Who\u2019s your favorite person in the Bible?<\/p>\n
OK, besides God. Besides Jesus. That\u2019s cheating. Stop it. You know who you are.<\/p>\n
My favorite is Luke, because I identify with him. Yes, he was a physician, and no, I am not, but you know what? Only once, after Paul and his team are shipwrecked, does the Bible indicate that Luke did any medical work.<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s references to Luke make it clear that he considered Luke his fellow missionary, yet only once \u2013 in Philippi \u2013 does the Bible indicate Luke did any evangelism.<\/p>\n
So what was Luke doing?<\/p>\n
Being a pest.<\/p>\n
Well, not exactly, but I wanted to put it into terms that would help you see why I identify with Luke.<\/p>\n
And in a sense, I imagine Luke was a bit of pest.<\/p>\n
In order to write the clear, accurate letters we now know as the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, Luke must have taken a lot of notes. He interviewed many eyewitnesses. He wrote things down. And he must have had a lot of questions for Paul.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the \u201cpest\u201d part. You see, in my reporter days, I \u201cshadowed\u201d people. That meant spending long hours with them, observing them, asking them questions, in order to be able to create a portrait for readers. For the subject, that can get irritating.<\/p>\n
Considering that, and Paul\u2019s straightforward, hard-working character, I have at times wondered whether Paul ever thought Luke should become a real<\/em> missionary. You know, put away the parchments and the quills and the ink, stop talking to saved people, and get out there and preach the Gospel.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t wonder about that anymore. I\u2019ve come to the conclusion he did not.<\/p>\n Every indication in Scripture is that Paul considered Luke his faithful and valued co-worker.<\/p>\n I know Paul had no idea how much impact Luke\u2019s writings would have, or for how long. But I think Paul recognized the importance of Luke using the gifts, talents and abilities that God had given him to build up the body and glorify God by declaring the works of His hands.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how I\u2019d describe my ministry as well, and I count it a privilege to have people like you standing with Julie and I, praying for us, giving to our ministry and encouraging us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My favorite Bible character is Luke, because what he did in ministry is what I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-4549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-bible","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}