Carefully Investigated

Read‍

Luke 1:1-4 “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”

Think

The Gospel of Luke does not open with “Once upon a time.” It opens more like a research report. Before Luke tells you a single story about Jesus, he tells you how he got his information. He relied on eyewitnesses. He checked his sources. He “carefully investigated everything from the beginning.” Then he wrote it all down in order so that a man named Theophilus could know for sure that what he had been taught was true.

That is a strange way to start a book of fairy tales. It is exactly how you would start a book of history.

If you have ever written a research paper, you know the rule. Your teacher does not want “my cousin told me” or a random website with no author. She wants sources. Ideally, she wants primary sources, people who were actually there. A paper built on rumors gets a bad grade. A paper built on firsthand accounts holds up.

Luke understood that rule nearly two thousand years before your teacher assigned that paper. He was a doctor and a traveling companion of the apostle Paul, a careful, detail-minded person. He did not walk with Jesus during his ministry, so he went looking for people who had. Read his opening line again: these things were “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke is showing you where the trail of evidence leads.

And Luke gives details you can check. Throughout his writing, he names real rulers, real cities, and real officials. In chapter 3, he lists who was in power when John the Baptist started preaching, including the Roman emperor Tiberius and the governor Pontius Pilate. For a long time, some skeptics wondered whether Pilate was even a real person, because no evidence of him had been found outside of written records. Then in 1961, archaeologists digging in the ancient city of Caesarea found a stone with Pilate’s name and title carved into it. Again and again, when historians and archaeologists have checked Luke’s details, he has turned out to be careful and accurate.

That matters. If someone is sloppy with small details, you do not trust them with big ones. But if someone gets the small details right over and over, you start to take their bigger claims seriously. And Luke’s bigger claims are enormous: that Jesus healed people, forgave sins, died on a cross, and rose again.

Now look at why Luke wrote: “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” Theophilus had already been taught about Jesus. Maybe you have too. Maybe you have been in church since before you could walk. Maybe you showed up for the first time a few weeks ago. Either way, there comes a point where what you were taught needs to become what you are sure of. Faith you borrow from someone else feels thin when life gets hard. Faith you have looked into for yourself holds up.

Luke’s opening is an invitation. God is not nervous about your questions. God let a doctor write a carefully researched account so that people like you could look at the evidence and know.

So go ahead and investigate. Read Luke the way a detective reads a case file. Ask hard questions of it. Write down what you notice. You may find that the story you have been told has been true the whole time.

Apply

Read like an investigator – Read Luke 1 tonight and write down every real person, ruler, or place Luke mentions. Then look up one of them and see what you can find about it outside the Bible.

Pray

God, I don’t want a faith that only belongs to somebody else. I want to know for myself that you are real. Thank you that you are not afraid of my questions. Help me to dig into your Word and find out that it’s true. In Jesus’ name. Amen.