Episode 121: A Biography of Luke

I am your host, Allen Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. ProvidenceBaptistAR .com if you want to know more about us. On this episode of the Rural Church Podcast, we'll be examining the life of Luke.

Luke is the writer of Acts and the Gospel of Luke. Some would say also Hebrews, but I'm not even wading into that argument. It's not really the point of today's episode. What we want to do is consider who Luke is and think about his life and why we should imitate his life.

For example, in Philippians 3 .17, Paul talks about that the church should imitate him and others who walk according to his example. So we should do that. We should think about brothers and sisters who've gone before us in the past and who have been godly and Christ-like and consider their way of life and consider how to implement that in our lives.

And so we're going to look at a sermon preached at Providence Baptist Church back in April of 2025. And this sermon, I cut off a little bit from the front and just a tiny portion from the back, but you're going to listen to an overview of who Luke is.

It's actually fascinating who he is and then how to consider why his life should impact our lives today. And so I've been encouraged by those who've given feedback on this. And so I hope that you find it encouraging and actually practical and helpful.

And feel free. Feel free if you do find it helpful to reach out if you want, QuatroNelson at gmail .com. C-U-A-T-R-O-N-E-L-S-O-N at gmail .com. And without further delay, let's listen in to a life of Luke.

Luke in the Second Century and the Marcionite Challenge

In the second century, there is a heretic. His name is Marcion. Marcion, his heresy was this, that we don't need the Old Testament. Let's get rid of the Old Testament. But something else that Marcion did was he took the gospel of Luke and he chopped it.

Up.

And he said, we don't need this stuff, we'll just keep this stuff. Kind of like Thomas Jefferson did with the Jefferson Bible you've heard of. But this demanded a response from the church. And so one of the ways that the church responded is they wrote a little prologue to the gospel of Luke.

Which is basically, it's not scripture, but they wrote a little prologue explaining why we need the whole gospel of Luke. And in that prologue, they give us a little bit of information about Luke. Now this was written somewhere around 150 AD.

That's not too long after Luke died. Less than a hundred years. So this is what they say about Luke. They say, Luke was an Antiochian, that means he's from Antioch, of Syria. A physician by profession, he was a disciple of the apostles and later accompanied Paul until the latter's martyrdom.

He served the Lord without blame, having neither wife nor children, and at the age of 84 he fell asleep in Boeotia, that's in Greece, full of the Holy Spirit. Now can we take all of that as fact? Some of it, perhaps it's legend, perhaps it's distorted, we don't know.

But I would just make an argument that this document written less than a hundred years after Luke's death, maybe you shouldn't dismiss it too quickly. Some of it, as we'll see this morning, is certainly able to be affirmed by the scriptures.

So what we're going to do today in this sermon, the best we can, is we are going to piece together Luke's life. And we're going to see together that Luke's life is worthy of our imitation and that we should be grateful for men like Luke in church history and that men like Luke in church history are worthy of our time to consider.

We should consider their lives and we should have our lives conformed to theirs as they're conformed to Christ and their lives should spur our lives onto godliness. And maybe one more comment. You should want to have a life that spurs others on to godliness.

I mean, you should think about that right now. Does my life, does my life spur others to godliness? Consider. All right, number one, Luke's Greek. Luke's Greek. In the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.

The first book is the Gospel of Luke. The second book is the book of Acts. Luke wrote these two books. And here's something we know for sure. We don't have to go to history for this. We know for sure just from reading that Luke knew his Greek.

R .C. Sproul wrote this, his mastery of language and artistry with words revealed that he was an educated man. This was no rough-hewn fisherman, but a talented wordsmith whose mastery of Greek resulted in writings of great beauty.

Now, I know here in rural Arkansas, we all kind of have a chip on our shoulder about the educated. Sometimes we think, well, you know, we don't need no education around here, which a double negative would mean we do need education.

But anyway, the point is that the idea that God can use educated people, amen? And he does here with Luke. So I believe I have a position. It's different than some people, but I think I stand with a lot of faithful men in this.

I think Luke was a Gentile. There's a reason for that. In Colossians 4, Luke talks about those of the circumcision party here with him. And then later, he doesn't include Luke in that. And then later he talks about Luke.

