First, a Few Words...

I thought I better cover some background before we begin, since many of you might be asking these questions later.

First of all, there are quite a few different translations of the Bible. Many people are familiar with the language of the King James Version, with all of the "thees" and "thous." Most of my life, I have used the New International Version (NIV for short). It is fairly common, the language is understandable, and it's a very good translation. I'm going to use it here. My wife got me an NIV Study Bible a few years ago, and it has some very helpful notes on nearly everything. Even after reading the Bible most of my life, I've learned some new things from the notes in the Study Bible.

I wouldn't even hesitate to recommend "The Message" to someone who hasn't really had much exposure to the Bible before. The language in The Message is more readable and flows very well, much like the original language of the Bible probably did. This version has only been around for about 10 years.

You can use Bible Gateway to quickly find any passage of the Bible. I'll probably copy and paste the text from there.

The Book of Luke is the third book of the New Testament, and one of the four "Gospels" that document the life of Jesus. It is a companion volume to the book of Acts, and the language and structure of both books indicate they were written by the same person. Both are addressed to the same individual (Theophilus). A great deal of evidence points to it being written by Luke, a doctor and a friend of the Apostle Paul. It was probably written between A.D. 60 and 80.

From my NIV Study Bible:

The third Gospel presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially important for understanding the way of salvation. Its scope is complete from the birth of Christ to his ascension, its arrangement is orderly, and it appeals to both Jews and Gentiles. The writing is characterized by literary excellence, historical detail and warm, sensitive understanding of Jesus and those around him.

I hope that covered some of the basic background. Any questions? (Not that I'd necessarily be able to answer them, but I could always try.) We'll look at chapter 1 later in the week.