When Jesus was twelve years old, he went to Jerusalem with his parents to attend the Feast of Passover. Luke also recorded the only story we have in the New Testament about Jesus' boyhood. These stories are not reported in the other Gospels, and we cannot be sure whether Luke learned about them from an older source or from oral traditions. We also have accounts of the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and of the child being wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger "because there was no room for them in the inn." After eight days, the child was circumcised, and later he was blessed by Simeon and by Anna. In the opening chapters of the gospel, Luke relates a number of stories having to do with the birth and childhood of Jesus, including the announcements made to Zechariah and to Mary concerning the births of John and of Jesus, and the story of the shepherds watching their flocks at night who came to worship the newborn child. Luke possessed rare ability as a writer, and it has often been said that his gospel is the most appealing of all those in the New Testament. He was quite sure that if people knew of the kind and sympathetic way in which Jesus met individuals, they would be won by the attractive power of Jesus' wonderful personality. By giving to his readers an authentic account of the life and teachings of Jesus, Luke could show that the charges made against Jesus were false. He was aware, too, of the criticisms concerning Christianity that were being made by people who were outside the church, and he especially wanted to make an effective reply to those who claimed that Jesus was a revolutionist and hence an enemy of the Roman government. His purpose was to minimize the differences between the various groups and thus promote harmony within the church. Luke was a companion of Paul, and he was quite familiar with the different interpretations of the life of Jesus held by different groups within the Christian community. The Gospel of Matthew may have existed by the time Luke wrote his account, but nothing indicates that Luke knew anything about Matthew or made any use of it. We can be quite certain that Luke made use of at least three different sources: the Gospel of Mark, the Q source, or "The Sayings of Jesus," and a third source that is usually designated as L to distinguish it from other biographies. In writing his gospel, he did not simply piece together bits of information that he gathered from different sources rather, his own contributions include selecting and organizing these materials, along with whatever interpretation was necessary to make a complete and unified narrative. Luke evaluated the materials he wanted to use and then supplemented them in whatever manner seemed to him to be the most appropriate. The first paragraph in Luke's gospel is especially informative to readers of the New Testament, for it describes the way in which the two narratives attributed to Luke came to be written. He does not find these narratives satisfactory in all respects and so has set himself the task of examining the records and writing a new account that will establish for all interested parties the certainty of the things about which Christians were instructed. In the introductory paragraph of the gospel, Luke tells us that many lives of Jesus were written on the basis of eyewitness reports. Written by the same author and for the same purpose, both were addressed to a Christian named Theophilus and were designed for the purpose of presenting to him a complete and well authenticated narrative of the early history of the Christian movement. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are closely related.
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