God’s Politics: Jesus as “King of the Jews”

When Jesus presented himself as Christ, as Messiah, he was presenting himself as a political figure, as Israel’s king. Luke makes this explicitly clear:

 

God’s Politics: the Christian Meaning and Use of Power

Jesus is God’s politics.

By that I mean, Jesus is God’s king. This is, by the way, what the title, Messiah (or Christ, in Greek) means. Though many of us have been trained to think of Jesus as an a-political figure, a teacher who concerned himself with “spiritual matters” and remained above the political fray, the truth is, Jesus is the political figure, the true “King of kings and Lord of lords.” No reading that ignores this can do justice to Luke-Acts.

 

The Theo-logic of Luke-Acts: A Surprising Climax to Israel’s Story

Luke understands himself as a witness of Israel’s story – the story that runs from Creation, through the call of Abraham, the Exodus, the Conquest, the establishment of the Davidic kingdom, to the Exile and return. This story, Luke believes, has reached its climax, its definitive turning point in Jesus.

 

The Theo-Logic of Luke-Acts

A fundamental logic underlies Luke-Acts, a set of interdependent themes that inform Luke’s selection of Jesus’ sayings and stories about him, as well as their final arrangement in Luke’s narrative. This theo-logic is the DNA of Luke-Acts, the carrier of Luke’s distinctive theological information. Five themes make the set, which I will briefly outline here and return to often. 

 

Date of Composition

The third Gospel and the Acts are in fact two volumes of the same work, written by the same author at more or less the same time. But when, precisely, did Luke – who we have already argued was the author – compose these volumes? The terminus ad quo, the earliest possible date, would be around 60 ce, when Paul suffers imprisonment in Rome. The terminus ad quem would be in the 130’s, when the gnostic Marcion demonstrates knowledge of Luke’s gospel.

 

Authorship

Strictly speaking, we don’t know who wrote Luke-Acts. It was written anonymously, as were the other Gospels. However, from quite early on the tradition attributes both the Gospel and Acts to Luke, a physician and fellow-worker of Paul mentioned in two (or three, if 2 Timothy is authentically Pauline) of the apostle’s letters.