Luke

Luke wrote Acts 12 in the genre of sensus plenior to show how to discern the mystery which was hidden from the beginning . This will be useful when we look at other scriptures.

In the book bearing his name, he tells that his purpose: others have given an orderly orderly teaching of the things which are the strong teachings of the disciples, and which are largely believed by the church. "Others" refers to Mark and Mathew, who were eyewitnesses to the events and teachers.

Some have the belief that Luke and the other authors had magic ears to hear the word of God and write it into a book. Luke is not of that opinion. Luke says that 'it seemed good' to him for him to write the book . This in no way diminishes the authority of his writing nor of the supernatural inspiration of the Spirit.

In Acts 12 Luke demonstrated that he knows how the invisible God, who no one has seen nor heard, makes himself known. He works behind the scenes to accomplish his will. Though it seems good to him to write.. he can write in full confidence that God has been guiding him in subtle ways such that when he writes 'as seems good', that God's purposes will be accomplished in it.

Luke was in contact, if not with the apostles themselves, at least with their writings. Being the third author of the New Testament, he drew upon the teaching of the others as well as teaching which developed since Matthew wrote. The differences between Mark and Matthew, and Matthew and Luke document the growth in understanding of the mystery that was revealed at the cross over time. Each is a time-based snapshot of the growing body of teaching of the apostles concerning the Old Testament as it applied to Jesus fulfilling the hidden mysteries.

Some try to discern who Theophilus is. The works of Luke are voluminous and carefully written. Luke knew the audience would be larger than one man. He chose the name because it means "God-lover" to address the God-lovers who would read his book through the ages. His use of the personal name to address his larger audience is done with a wink and a nod to the observation that every name in the Old Testament has a meaning which participates in the sensus plenior.

The genre of sensus plenior is foreign to Greek literature. It is not foreign to Hebrew thought. The Hebrew language itself contains sensus plenior. The word for ground in 'adamah' and hidden within is 'Adam' who came from the ground. He is made up of Holy 'a' blood 'dam'. The blood is the law 'd' fulfilled by the son 'm'. "Life is in the blood"

It is still unknown how many layers of meaning are found in the sensus plenior but at least eleven have been observed, which are reproducible and verifiable. It is not free-for-all allegory. Consider that each verse of scripture participates in them all, the meaningful content is at least eleven times as voluminous as the literal text, and it all speaks of Christ. John may be hinting at the same idea when he speaks of all that Jesus had done

When copies were made and distributed among the churches, they were carried by teachers. The gospels were outlines of the apostles' teaching which were filled in with references tot he well-known Old Testament writings. This practice is recorded when the Bereans received Paul's teaching and checked it against the Old Testament.

We should do the same. The New Testament teaching should be compared to the Old Testament mysteries which speak of Christ. Unfortunately, The Greeks did not know the Old Testament scriptures like the Hebrews did. It did not take long to forget the practice of using the gospels as outlines of Old Testament prophecy. And soon they became 'magic' documents with new teachings, so much so, that today, many wonder if the same God produced both.