28:2, they see an angel descend and roll away the stone. This is Luke’s first mention of the stone, because he does not mention it in describing the burial (23:53). Both Mark 15:46 and Matthew 27:60 tell us that Joseph of Arimathea himself rolled the stone in front of the tomb, showing that it was not so large that a single person could not remove it.
24:3-4 One of the many differences between the four versions of the empty tomb story involves who the women saw at the tomb. Here, Luke reports there were two men in “dazzling apparel” who suddenly appeared beside the women while inside the tomb. The word used is andres, which actually means “men,” i.e., male human beings, and not angellos, which is the word used in Matthew 28:2 and signifies “messenger,” or “angel.” In Matthew’s version the women see only the angel who descended and rolled away the stone, sitting upon it outside the tomb. Unlike Luke’s description (24:3), nothing in Matthew’s account indicates that the women actually entered the tomb. Mark 16:5 reports only one young man, dressed in a white robe, inside the tomb, and not the two men reported by Luke. The word used by Mark is neaniskos¸ i.e, a “young man” or “youth.” In John’s account, the only visitor, Mary Magdalene, sees no one at the tomb on her first visit, but discovers that the stone has been removed (John 20:1). Upon discovering this, she runs to Peter, who then arrives to inspect the tomb along with another disciple (John 20:6). Only after these disciples leave, does Mary Magdelene see “two angels (angellous) in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12), after which Jesus himself appears to her (John 20:14). At no time in John’s version does Mary Magdalene actually enter the tomb, but only stoops to look inside (John 20:11), in contrast to Luke 24:3. Thus, the differences are two men (Luke) vs. one young man (Mark) vs. one angel (Matthew) vs. two angels (John). We also have a discrepancy over whether the women entered the tomb (Luke, Mark) or did not enter the tomb (Matthew, John). See the comment to 24:10 for the differences in the names of the women who were present.
24:5-7 The words spoken by the angels/men sitting/standing inside/outside the tomb are also different in the four gospels. Compare the words of Luke’s two men inside the tomb reported here to those of Mark’s young man in 16:6-7, or to the words of the unhelpful angels in John 20:13 who merely ask, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
24:9 The women report all they have seen to the eleven disciples. This is a blatant contradiction to Mark 16:8, where the women “said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.” There is no escape in claiming that some of the women ran to tell the disciples while others fled in fear, because two of the women – Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James – appear in both accounts.
24:10 Luke identifies the visitors to the tomb as “Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women.” We do not learn who the “other” women are. Each of the four gospels has a different set of women visiting the tomb on the Sunday morning following the crucifixion. In Mark 16:1 it is Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome who bring spices to anoint the body. In Matthew 28:1 Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” are the only ones mentioned. And in John 20:1 it is only Mary Magdalene who is identified as visiting the tomb.
24:11 Even though Jesus himself had told the disciples that he would rise again three days after being killed (9:22; 18:33; Mark 8:31-32; Matthew 16:21-22), we now learn that the disciples refused to believe the story of the empty tomb told by the women, because they considered it “an idle tale.”
24:13 The “two of them” cannot be any of the eleven disciples, because they were gathered together in Jerusalem, where these two travelers met them in verse 33.
24:15 This is the first post-resurrection story told in Luke’s gospel. Verse 13 tells us it occurred “on that very day,” i.e., on the day the women discovered the empty tomb. And in verse 21, “it is now the third day since this happened.”
24:16 Although they are walking right beside him, these followers of Jesus do not recognize him. It is not the only time that Jesus is not recognized after the resurrection. In John 20:15 Mary Magdalene supposes him to be the gardener.
24:18 This Cleopas is not otherwise mentioned anywhere in the New Testament. It is not certain whether he is the “Clopas” referred to in John 19:25.
24:24 Upon hearing the women’s story, some of “those who were with us” went to the tomb to check out the report. But whoever did so must have had more faith than the apostles themselves, who viewed the women’s words as “an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (24:11)
24:33 Jesus meets with the full group of eleven disciples in this first meeting following the resurrection. In John 20:24, the appearance is to only ten of the disciples, Thomas being absent. The usual apologetic tactic of claiming that two separate meetings are being described here does not work. We know that Luke and John must be describing the same meeting, i.e., the first meeting, because in Luke 24:13, 24:33, and 24:36, the phrases “that very day,” “that same hour,” and “as they were saying this” create a timeline that can only be fulfilled if the meeting occurred on the evening or during the night of the Sunday on which the empty tomb was discovered. Also see verse 21: “It is now the third day since this happened.” And the meeting in John occurs “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week” (John 20:19), showing again that it is the first meeting, and that both gospels describe the meeting as occurring on the Sunday of the empty tomb. This is further confirmed when John goes on to describe two additional meetings, one eight days later (John 20:26) and one subsequent to that at the Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) (John 21:1). Since John identifies the appearance at the Sea of Tiberias as the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead” (John 21:14), this rules out the possibility that there were two separate meetings on the Sunday of the empty tomb. Thus, Luke and John must be describing the same first meeting, and they contradict each other as to how many disciples were present at this first meeting.
24:34 Amazingly, the appearance to Simon (Peter), which necessarily occurred earlier on the same day, is not described by Luke or any of the other gospel writers. An appearance to Peter (Cephas) is the first one reported by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5, but he does not directly say that it was the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, nor that it even took place on that Sunday. Mark 16:9 states explicitly that the first post-resurrection appearance was to Mary Magdalene.
24:36 This first meeting of the risen Jesus with the full group of disciples takes place in Jerusalem, per verse 33. Matthew’s version has the first post-resurrection meeting in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-17) It canot be claimed with any credibility that both these meetings occurred as written, because they both obviously describe what is intended to be the first meeting of Jesus with his disciples after his crucifixion. In Matthew, we are told that some of them doubted when they saw him. If the meeting in Luke had already occurred, it is unlikely they would still be doubting at the presumed second meeting in Galilee. And the reverse is also true. If the disciples had already met Jesus in Galilee, they would not have been “startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit” when he appeared to them in Luke’s account in Jerusalem.
24:39 Jesus demonstrates that his resurrection is not merely spiritual or ghostly, but is a resurrection of his physical body. Paul, however, takes a different view of resurrection: “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:42, 44, 50)
24:49 At Jesus’s first post-resurrection appearance to the full group of disciples, he orders them to “stay in the city,” the city being Jerusalem, where the disciples have remained since the crucifixion (24:33). However, in Matthew 28:10, the risen Jesus, upon meeting the women as they run from the tomb, tells them to have the disciples go to Galilee, where Jesus intends to join them.
24:50-51 Luke reports two different ascensions, at different times and from different places. Verse 50 has Jesus “carried up into heaven” on what must be either the evening of the resurrection, or the wee hours of the following morning. But in Acts 1:3 the same author tells us that Jesus continued to appear during a forty day period “after his passion.” There is some debate over whether the phrase “carried up into heaven” in 24:51 is original with Luke or was added later by a scribe, but still we know that the end of Luke’s gospel is intended to describe Jesus’s ascension into heaven, because Luke tells us so in Acts 1:1-2.
Luke also contradicts himself on the place of departure for Jesus’s ascension into heaven. Here Jesus is outdoors at Bethany, when “he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.” In Acts 1:9, the ascension into heaven is again described, but it takes place from Mount Olivet (Acts 1:12).