 Welcome. Vice Chancellor, respect to colleagues, honoured guests, it's a great privilege to be asked to address you with this my inaugural professorial lecture. I stand before you as a theologian who happens to be a New Testament scholar, and I stand before you as a person of Christian faith. So I live and work at the intersection of church and academy, and this lecture aims to do something at that interface. I'm going to look at how theology is done through the lens of the way Luke does it. Now to ask that question is to think about 25% of the New Testament. It's not often recognised that that's what Luke's two books add up to. And yet he doesn't get the attention that study of the historical Jesus or Paul or John do. There's always been a streaming scholarship that's engaged with Luke, but often it's been simply to compare him unfavourably with Paul, or to suggest that Luke has misunderstood or misrepresented Paul in his stories and acts. And I want to shine the spotlight on Luke's two books in order to see how he does it. Now to ask how Luke does theology requires the answer to a prior question. And that is what is theology and who's a theologian? So let's tackle that question. In Greek, the word for theology, it comes from the Greek word theologia, which means something roughly like God words, words about God, accounts of or discourse about God or the gods. And the cognate word theologos, theologian, in Lidl and Scots lexicon, the classical Greek lexicon, was used by poets such as Hesiod and Orpheus about them or cosmologists or of diviners or of prophets, which is a really interesting set of people because they all talked about the gods and what the gods did. But none of the books of our New Testament or our Greek Old Testament uses the word theologos, theology, or the word theologia, theologian. That's really interesting. Philo uses it, the Jewish author who works in Alexandria in the 1st century BC. But he uses it of Moses and he calls Moses the theologian. The only example we've got in relation to our text is an 11th century Greek manuscript of the book of Revelation, and that has running headers on the top of the page, handwritten of course, which say the revelation to John the theologian to Theologu. So John gets called the theologian by some people who copy the Christian scriptures. But it's only with the later uses that we actually find it being used more widely. The scholar Alan Brent has done a really interesting piece of work and wrote an article in the Gerdinall for the Study of the New Testament in which he looks at the word theologos and notices that it's used in imperial mystery cults. It's used in celebrations of imperial mysteries. It's used for celebrations of gods such as Artemis or deified emperors. And what does the theologos do in such a situation? They have a role in these pagan cults. They might be somebody who told stories through drama or music. They might be a director or a choreographer. They might be a choir director. All those people get called theologos, which is really interesting. Theologos also pronounced the eulogy for the emperor and perhaps took the role of the emperor in dramatic productions. Now John says Alan Brent would have recognised that as the kind of thing he did because John is telling a big scale presentation of history with the exalted Jesus at its centre, and it includes hymns and celebrations. Now that offers a mode of doing theology that Luke might have appreciated because it's a narrative way of doing theology. It contrasts with the way theology is often mis-portrayed as a purely rational, intellectual, dry as dust exercise. That might be rooted in the way some like Augustine speaks of theology as reasoning or discussion concerning the deity, restricting it to discussion of God himself. And it's rare in the fathers to find the word theology used beyond the discussion of God himself. The medieval scholastic stress clear and analytical thinking about God and his ways in engaging with philosophical and cultural tradition. The problem with that was that it led to theology being completely in-hoc to philosophy, and when philosophy changed, theology was lost. But the Christian tradition is bigger than this. The Christian tradition is stronger than this. The New Testament authors seek a whole-hearted, full, orbd response to God in Christ. They don't make a separation between doctrine or theology on the one hand and spirituality or Christian living on the other hand. They see that he was integrated and belonging together. And interestingly among the fathers, the best theologians qualified as such by both their godliness of life and their intellectual grasp of the faith. The two had to go together. We might think of Jesus saying in Mark's Gospel that the human vocation is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength. If we characterise theology as loving God with the mind, then it's not to be separated from the application of all human powers, heart, soul and strength to the life of discipleship. My colleague Anthony Towers' working definition is very helpful. Theology, he says, is thoughtful conversation about God and that's heading in the right direction because to speak about God is necessarily to involve yourself and to involve your life in the conversation. So more fully we might say that theology is speaking about God in order to evoke a response of faith, love and obedience. So I'm going to look at Luke's double work for the ways in which he does this through narrative about God and what