So I actually think that Luke is a Gentile. I know there's arguments that he was a Jew, but I think he's a Gentile. That's my position. I think Koine Greek, the reason he's so good at Greek is because Koine Greek is his first.

Language.

I think it's very plausible that he is, as they wrote in defense of the truth against Marcion, that he is from Antioch. I think that's plausible, but that doesn't matter so much. But I think he probably is from there.

But what languages you count Hebrew and Luke or Hebrew and Greek, Luke, the Gospel of Luke is the 12th longest book, 66 books in the Bible. The Gospel of Luke is the 12th longest book. The book of Acts is the 15th longest book.

Luke wrote a lot. You understand? If you actually put Luke and Acts together into one volume and said, this is just one book, then he would have written the longest book in the Bible by 4 ,000 words. So the longest book of the Bible as we count it is Jeremiah.

And I don't remember, 33 ,000 Hebrew words or something. Luke and Acts come together like 37 ,000 Greek words. So when you think about the New Testament, you often think about who? You think about the Apostle Paul, you think about, well, you know, the most prolific writer in the New Testament, it had to be the Apostle Paul.

Now he did write the most books in the New Testament, but he did not write the most words in the New Testament. In fact, Luke beats Paul by 5 ,000 words. Even if you give Paul the book of Hebrews, which is debatable, but let's say you give Paul, let's say Hebrews was also written by Paul.

Luke still beats him by 500 words. So Luke and Acts, there's some things about Luke's life we don't know, but here's what we do know. For sure we know this. Luke and Acts, these just two books, they make up over 27 of the New Testament by word.

Count.

And here's what's fascinating to me. Put this together in your mind. Who did God use to write the most words in the New Testament? It wasn't Peter. It wasn't Paul. It wasn't John. It is a Gentile.

It's Luke.

And my argument is, I think this brother is a bit underrated. That's his Greek. Secondly, we'll spend a little longer here. Luke's gifts. Number one, Luke's Greek. Secondly, Luke's gifts. What kind of man is Luke?

He is a gifted man and we'll walk through those together. In Colossians 4 .14, Paul says to the church at Colossae, Luke, the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. Luke was a gifted man. How was he gifted?

We'll walk through six of those gifts. Number one, he was a doctor. Number one, doctor. Luke's writing style shows that he was educated and intelligent. And we see in the text there, Colossians 4 .14, Paul calls him a physician.

Now, I don't want you to confuse that with like today's physicians and all that in terms of education. But certainly, he was gifted in that field. Gifted enough that when he calls Luke, one of the monikers to refer to Luke is, he's the beloved physician.

Maybe they nicknamed him doc or whatever. And some people would argue that he was invaluable to Paul's journey. You know, Paul had all these physical ailments and some would argue, well, one of the reasons that Luke was able to travel with him and help him is because he was a physician.

But I can make an application for you. All of you need to listen to this. No matter what your line of work, wherever you find yourself, whatever kind of work you're.

In, right?

Whatever work that is, you should consider how you will leverage that for the kingdom of Christ.

You understand?

Luke leveraged his work for the kingdom of Christ. Let me put it to you this way. It's not just pastors or deacons or missionaries who are used by God to further the kingdom of Christ. It's all of you who are in Christ.

Consider how to use your job for that. Secondly, second gift he had, and this we know from the scriptures. Secondly, he was a historian. Darrell Bach says this, Luke is a first class ancient historian.

Let me make a comment for a moment about inspiration, because I think this is important. We should know this as a church. God, the Holy Spirit, perfectly inspired the writings of Luke. Inerrant, infallible, every jot, every tittle.

But the mechanism, the process of inspiration is not Luke falling into a trance and then just waking up and then he writes Luke and acts. God's sovereignty, friends, does not make us robots. Luke uses his gifts and he applies them.

So he researches, he interviews, he investigates. Some people think he actually interviewed Mary, the mother of Jesus, because it's only in the Gospel of Luke that we have those accounts, right? We'll look at that more.

But it's only in the Gospel of Luke that we have the account of the birth of John the Baptist and the full, I know in Matthew we have the account, but we have this full narrative of the birth. How does Luke know that?

