Day 274 (Luke 1, John 1) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble (0:01)

Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

If you're new here, welcome. We've put all the information you need about our reading plan on the start page of our website, thebiblerecap.com, as well as in the episode we post, it's called New Testament Prep. So be sure you check that out if you're brand new. And if you haven't already, I also want to encourage you to listen to our six prep episodes that will really help set you up for success as you begin reading through scripture with us. We'll link to all those in the show notes of today's episode. Today we launch into two of the four gospels. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are narrative accounts of the life of Jesus, and they're primarily eyewitness accounts with the exception of Luke. And while maybe Luke did see a lot of these things firsthand, he treats his role more like an investigative reporter who goes around interviewing all the other eyewitnesses in order to tell the story well. He's kind of like the weather reporter in the rain jacket who stands in the storm talking to the locals.

Since the Gospels are narrative and you're likely to grasp the stories, I'll spend less time recapping the stories themselves and more time recapping the meaning and underlying implications. Each of the Gospel writers has a unique lens on who Jesus is.

Luke's primary lens is Jesus as man, and John's primary lens is Jesus as God. Since Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine, it's fitting that we're starting out our study of his time on earth with those two books today.

Luke's Gospel is written roughly 30 to 55 years after the resurrection of Jesus, and it's actually written as a letter to a Greek man named Theophilus, who probably wasn't super familiar with Jewish tradition, like many of us. So Luke will do a great job helping most of us understand things that would otherwise escape us. He starts out with the story of a local priest named Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth. Scripture lets us know that they were righteous, but infertile, reinforcing that those two things aren't mutually exclusive despite what the religious culture of the day says. One day, Zachariah is assigned the rare honor of burning incense in the holy place of the temple. Most priests only get this assignment once in their lives. After he clocks in, he's greeted by the angel Gabriel, who tells him God has said yes to his prayer to be a dad, and that his son's name will be John.

God has some special assignments for John which include strict rules for his life. God is assigning John something called the Nazarite Vow. We first read about this on Day 56 in Numbers 6 We'll link to a short article with more info on this in the show notes in case you want to find out more. John will eventually be called John the Baptist, so to avoid any confusion about which John we're referring to, we'll call him JTB from now on. Gabriel says JTB will be filled with the Spirit of God even when he's in the womb. If you are with us in the Old Testament, you know this is a big deal. At this point in history, God the Spirit doesn't really dwell in people. For the most part, he moves around a lot, resting on people to empower them for specific asks or callings. So it seems JTB must have a pretty big calling on his life.

In fact, Gabriel says his life will be kind of like Elijah's, which recalls what we read yesterday in Malachi 4, 5-6. Essentially, his life will be a flashing arrow pointing toward the Messiah. A few months later, the angel Gabriel goes to deliver another message to another unsuspecting person named Mary. He tells her she's going to be pregnant soon and that her son's name will be Jesus and that he will be a king like his ancestor David, except that his kingdom will be eternal. And Mary's like, hold up, I'm still a virgin, so how is this possible? Gabriel reassures her that it's not a problem because the baby's father isn't human anyway. He's divine and he has access to dimensions we haven't even discovered yet. Then, as Gabriel is leaving, he says, PS, your cousin Elizabeth is pregnant too. She hasn't posted it on Facebook yet, but you need to know.

Based on the messenger, Mary probably figures Elizabeth is the one person she can confide in, so she goes to visit. When the women see each other, JTB jumps for Joy in the womb, showing that he's already using his God-given gift of prophecy, and Elizabeth has a Holy Spirit moment of her own where she prophesies about Mary being pregnant with the Lord. The first human to prophesy aloud about Jesus being the Messiah was an elderly woman. And for Mary, this is probably such a relief to have some other human confirming what Gabriel said. Mary breaks into song.