it means to live with and for God as known through Christ and by the Spirit. And I'm going to take four angles on this. I'm going to look at Luke's work through stories, through characters, through speeches and through patterns. The first is the longest, so please don't get nervous at the length of that section. Luke does theology through stories. Here's how Luke begins his gospel. He says that many have undertaken to set down an orderly account. And just notice that Luke is drawing on a number of sources in his work. He's drawing on eyewitness testimony, verse two. He's drawing on previous writers, the many who've written before in verse one. He's drawing on his own research, verse three. I investigated carefully from the beginning and he's put this together, verse three, in an orderly way, in a structured way. He's not just put things down at random but he's really thought about it. Luke's exploiting the power of story in order, verse four, to persuade the offalus about the truth of what he's been taught. Luke's not attempting to write objective history, not that there is such a thing as objective history anyway, as most scholars now recognise, but narrative that will communicate and convince. For example, I'm going to look at Luke's story of the death of Jesus in Luke chapter 23. I've chosen that because it's very frequently said that Luke has no theology of the cross. He has no atonement theology, people say. My usual reaction is to wonder whether people have read Luke 23 when they say that. Because in this chapter, Luke tells the story of the death of Jesus and a series of mini-stories to show what's going on in the cross. First of all, let's notice that the death of Jesus is predicted by Jesus several times in Luke's Gospel. In 931, he spoke about his exodus, which he was to fulfil at Jerusalem. In 951, he sets his face to go to Jerusalem. In 150, he has a baptism with which he must be baptized. In 1332 and 33, a prophet cannot die except in Jerusalem. In 1725, Jesus has to endure suffering and be rejected. So Jesus has announced it ahead of time in Luke's Gospel. Secondly, Luke uses scripture to interpret the passionarity. So in Luke 18, Jesus says that everything that's written about him must be fulfilled. Luke does this with specific passages. In chapter 20, it's Psalm 118. In chapter 23, it's Isaiah 53. In chapter 24, after the resurrection, when he's walking along with the people on the road to Emmaus, it's Moses and all the prophets he speaks from. He says later on that everything in the law, the prophets and the Psalms about him must be fulfilled. So when we're reading Luke 23, we need to read it in the light of that. A major feature of Luke 23 is Jesus' innocence. It comes numerous times, eight times in all. Three times, Pontius Pilate says that Jesus is innocent. Again, Herod, the king of the area from which Jesus comes, says he's innocent. The criminal on the cross says Jesus is innocent. The centurion at the foot of the cross says Jesus is innocent. The people go home beating their breasts in sorrow because an innocent man has died. Joseph of Arimathea has not agreed with what the Sanhedrin did in putting Jesus to death. He believes Jesus to be innocent. Luke makes it clear Jesus does not deserve his fate. Not only that, but a careful reader of Luke knows that the charges against Jesus are false. There are three charges that are brought against him and each of these are true of the Jewish leaders and by extension the nation, but they're not true of Jesus himself. He's charged with subverting the nation, twisting the life of the nation, but it's the Jewish leaders who are doing this by treating God's plans to use Israel to bless the world, which Luke has signalled in 232. In 232, Jesus has come to be a light to light in the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. The Gentiles, the non-Jewish world, are to be blessed through this one who's come, but the Jewish leaders are treating God's plan to bless the world through Israel as divine bias towards Israel and against the Gentiles. Remember a devout Jewish man, amongst other things, could daily thank God that he'd not been born a Gentile. Secondly, Jesus is charged with forbidding tribute to Caesar and this is an extraordinary twisting of the answer Jesus gives to the question he's asked about should we pay tribute to Caesar and he's made it clear that Caesar has a subordinate jurisdiction under God. You're to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and you're to render to God what belongs to God, but the Jewish leadership has actually accepted the jurisdiction of Caesar. Do you notice what Jesus does in that story? He says has someone got one of those coins and I just picture a shuffling among the group and eventually somebody gets one of these coins out on which it says, Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Pontifex Maximus. That is a blasphemous coin if you're a good first century Jew. But by going to Pilates, the Jewish leaders have done exactly what they've criticised Jesus for because they've accepted Roman's jurisdiction and they're now acting as if Israel is just another secular state. They negotiate politically rather than rely on Israel's God. Third, they charge Jesus with calling himself a king and by implication that he opposes Caesar. Now Jesus indeed was a king as Israel's Messiah but he wasn't the kind of king that they suggested. He wasn't there to lead an uprising against the Romans but by contrast and deeply ironically the Jewish leaders