Is it possible the Holy Spirit just just put that on his mind? Yes, that's certainly possible, but it also seems to be rather plausible that he did some interviews and did his due diligence. He was a faithful historian.

He was knowledgeable of if you look in Luke and Acts, one of the places that we can go to to prove the veracity of the Scriptures is to go to the book of Luke and Acts and say, look at these places, look at these names, look at these events.

Luke is dead on in all of these things because he's a careful and faithful historian. And then, of course, we unapologetically affirm that through all of his due diligence, the Holy Spirit is at work.

He's at work. He's at work in such a way that what Luke produces is the very word of God. Now, let me make another application for you. Sometimes you look at the Christian life as a mystic. You want to say, I'm not going to do something unless I get a feeling, unless I get a sign.

But actually, the Lord is calling you to go forward, right, to serve the kingdom with the.

Gifts you have.

In the words of the great theologian Nike, just do it right. You've got the gifts, you've got the wherewithal, you've got the ability. Stop looking for a sign. Stop doing looking for a feeling and go forward and do what it is that you know the Lord has commanded you in his word.

Makes sense.

Do that.

Trusting his word, following his way. Thirdly, you're going to think I'm doing a little Jesus Duke here.

I'm not.

This is true. This is right. And we really need to consider this third gift, the greatest gift, I would argue, that Luke had. Number one, doctor. Number two, historian. Third gift, repentance. He had the gift of repentance.

Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that the gift of repentance is a gift of God. Well, why would I say that? Well, let's look at our let's look at the book that we're going through. Acts chapter 11. Turn to Acts 11.

Acts chapter 11 and verse 18, Acts chapter 11 and verse 18. Consider this. Luke faithfully records this narrative. He says when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God, saying then to the Gentiles, also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

Friends, this passage is not referring to Luke directly, but it does teach this. Repentance is not something that you reach way down inside yourself, all the way down to your toes, and you're able to just start and work hard enough and bring it out.

And then you repent. Repentance, rather, is a gift of sovereign grace. Now, we don't know when Luke was converted and we don't have the story and the testimony, but we do know this. We know this. There's a point in his life when God gifted him repentance and he turned to the Lord Jesus and he turned away from his sin.

And Luke and Acts together, if you put them together, 24 chapters in Luke, 28 chapters in Acts, so that's 52 chapters. In those 52 chapters, 28 times, so an average of more than once every other chapter, Luke uses words like repent, repentance or turn.

He knew what repentance was and he wrote about it. In fact, if you flip over to Acts 26, all three of those words, repent, repentance and turn is in Acts 26 in one verse, Acts 26, verse 10. Luke was gifted repentance.

Luke knew what repentance was. Acts chapter 26, verse 10, Acts 26, verse 10. Sorry, that's not right. It's verse 20, Acts chapter 26, verse 20. I'll start in verse 19. Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea and also to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

So this is Paul's testimony. Just listen to me for a second. The demand of God that lies upon all men everywhere, whether you're a little boy or a little girl or an older man, an older woman or somewhere in between, the demand of God that lies upon all men everywhere is that you must repent from your sins.

There must be a change of heart and mind as to who you are, as to who God is, as to the wickedness and transgressions that you have committed against a holy and righteous God. And there must be a turning away from sin in both thought and action and heart and desire, a turning away from these things.

Except the question is, how would a person so steeped in sin and so full of self ever turn away.

From their sin?

Well, have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought and just considered the absolute miracle of conversion? Have you ever thought how such a, if you know your heart at all, if you're a Christian and you know yourself at all, have you ever considered how in the world, how are you, why are you here this morning?

Have you ever thought how in the world would you turn from all the lust and lies and evil and self-promotion and self-righteousness in the world today? How would you ever turn from those things? Left to the left to yourselves, you wouldn't, but God.

But God, the Lord Jesus, he preached repentance. You know that Mark 115, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew tells us in Matthew 4, 17, that from that time, 40 went to preaching repentance.

Friends, if you have never repented of your sins, you are not a Christian. The message of the gospel comes with a required response. The message of the gospel is God is God, you are not. He made you in his image, but you are lost and ruined by the fall and guilty of Adam's sin.

