Luke 2
A census decree brings a child to a manger in Bethlehem; two elderly witnesses recognize what the empire does not.
Summary
Luke situates the birth within imperial history: a decree from Caesar Augustus requires all to be registered, and Joseph travels from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the ancestral city of David, with Mary who is with child. There is no room in the inn; the child is born and placed in a manger. The birth is not attended by magi or by kings but by shepherds who are watching their flocks by night in the fields nearby. An angel appears to them with the announcement, and the heavenly host sings: glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. The shepherds go to Bethlehem, find the child, and report what they have heard. The people marvel; Mary treasures all these things and ponders them in her heart. The shepherds return glorifying and praising God. Luke's choice of witnesses — nightshift herdsmen, not priestly visitors or royal envoys — is consistent with the entire book's pattern of honoring those the world would pass over.
Forty days after the birth, the parents bring the child to Jerusalem for the rite of purification required by Mosaic law and for the redemption of the firstborn. In the temple they encounter Simeon, a righteous and devout man to whom the Spirit had revealed that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's anointed. Simeon takes the child in his arms and sings the Nunc Dimittis — now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, a light of revelation to the Gentiles. He then warns Mary that a sword will pierce her own soul. The prophetess Anna, widowed at a young age and now eighty-four, has spent decades in the temple fasting and praying; she comes at that very moment, gives thanks, and speaks of the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. A final scene advances the child to age twelve: on the return from Passover the parents discover Jesus has stayed behind, and they find him in the temple seated among the teachers, listening and asking questions, astonishing all who heard him. When Mary asks why he has treated them so, he says he must be in his Father's house. He returns with them to Nazareth and is obedient to them, and Luke closes with the note that Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
- Luke 1Chapter 1 opens with a formal literary preface — Luke addresses a certain Theophilus and claims to have investigated everything carefully, setting himself apart as a self-conscious historian among the gospel writers.
- Luke 2Chapter 2 contains the nativity scene that dominates Western cultural memory of the gospels: the census under Quirinius, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth, the manger, the swaddling cloths, the angels appearing to shepherds in the fields at night.
- Luke 3Luke situates John's ministry with extraordinary chronological precision — the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the governorship of Pilate, the tetrarchies of Herod and Philip and Lysanias, the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.
- Luke 4The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, where the devil offers him bread, political authority over all the kingdoms of the world, and divine protection — and is refused at each turn with a quotation from Deuteronomy.
- Luke 5By the Lake of Gennesaret, the crowds press against Jesus and he steps into Simon's empty boat to teach.
- Luke 6The chapter opens with two Sabbath controversies: the disciples pluck grain as they walk through fields, and Jesus defends them by citing David's eating the showbread when his men were hungry.
- Luke 7Three distinct episodes give chapter 7 its range.
- Luke 8Chapter 8 moves quickly across a range of narrative modes.
- Luke 9Chapter 9 is a turning-point chapter.
- Luke 10Jesus sends out seventy (some manuscripts say seventy-two) in pairs ahead of him into every town and place he intends to visit, with instructions similar to the twelve's but addressed to a larger group and a longer journey.
- Luke 11The chapter opens with Jesus praying in a certain place; when he stops, a disciple asks him to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples.
- Luke 12With ten thousand pressing around him, Jesus addresses the disciples first: beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
- Luke 13Some report to Jesus about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
- Luke 14Jesus goes to eat at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees on the Sabbath, watched carefully by those present.
- Luke 15The Pharisees and scribes grumble that this man receives sinners and eats with them.
- Luke 16Chapter 16 contains two of Luke's most difficult parables.
- Luke 17The chapter opens with warnings about causing stumbling — better to have a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea — and the obligation to rebuke and forgive a brother who sins seven times in a day and repents each time.
- Luke 18Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow to teach that they ought always to pray and not lose heart: a widow in a city where a judge neither fears God nor respects people keeps coming to him demanding justice against her adversary; he eventually grants it not because of justice but because she is wearing him out.
- Luke 19Jericho contains the Zacchaeus scene, unique to Luke: a chief tax collector who is wealthy and short climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus over the crowd.
- Luke 20Chapter 20 is a series of confrontations in the temple.
- Luke 21Looking up at those putting gifts into the treasury, Jesus observes that a poor widow puts in two small copper coins — the smallest unit of currency — and says she has put in more than all of them, because they gave from their abundance and she from her poverty gave everything she had.
- Luke 22Satan enters Judas Iscariot and he goes to the chief priests to discuss how to betray Jesus.
- Luke 23The assembly brings Jesus to Pilate, accusing him of perverting the nation, forbidding tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be king.
- Luke 24Very early on the first day of the week, the women — Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others — bring spices to the tomb and find the stone rolled away.