Heritage Bible Church

Why not just give up? On life, on work, on family, on your many dreams? This is a good question. Here's the God-honest truth: You'll die anyway and no one will remember you. Your life is vain. Beautiful poetry conveys the brevity of our lives in the opening lines of Ecclesiastes in 1:1–11. Our author does not bury the lede. But neither will he bury us … at least entirely. This book about our vain lives is strangely also a breath of fresh air.

Luke ordered his account carefully to ensure our certainty in the things we have been taught concerning Christ. His last scene in Luke 24:50–53 brings his work to a close in the same place where our story began, worshiping in the Lord's temple, yet with an entirely new situation. Darkness is replaced by light, the proud have been brought low, the lowly have been exalted, and the good news of great joy that dawned at the incarnation is ready to go out at the empowerment the Spirit sent by the ascended Christ.

At the start of a race, runners must not jump the gun, but wait for the right moment. The gun fires, then the race begins. In the case of a race, the timing is a practical matter of fairness. In the case of Jesus' disciples, in Luke 24:48–49, Jesus gave them a great commission and then told them to stay put, to wait in the city. But why? They waited until they were clothed with power from on high. This band of brothers who had seen it all with their own eyes were not equipped to witness concerning Jesus without the Holy Spirit. This should tell us something about our own dependence and need in gospel ministry today.

Our mission to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth has always involved affliction and persecution, but we don't usually think of that as a good thing. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 Paul tells us that we're ordinary jars of clay full of the extraordinary treasure of the gospel. It's definitely a mismatch, and our fragility shows it, but it's when our persecution brings out our weakness that God reveals his strength.

"Those who have tried to reach Mohammedans with the gospel message and who are in the midst of the work, do not call for retreat, but for reinforcements and advance. They know that in this mighty conflict we have nothing to fear save our own sloth and inactivity." Samuel Zwemer's words echo Paul's own declaration in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, "having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart." Whether by rejection or affliction, the mission has countless reasons for discouragement. And discouragement can lead to compromise. But we advance, determined to change neither message nor method.

We often grumble when life does not go as we hoped, when something we need is missing and God's care looks different from what we expected. Exodus 16–17 shows that our grumbling can reveal something deeper: the story we believe about what God must do if he is truly good. Israel's hunger and thirst led them to question the God who had already rescued them. From Exodus 16:1-17:7 we consider what the wilderness exposes in us and what it reveals about the God who meets his people there.

Jesus' death and resurrection were not the only aspects of his work promised in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Scriptures also promise the global spread of his gospel by his Spirit and through his people. This is a profound truth that gives the church confidence today to go and send and risk much for the sake of God's name among the nations. In Luke 24:47 we continue our multi-week trek through Jesus' third and final resurrection encounter in which he anchors his disciples in the Scriptures to strengthen them for their mission.

Was Jesus raised from the dead on the third day? The Bible says it, so we believe it. But was he raised on the third day according to the Scriptures? As in, the Old Testament Scriptures? Secular Bible scholars note that there is no such promise in the Old Testament despite claims of the New Testament authors, such as Luke quoting Jesus in Luke 24:46. As we will come to see, not only does the Old Testament make such a promise, but does so many times over. Why the disconnect? Learning to read the Bible with the Apostles will illuminate its pages and the light of life that Jesus rose to give.

One theme of Christ's teaching in Luke is this: the Old Testament Scriptures teach that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer. In Luke 24:45–46, Christ makes this point again before ascending to heaven. But why was this necessary? And where exactly in our Old Testament Scriptures was this foretold? From a bruised heel to two dead brothers to a servant who suffers silently and alone, this is the theme to which we turn in our study in Luke.

What was in Jesus' Bible? The good news is that all of the content in Jesus' Bible is in our Old Testaments. But, surprise: the order is different. And the order matters for how well we read the story of the Old Testament and how clearly we see Christ there and ourselves in God's plan today. In Luke 24:44, when Jesus said, "everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled" he referred to a technical three-part division to the Scripture he and every Jewish person grew up with at the time.