had surrendered God's claim to be Israel's king by collaborating with the Romans. All three charges are untrue of Jesus but reflected in Israel's tragic failure to be the people of God they were called to be. Jesus in his death is charged with things of which he is innocent but the Jewish leaders and by extension the nation are guilty of exactly those things. Jesus dies bearing the sin and failure of a nation who've turned their backs on God's purposes for them. And he obediently and lovingly does what Israel was there to do so that Israel can be forgiven and renewed. Next consider Barabbas. Barabbas is the man who the Jewish leaders want to have released instead of Jesus and he's certainly guilty of crimes. He's an insurrectionist and he's a murderer, Luke tells us. So Luke portrays this man as guilty to the nth degree but look at what Luke then does. In verse 25, Pilate released the man they asked for the one they'd put in prison who'd been put in prison for insurrection and murder and he handed Jesus over as they wished. There's an exchange going on of the guilty Barabbas going free and the innocent Jesus dying in his place. Now Luke does not use the explicit language of Jesus dying in the place of sinful humanity that Paul does but it would be very hard to imagine a narrative that said that as clearly as this. Luke is a theologian but he's a narrative theologian. He does it by storytelling and beautifully ironically Jesus who's the father's true son dies but Barabbas whose name means son of the father goes free. Isn't that beautiful? Then think about the two criminals who are crucified on either side of Jesus. One of them reacts by railing against Jesus. He wants him to save him from death. He says look if you're the Messiah save yourself and us. He wants proof. He wants Jesus to perform a miracle. He wants Jesus to show that he is great by doing great acts. He wants a Messiah who will save him from death. The second thief is different. He recognises the justice of the situation. He recognises the injustice of Jesus situation and he has a flush of insight. Instead of asking Jesus to save him from death he asks him to save him through death. Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom and he gets far more than he could have dreamt of. Today says Jesus you'll be with me in paradise. Jesus in his death is opening the doors of paradise to repentant sinners. The second thief tells us that. Then there's the darkness. During Jesus crucifixion darkness falls at noon. Was it at eclipse? I don't think we know. Darkness symbolises God's absence in scripture. That's why it's a feature at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21 of the New Jerusalem that there is no night. It's just all glorious light. And as Jesus is crucified the sun's light fails. So awful is this time when Jesus takes the sin of the world upon himself that even nature turns its back on him. Then there's the temple curtain which was torn in two. The temple was in sections with growing limitations as to who could enter different parts. Further stout was the court of the Gentiles where non-Jews could come and pray. That was the place where Jesus cleared out the money changers in Luke 19 because they were preventing its use for that purpose of Gentiles coming to pray. Next there was the court of the women where Jewish women could come to pray and then the court of Israel which Jewish men could go on into and from there they could see but they couldn't go into the court of the priests where sacrifice was offered by the priests. Within the court of the priests was the holy place which contained a special altar where incense was burned. Again it was a place for only priests and within that was the holy of holies. It was a cubical room into which the high priests went and only on one day in the year on the day of atonement to offer the sacrifice for that day. The holy of holies was separated from the holy place by a thick curtain. It was as thick as a human hand in order to protect the people, even the priests from the holy presence of God because were God to break out of the holy of holies devout Jews expected that God would consume the people with his holiness. Indeed when the high priest entered annually there were two safety precautions taken. The first was that there were small bells attached to the bottom part of his long garment so people outside could hear that he was still moving and the second was that he had a rope tied to one of his legs. Now that was in case God did strike him down and they could then drag him out without having to go in themselves. So that was a place which was thought of as a place of real terror, a really remarkable place. The curtain was torn in two. The danger was gone. It was now possible for people to mingle with God and not be consumed. The evidence of the book of Acts is that God has abandoned the holy of holies and gone out into the world to meet people there. How is that possible? Only if the danger of human sin has been dealt with for that was why God's presence was such a threat in a way that extreme radioactivity threatens human life. Through Jesus' death as he commends himself into Jesus' hands the way is open and in Acts people meet with God all over the place. They meet with him in homes, they meet with him in the streets, they even meet with him in the diaspora, in the pagan areas of Greece and Italy and places like that. Then there's Simon of Syrini. When a condemned criminal was let out for crucifixion he was surrounded by four