The Temple In Luke’s Gospel

Description

God has, from the beginning, desired to dwell with His people, yet the truth of God’s dwelling brings with it challenging and practical consequences for each believer. Luke presents many of these challenges in the temple incidents recorded throughout the gospel. This book investigates these temple incidents and shows how application can be made to the character and conduct of believers in local assembly fellowship, given that any assembly is to express “house of God” character (1 Tim 3.15). The importance of this teaching is seen in the fact that Luke commences and concludes his gospel in the temple. The gospel begins with a priest (Zacharias) offering incense on the altar of incense in the temple, it concludes with the Lord’s disciples awaiting the day of Pentecost in the temple “praising and blessing God” (Lk 24.53). Our attention is immediately directed to the necessity to these Godward activities of God’s people. In between there are many notable lessons; each temple incident or scene is unique and carries with it distinctive lessons. For example, in Luke Chapter 2, in Simeon we see the activity of the Spirit of God in the house of God, in Anna a life of devoted service, in our Lord the necessity of the Father’s business. Towards the end of the gospel, the character of the teaching changes and we learn how the Lord dealt with various challenges in the house of God (Luke Chapters 19-20).

The book contains fifteen chapters of varying length. In the Introduction the author gives an overview of the subject discussed in the book, along with an examination of the Luke’s introduction to his gospel. The fourteen chapters which follow discuss the various temple scenes from Luke chapters 1-4 and chapters 19-24. Finally, in the conclusion, the author briefly traces the thought of the house of God through scripture and how it relates to the church today.