But listen, you only exasperate the issue by continuing stubbornly in your rebellion against God, forsaking his ways, breaking his commandments, dishonoring his glory. And then 2000 years ago, though, the Lord Jesus came, sent, born of the Virgin Mary, truly God and truly man.

And he was free from sin's curse and his life honored God in every way. He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness. And he marched his way, as it were, that we celebrate today in Palm Sunday to Jerusalem.

And in Jerusalem, he was tried as a sinner, though he was not accused falsely of foolish things. And yet Pilate said things like this. There's no guilt in this man. And there was no guilt. Not only was there no guilt, there was perfect righteousness.

And on the cross, God punished Jesus as though he was the unrepentant one, even though he had no sins of his own to repent of. The wrath of God fell upon the son in the stead of ruined sinners, and on the third day he rose again from the dead.

This is the gospel, friends. And I'm telling you that this message requires a response, faith and repentance turning to Christ. And we might theologically say it the best way to consider is as you're turning to Christ, you're turning away from sin and self and the world and the flesh.

And Luke did this by the grace of God and became a believer. We don't know when it seems plausible as one of the early that he was one of the early believers in the city of Antioch. We don't know. And it's just speculation.

But here's what we do know.

Here's what we do know.

He was a Christian and the same Jesus that Luke trusted in is presented to us before us this morning at Providence Baptist Church on this Palm Sunday, 2025. And this Jesus is presented with the same response required.

Will you repent? I'd like to say it till I'm blue in the face, but some of you in here, you need to repent. You need to turn from your sin and you need to turn to Christ. Right now, you believe the lie that your sin is great.

No one ever is ever going to find it out. No one's going to know the secret.

I love it too much.

But the call of God to you today, because he commands all men everywhere to repent. The call of God to you today is to turn from your sin, turn from your ways, see the law that you have transgressed, see the fierce holiness and the consuming fire of God that will punish evildoers in a place called hell for all eternity.

But here today is grace and voice of mercy and turn from your sin and believe on Christ and be a Christian, come to Christ. And if you do, you'll be able to say like the rest of us. God was gracious to me, amen.

The gift of repentance, fourthly. He was a doctor, historian, repenter, fourthly, preacher. Well, what? Hear me now, one is a bit speculation in Second Corinthians eight, 18, Paul says that with Titus, we're sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel.

Now, there are commentators who believe that Paul there is talking about Luke. That he's saying Luke is famous for his preaching the gospel. Now, we don't know that for sure. Could could be I don't know, but I'll share with something we do know.

Go to Acts 16. This was our Sunday school this morning. Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16 and verse 10. Here's what we do know. And when Paul had seen the vision immediately. Notice the pronoun there. We so Luke's writing, so Luke is including who himself.

So and when Paul had seen the vision immediately, oh, by the way, let me just say the pronouns are going to be important in this point. So let's focus in and remember, every word of God is breathed out and we got to love pronouns, too.

So when Paul had seen the vision immediately, we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to do what? Preach the gospel. So you have four men here, you have Paul, Silas, Timothy, and then you have Luke and they're going to cross the Aegean Sea and they're going to wind up in Philippi.

And what are they going to do? Well, I'll tell you this, it's not medical missions. Now, I'm not trying to disparage that actually in this point. I'm just saying it's interesting, right, that Luke is a physician and he has ample opportunity to write here.

Hey, we set up a clinic and we share the gospel while attending to medical needs. Again, it's not my point to say that that's bad. OK, I'm not I'm not disparaging that. And I have participated in that.

And I would again, I'm not saying that's bad, but it is my desire this morning to put a a magnifying glass, a high priority, if you will, on this, that they went there to.

Preach the gospel.

In our text, that's one word, euangelizo, it's where we get the word evangelism from. Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke were gospel preachers. There's lots of things that we can do today that and maybe some are right and some are probably wrong.

We don't have to get into all that today, but there's a lot of there's a big umbrella that we talk about. We're doing missions, we're doing evangelism, a lot of things that that people can do that might fall under that category of missions.