Roman soldiers in a square with a fifth one walking in front carrying a placard with the charge written on it. For Jesus this one read The King of the Jews and it was written in the three main languages of the day Latin, Greek and Aramaic. The prisoner would be carrying the particular, the cross bead. The whole cross would be far too heavy to bear and it seems likely that the vertical piece was kept in the ground and you simply attached the cross beam to it. But Jesus, because of the beating he'd had was too weak even to carry that. So Simon felt the tap of a Roman spear on his shoulder meaning that he must serve the Romans and here it was by carrying the cross beam. Simon may well have become a believer. Mark tells us that he had two sons, Alexander and Rufus and there's a Rufus named among the Christian community in Rome in Romans 1613. So perhaps that's the same Rufus. Simon pictures the cross bearing about Jesus, which Jesus has twice spoken in Luke in chapter nine and chapter 14. Jesus speaks of people who follow him bearing the cross and he's portraying the Christian life as following the steps of the humiliated Jesus. Luke signals that there is no true version of the Christian way that misses that. The root to glory is through suffering and humiliation. God has no alternative, not even for his own son. Says Luke. Now I could go on and I have an article I'd like to write on Luke 23 at some point. But I think, I hope I've said enough to show this is a very rich telling of the crucifixion which shows us Luke theologising about the death of Jesus in narrative mode and the story goes on to developing acts and you'll remember of course that central to the early believers' meetings in acts is that meal where they broke bread to remember the death of Jesus. So Luke does theology through stories. Luke does theology through characters. Our second example is the way Luke portrays characters in his gospel. He wants to see theology believed and lived and that's why he uses characters. Now we've seen this in a measure already by the characters we've looked at in Luke 23 and it's widely recognised that characters drive the plot of a story. Given that Luke's story is a story of God's engagement with humanity through Jesus and by the spirit both human and divine characters are significant here and that's a reference to a piece I wrote about God as a character in acts. Now characterisation can be direct. It can be by the author telling us about the people. Luke says this about Elizabethan Zechariah. Both of them were righteous before God living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. These are definitely the good guys but characterisation can also be indirect by showing by the way that an author tells us about the actions and the words of a character and that's the way for instance that the synagogue leader is portrayed. He criticises Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and then that most reliable character of all, Jesus criticises him and the result is that the opponents of Jesus are silenced and the crowd rejoices. Narrative critics notice three different kinds of characters in stories. There are flat characters. They have a small number of predictable traits like the Jewish leaders in Luke's gospel. Some are what are called stock characters. They just have one key trait. Think of the widow who puts those two small coins in the collection box in Luke 21. She's only there to move the story along by doing that one thing. But some of the most interesting characters are what are called round characters or a variety of potentially conflicting traits. The disciples in Luke are such a group and I'm going to look at them as my example in just a moment. When we're assessing what a narrator's telling us about a character, we need to think about the reaction they're inviting their audience to have. That's where we see the message and the narrator might be seeking empathy from a character. I mean strong identification with that character because the reader sees their own likeness in that character or sees somebody they want to be like. Or the message there, of course, is to be like that character. Then they might be seeking sympathy with a less strong identification. But an often because the character with whom they're to be sympathetic is commended by a central character whom they empathise with. For instance, the woman who washes Jesus' feet with her tears in Luke 7, Jesus speaks really warmly of and says that this shows that her sins are forgiven. The message here is to be like her in her devotion to Jesus and her generosity to him. Or sometimes the narrator's inviting antipathy, alienation from the character, disdain for them. One of my undergraduate students has written a very good dissertation on Judas and there is a prime character in Luke's Gospel who you're invited to be alienated from and not to be like him. So let's look at the disciples in a bit more bit fuller way. The disciples are a real mixture. They're called to be with Jesus after Jesus has spent the night praying about it. Something Luke and Luke alone tells us. And yet, they're people of little faith. They fail when somebody with a demon is brought to them to cast out. However, Jesus says they are people who are blessed by seeing what they see. They recognise their own need to pray and they say to Jesus, teach us to pray just like John did to his disciples. But they fall asleep rather than pray having asked to be taught to pray in the Garden in Gethsemane. And after the