Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke is the most academic of all the Gospel writers. He opens with his intention to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). This passage demonstrates Luke’s dedication to two styles of first century academic writing, Greco-Roman historicity and the call of the Hebrew prophets.
o Greco-Roman history dated events in relation to rulers or the founding of Rome. Luke uses six different chronological vectors: the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. However, it is still impossible to place this at an exact date due to the inexactness of ancient calendars. Each of the ancient calendars timed the length of a year differently, so it is impossible to know how long fifteen years was. There is also the question of which year counts the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. The beginning of his co-regency? The point he became sole emperor? The other dates are even less helpful. Pilate was governor over a ten year span, eight of which overlapped with Philip, all of which overlapped with Herod of Galilee. It’s unclear who Lysanias was. And Annas and Caiaphas were not high priest at the same time. Annas was high priest from 6-15 CE and Caiaphas from 18-36 CE. The important thing for us as modern readers is not to place this event in a specific year, but that Luke places a seemingly insignificant minor prophet such as John in a list of the most powerful rulers of the time. Luke is deliberately putting John and Jesus in opposition to the recognized political leadership.
o Hebrew prophets’ calls in scripture all follow a specific formula. 1) “The Word of the Lord came” to or upon 2) the prophet 3) son of (the prophet’s father) 4) in a certain named location 5) “in the days of” the ruling king. [See Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1]. Luke places John in the compendium of prophets. Prophets, remember, are not fortune tellers but truth tellers, they announce the hard realities of injustice that some would rather ignore.
• Luke 3:4-6 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5. The book of Isaiah outlines the time before, during, and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah prophesized that Israel was weak because the leadership was gaining wealth at the hands of the poor, and if they continued in that path they would be conquered by their enemies. In Isaiah 40, the possibility of the Babylonian exile becomes not a threat but a reality. Isaiah 40 then promises that God will be with Israel even as they are in exile and will lead them back home. The wilderness in Isaiah is the Babylonian empire. John’s use of Isaiah is a different context but a similar time. Israel again is under captivity, this time the Romans, and John again is the voice of “one crying out in the wilderness” of God’s continued presence.
Works Sourced:
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Jones, Judith. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6.” Working Preacher. December 6, 2015. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702>.
Lose, David. “Advent 2 C: Audacious Historians.” in the Meantime… November 30, 2015. < http://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/advent-2-c-audacious-historians/>.
Seitz, Christopher R. “The Book of Isaiah 40-66.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VI. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
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