But can I just say this from the text? There is no higher priority than churches to send out men to preach the gospel, to go to places and declare that Christ is king, that judgment is coming, that mercy is offered.

Repent and believe the gospel. This is what we're called to do. This is missions. And Luke was a gospel preacher. Fifthly, he's a theologian. One commentator notes this, we're talking now about Luke's gifts.

One commentator notes, Luke can be identified as one of the church's earliest biblical theologians. Well, why would that commentator say that? Because Luke arranges his material in Luke and Acts in a special way by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And he orders it in such a way to show us time and again that Christ is all that he is God, that he is Lord, that he is king, that the Old Testament is not a book just written about Israel. It's a book written about Christ.

It's a book that points to Jesus. The Old Testament is getting us ready for Jesus and the need for Jesus and the promise of Jesus. And he fulfills all of these things. I might call him a great writer of covenant theology.

Why would I say that? There's so much to prove this point. Let me give you an example. Matthew, writing for a specific argument, traces the genealogy of Jesus back to who? Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam.

Why is he doing that? He's doing that to show us that Jesus, Adam's called the son of God. Jesus is called the son of God. Adam messed up. Jesus succeeded. Adam failed. Jesus is the one who we need, the true and better Adam.

That's what he's showing us, y 'all. He's a great biblical theologian, and he's showing us that that Jesus came tracing his lineage back to Adam. He came not just for the Jews, but for Jews and Gentiles, the entire human race lost and ruined in Adam.

That's what Jesus came to be savior of. He gives us the account of Jesus's teaching. The other gospel writers don't. He gives us the account of Jesus's teaching on the road to Emmaus.

How what?

What an amazing thing. Luke 24, that the Old Testament is about Christ. He shows us that preaching in Acts, that it flows out of the Old Testament and that the church is the kingdom of God. Consider Acts 28, the last chapter, last chapter of Acts and the last few verses of the book of Acts in Acts 28.

Listen, listen what Paul is doing here. It's interesting. We're going to get into this more in a few weeks. But he says, therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles.

They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

I'm going to tell you something. You never consider these realities. You need to today. And you talk to me more about it. But the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom that the Gentiles are entering into, it's not 17 different kingdoms.

It's one kingdom defense. First of all, you have Acts 16, 10, which we were there just a minute ago. And we noticed, importantly, the pronouns. And you'll find the pronouns again in Acts 16 and verse 11.

And then you'll find them again in verse 14. One who heard us heard who heard us. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia. OK, verse 15, you find it again after she was baptized in her household as well.

She urged us saying and then give her statement. And then at the end, she prevailed upon us. So it's us, us, us, us, us, Luke's there. But when you get to the end of Acts 16, it's interesting. Acts 16, verse 40.

So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because we've gone from we to they. And then you don't pick up a we again until Acts chapter 20.

Now, let's see, I think that's important to location. Acts chapter 20, verse five. These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from where? Philippi, we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread.

So so there's like it's like a seven year gap, right? It's like a seven year gap or so where Luke or where Luke has. He was with Paul and now he's not with Paul. OK, but where is that where he's picked up again?

Where? In the city of Philippi. So what is Luke doing for these seven years when he's in Philippi? Well, I don't think it's a stretch at all. That is quite probable that he is the one left in Philippi to do what?

Pastor the new church to be one of the pastors, at least at the very least. He is a representative of Paul in some way, helping to establish that church. They weren't in Philippi that long. They were there.

They were preaching. They got put in prison. And then and then they're they encouraged the brothers in Lydia's house. That's where the church meeting. And then they leave. So so who's going to you understand that they weren't just about evangelism, but evangelism was tied to what the care for the church.

And a lot of people get this wrong today. A lot of people want to separate evangelism over here. Discipleship's over here. Church membership is over here. You care about the church over there. And then, well, I don't care about the church.

I just care about missions.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't understand New Testament Christianity. It's all together. You separate these things. It goes together into one mission. So there's evangelism. And as evangelism is happening, Paul is caring about the church so much that he leaves his friend in Philippi to be the pastor there to shepherd that flock.

In fact, some would say in Philippians four, three, when Paul talks about his true companion to work out the conflict in that church, that he's actually talking to Luke. Now you say, well, I'm just not sure about that.