resurrection, Jesus opens their minds to understand Scripture and he renews their commitment with the promise of the Holy Spirit to come. As that story goes on in Acts, the Spirit comes at Pentecost and transforms them and they are never the same again. There's a beautiful contrast about prayer. As they failed in Gethsemane, when Peter and John come back from the Sanhedrin having been told not to speak in the name of Jesus, the first thing the believers do is pray. They've got the message. When Peter is locked up with a view to execution in Acts 12, the believers' response is to pray. Now, this is a comical story, isn't it? Because they pray, Peter's set free and then he comes knocking at the door of the house where they're praying and poor old Rhondda the maid is sent out to say, who's that banging at the door? And she comes back and says it's Peter. She just says it's Peter. And they say, no, no, no. It must be his ghost. What have they been praying for? And eventually, Peter has the sense to keep hammering at the door to let him in and eventually discover that it is Jesus. So they're clearly not fully there. Their instincts about prayer are better than they were, but they're not fully there yet. The characterisation of the disciples in these stories, which is rich and round, invites readers who are believers to identify with them to recognise that just like the disciples, they aspire to follow Jesus. But just like the disciples, they fail to live up to those aspirations. Nevertheless, such believing readers can be encouraged that failure's not final. The Lord's recommissioning of them after his resurrection and the repeated coming of the Holy Spirit show that God in Christ responds with forgiveness, generosity and grace to those whose lives face toward God. Luke does theology through speeches. Ancient authors, including historians, used dialogue and monologue liberally in communicating their story. And they tried to write in ways that were in tune with the character who spoke. As with speeches in the biblical books, they're invariably too short to be the full text of a speech. They're at most apresy. It would be an anachronism to think that this labels the speeches as fiction invented by the author solely to forward his, and it is usually his, agenda. Cos some of the ancient authors can present speeches on opposite sides of the question through Sidideas does this in his history of the Peloponnesian War. The ancient expectation was that authors would present speeches that were faithful to the historical event and the speaker. Indeed, Polybius, the historian, invades against Timaeus because Timaeus invents speeches. That's a terrible thing to do. Now when we turn to Luke and Acts, it's the speeches of Luke's reliable characters that we should consider for these characters are Luke's heroes. These characters are the ones whose words and deeds Luke stands behind, or perhaps we should say, especially in the case of God, whose deeds and words stand behind Luke. These speeches are trying to persuade, as ancient oratory normally did, and they offer models for imitation or warnings of ways to avoid. As an example, consider Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. This is the only passage in the New Testament which calls the same group of people, both Episcopoi, Overseers or Bishops, and Presbutoroi, Elders or Presbyters. But Luke's more interested in here than the exercise of leadership than its former organisation. As they say, I have argued elsewhere that this speech focuses on four themes. The themes of faithful fulfillment of ministry, suffering, wealth and work, and the death of Jesus. And it's striking that there are extensive parallels of this, that's where I have argued this elsewhere. There are extensive parallels, not just of the themes, but of the vocabulary in Luke chapter 22, in Jesus' farewell speech to his disciples. Let me give you just a few examples. The faithful fulfillment of ministry, Jesus speaks of himself as the one who serves as the waiter, we might almost say. Whereas Paul says that he has served the Lord with all humility. Humble service is not characteristic of leadership in the Greco-Roman world in the first century. Indeed, Jesus has contrasted his leadership in Luke 22 with the world's rulers who want to lord it over others. Suffering is a feature of both. Jesus speaks of his trial that is to come. And Luke in Acts has Paul speak of his trials through the Jewish people. Interestingly, the Greek word perasmos is the same in both passages. And it's an unusual word in Luke's writings. Luke seems to be signalling by this choice of vocabulary that there's a parallel. Jesus, too, speaks of his suffering to come. I've longed to drink this cup with you before I suffer, he says. And Paul can speak of his future suffering. The Holy Spirit, he says, testifies to me that I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to suffer. Work and wealth are significant themes. Paul closes his speech with saying, look at how I have modelled proper handling and wealth. I've not coveted anything. And I've worked with my own hands so that I can provide for those in need. And Jesus says similar things. He gives them an example to follow in terms of their care of money in a very, very different situation. Finally, the death of Jesus is really striking. God obtains the church with the blood of his own, says Paul in Acts chapter 20. And in Luke 22, Jesus institutes the Eucharist to remember his giving of his body and his blood for the disciples and