Blog 4 Jedanndrila Bushnell

After reading the Gospel of Luke and comparing it to Matthew and Mark I start to think about what would happen if the people who put the Bible together had decided to not include Luke’s gospel. I feel that the idea of Jesus as savior is a big part of the foundation of Christianity today. In church today people sing songs about how Jesus takes away the sins of the world. I have always known that the Bible has had many changes in it, but I never did know that people had written other Gospels and that there were people to decide which ones would go into the Bible. This makes me think even more critically. If this particular Gospel were left out all messages of salvation and being saved would possibly be eliminated.

Christians today are always asking people if they have been saved. So many Gospel and religious songs are about how we have been saved and how Jesus took away the sins of the world. One scholar said “Happily,within the hymnal there is a place for teaching and adoration, liturgy for confession and exultation, a time for explaining the way in which Jesus' death merits our salvation and a time for simply basking in the cross's glow by gazing upon our Savior's beauty.¹” A whole musical industry would basically have a totally different foundation. What would people write their songs on Jesus about if this Lukan Jesus was not so widely accepted?

As a Christian I find this a very important thing to think about. I feel that if I never thought of Jesus as a savior then I might as well have been a Jew. I feel that if Luke were eliminated Revelations might also be eliminated. Many Christians today try to convert people to Christianity by this idea of Jesus being a savior and cosmic judge alone. People are always warning people about the Day of Judgment to come. People today are always searching for the right path and for something to save them. As one scholar says, “People naturally seek not only eternal salvation, but liberation from all that ails them physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.²” It seems as if this Lukan Savior Jesus matches with the society of today in that a majority of us want to be saved whether it be by Jesus, a physician, a priest, or a psychologist many people of today look for salvation.

[1] P. J. Scaer "Lukan christology: Jesus as beautiful savior," CTQ 69:1 (2005) 64.

[2] P. J. Scaer, "Lukan christology: Jesus as beautiful savior," CTQ 69:1 (2005) 67.

Bibliography

Scaer, Peter, "Lukan christology: Jesus as beautiful savior." Concordia Theological Quarterly 69:1 (2005): 63-74