Fine.

I can say this. Luke writes with a very pastoral heart. How so? Read his writings. He loves the church. He loves the outcast. Commentators make the point that in Luke you you deal with the women a lot in Luke.

He deals with children. He deals with hey, you know, and Luke Luke is the writer that you know about the story of Zacchaeus, right? The wee little man, right, you're singing that song. He's a greedy tax collector, but what happens?

Jesus calls him out of that tree. And saves him. Luke loves the mission of Christ, and this is seen beautifully in Luke and Acts, he had the heart of a pastor. I'm just trying to show us here as we learn about Luke that he was gifted by God in a number of ways.

We see this. We see this in Luke and Acts and he is worthy of our imitation. OK, so Luke and his Greek and his gifts. Thirdly, this morning, let's consider Luke's godliness. And there are a few things about Luke that I want to particularly commend to you.

Number one, his knowledge of the scriptures. His knowledge of the scriptures. Now, if you have this weird view of inspiration that Luke didn't have to know any of the Bible and that and that the Holy Spirit just zapped him and they just wrote it out, well, then this might be kind of weird to you.

But I'm actually going to make the argument that that's not the way that God works, though God is free to work that way and he can work that way. But the way that God ordinarily works, like our confession says, is through means.

And so Luke knew his Bible. Luke was a brother who loved the scriptures and he understood the Bible. I'm just going to tell you this morning, a part of me wishes that we could do it this way. I really I do.

I wish that we could do it this way. I wish that before I went to bed every night, I could pray and I could take my Bible and I could set it underneath my pillow and I could say, oh, God, tonight as I sleep, please let all the words in the Bible seep into this thick skull of mine so that I know your word better.

Oh, that would be great, wouldn't it? Well, it's not how God has chosen to get his word inside of our hearts. It's not by osmosis. Rather, it is by studying the scriptures like Dr. Luke, knowing what the Bible says, seeing Christ in them, memorizing them, meditating on them.

Some of you, I'm just going to tell you, this isn't me taking a sledgehammer and trying to break your toes. I'm just saying some of you we've we've we've set before before you very easy, lower level ways to memorize scripture.

Some of you don't take seriously our memorizing scripture. But you should. That's not me trying to punch you in the face on Sunday morning. That's me just telling you, why don't you care about these things?

We should love these things. We should sharpen one another in the truth. We should prioritize the preaching of the scriptures. Hey, we should be better theologians. I don't like that term theologian. A theologian, R .C. Sproul wrote a book one time, it's called Everyone's a Theologian.

You know what he means? You know, I kind of say in jest, the great theologian Nike or whatever. What I mean is every person I quote is a theologian. And it's just are you a good theologian or a bad one?

Not are you a theologian? So why wouldn't we want to be good theologians? Why wouldn't we want to know our Bibles better? Secondly, his love for the church. There are reasons to believe that he was a member of the church at Antioch when Paul and Barnabas were there.

He knows a lot about Antioch, by the way. And so that would lead us to believe those things. We've already covered, you know, his stay in Philippi. But even if you're like those are I don't know if I agree with that.

OK, here's what we do know. Luke loved local churches. We know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. How do we know that? Because we read his writings. He is very careful to detail many aspects of the life of the church in Acts.

He shows us the church, y 'all. It wasn't just about showing up on Sunday. Yes. So so we have kind of like an either or thing today in evangelicalism. We have like those people who say, don't go to church, be the church.

And then we have the other people like, no, no, no, you just got to go to church. No, it's not an either or thing, though. It's a both and right. We gather the church gathers and in the church, for lack of better term, we do life together, if you will, life on a life throughout our lives.

Why? We see that in the book of Acts. We see fellowship recorded and prayer and doctrine and preaching and baptism and the Lord's Supper. Luke shows us all these things because he loves the church. And he's not afraid to show us the bad things about the church.

The conflict, for example, he shows us the death of Ananias and Sapphira. You want to talk about church discipline? That's a tough one. God kills him. He told he shows us the conflict in Acts chapter six of, you know, serving the widows and the church is bickering about it.