for the world. These are the two passages that everyone who says Luke has no atonement theology immediately goes on to say, except Acts 20, Luke 22. But it is striking that they're both in the farewell speeches. This looks like Luke and design to portray leadership which Jesus embodies and teaches to his disciples, Paul embodies and teaches to some from the next generation of leaders. Luke paints a picture of Christian leadership for his readers' education and imitation. Finally, Luke does theology through patterns. The previous example leads to my final observation that Luke uses patterning to communicate theological themes and emphases. He can use techniques of foreshadowing a topic before he picks it up more fully later. Or he can echo a theme from elsewhere. Or he can use artistic forms of patterning. As an example, look at this programmatic statement as it's often claimed to be about the early church's communal life. They were devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Now, people often say this is a model of what early church life was and how a church life should be and this is something Luke's saying to his readers. To look at that, consider the next five verses which illustrate how this has worked out. In verse 43, the apostles do signs and wonders which bear witness to their truth of their teaching. The believers' fellowship is explained by their shared life. They were together, epita auta, in verse 44. They shared possessions in 44 and 45 to help those in need. That was what fellowship meant. It didn't mean drinking out of green tea cups in church halls. You've all had those green tea cups, haven't you? The provision for the needy would, of course, have been a powerful testimony to the people of Jerusalem and it would have been a factor in the community's growth in verse 47. The breaking of bread is repeated in verse 46 and it's expanded to include meals in the temple and meals in homes. The referent of the phrase is debated, of course, but in my view it most probably includes both the specific Eucharistic action of breaking bread in remembrance of the Lord's death and shared meals where people brought food and shared it with others. The prayers is about their meeting together to pray. So there's their praise of God in verse 47, but also did you notice that they spent much time in the temple? The fact that Luke calls them the prayers may well suggest it's liturgical prayers of the temple because that's just what we find Peter and John doing at the beginning of Acts 3. They go up to the temple at the hour of prayer. Now there's a debate as to whether these fourfold activities are just what normally happens in believing communities or, as Joachim Yeromeas proposes, the actual sequence of each communal meeting. So Yeromeas thinks that the sequence of the meetings was normally teaching, sharing, breaking bread prayer. The trouble is that the actual descriptions of community meetings in the rest of the book don't fit that. However, and this is where the pattering idea helps, they do have parallels in the other community stories in Acts. There aren't a lot of these, but let me illustrate with the story about church life in Troas in Acts 20. Notice the elements from 242. Teaching is there at the beginning. Paul was instructing them. It's there at the end in verse 11. He continued to converse with them till dawn. Then Porold Eutychus, did you know his name means lucky? Porold Eutychus fell out of the window and was dead. That of course leads to the wonder and sign of him being raised from the dead in verse 10. The reason they meet in verse 7 is we met in order to break bread. A specific part of the meeting in verse 11 is designated as such. Paul went upstairs and after he'd broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse. So there's a thanksgiving focused on the cross and celebrated with bread broken and a meal doubtless with sharing of food together. Prayer should be understood I think as part of Paul's action which leads to Eutychus' revival. Although corporate prayer isn't explicitly mentioned here, we do know Paul's regular practice when he said farewell to a community was to pray with them on the beach before he boarded ship. So we might reasonably assume that that's what Paul did with this community. Now this isn't a tidy echo of the elements of 242 but I think it's reasonable to see them all present in different forms because the study of the Christian meetings in Acts confirms that. So Luke is a theologian and a storyteller. We've looked at four ways he tells stories with the theological intent. He's writing to communicate and persuade and he wants the offalus to be convinced of the truth about the things he's been taught. Central to his persuasive intent is to invite response to the identity of Jesus alongside the Father and the powerful effects of his ministry, death, resurrection and sending of the Spirit. Luke uses narrative to convey these key truths through careful storytelling, through characters, through speeches and through patterns. Luke's a skilled and nuanced storyteller who does theology by narrative. I think he deserves to stand alongside the great theologians of the New Testament such as Paul and John and those of any age because he calls and invites today's believers to learn from his example and to tell and retell the Christian story of Jesus, the Christian stories of the church throughout the ages and the Christian story of the lives of believers today. He's calling us to do theology Luke-wise. Thank you.