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Introduction to Bible Study from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Transcript: 
This week, I want to introduce something new that we are going to experiment with. Learning the Bible chapter by chapter together. I didn’t want to spring this on you suddenly so I wanted to do an introduction first, and talk about how it will work so you can be prepared. It is good for us to have a basic understanding of the scriptures.

For a while we are going to try teaching the Bible one chapter at a time, and to and make it interactive between us. I will do my best to pull apart a chapter in detail, provide maps and locations, and explain it. You get to read that chapter before hand, and then take a quiz on it afterwards to see what you have learned. Yep, you should pay attention, just like you were in school. If I can teach you what Jesus lived and spoke and make it stick with you, then it can be life changing. 

The quiz results will be tracked, you will get about 10 points per correct answer, and we will have some fun with the results. We may even have a leader board. Now the Lord may interrupt me at anytime and I may speak on something else, but if He does not then we plan to cover the books of Luke and Acts together. These two books are written by the same author: Luke, and they make up about 27 1/2% of the New Testament, which is the largest contribution made to the New Testament by a single author. This means that word for word, Luke wrote more of the Bible than Paul. 

The Gospel of Luke was written about 62 A.D. and then the book of Acts the following year, around 63 A.D. There were many eye witnesses still around at that date, and Luke researched and compiled his information, then he told the entire story through the books of Luke and Acts. Early on it was just called “Luke-Acts.” Both Luke and Acts were written by him in refined Koine Greek. They were one book that spanned from the birth of Jesus right on through the coming of the Holy Spirt, and the ministry of the Apostles. 
 
The two books were written to, and probably paid for, by a man named “Theophilus" which means "Lover of God.” He was probably wealthy and a member of the roman government because of the title: “Most Excellent Theophilus.” It is believed that He hired Luke to tell the story of Jesus in a documentary fashion. Luke then spent years gathering and sorting the information from eye witnesses and then put together the two books, Luke and Acts. So oddly enough, the largest portion of the new testament was written to a single man named Theophilus.  

Early church accounts say that Luke was a gentile convert, and that he never married. Luke did not grow up in the temple, nor under the law of Moses. Because of this, Luke mostly uses verbatim quotes from the Lord Jesus and he does not talk that much about the law.

Luke was a physician and a close companion of the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote that: “Luke alone is with me” in 2 Timothy 4:11. That was after everyone else had abandoned him. Luke brought Paul food while he was in prison. He was a plain, humble man that was a servant and a trusted assistant (Col 4:14, Philemon 24). Luke stayed with Paul right up the end when Paul was beheaded under Nero in Rome on June 29nth between 64 to 72 A.D.. 

Luke himself lived to be 84 years old and he died: “Full of the Holy Spirit.” Foxes book of Martyrs records that Luke was hanged by the priests of Greece on an olive–tree. The anniversary of his martyrdom is on the 18th of October.

This is just an introduction to what is coming. Please leave us your feedback.