Conversation Points for Luke 2:1-20

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:
• Most of the birth narrative is spent setting context. Trying to place an exact date to the events inevitably breaks down for modern scholars. There is record of a census by Quirinius, but only of Judea. And because censuses were preformed for tax purposes, there would be no need to travel. The importance for Luke, like in chapter 3, is not with historical accuracy. The importance is placing the significance of the birth in relation to world history. Jesus birth is central enough to deserve to be listed among such powerful events as the reign of the emperor.
• Another important context point the census brings to light is the overwhelming power of the empire that it could force an entire nation to uproot itself and travel to its ancestral home. It makes the claim of a new king that much more amazing, and more necessary.
• Augustus was widely acclaimed as a bringer of peace. So by relating the birth as announcing “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14), Luke subtly proclaims Jesus as the true bringer of peace.
• The birth taking place is Bethlehem is important because it links Jesus to David, fulfilling the promises that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line.
• That the angel would first visit shepherds is an important detail in the kind of king Jesus will be. Shepherding was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered to be shiftless and dishonest. Yet it is too them that the announcement of the birth of the Messiah is first proclaimed.

Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.