Luke 1: When God Finally Speaks

I reset our Bible reading rhythm by explaining why the Bible’s printed order can derail good intentions and why reading again is often the best next step. Then I start our New Testament season in Luke 1 and connect John the Baptist’s arrival to Malachi’s final promise after centuries of silence. 
• renaming the show and shifting from a finished project to an ongoing read-through 
• why starting in Genesis or Matthew often leads to burnout 
• why the Bible’s book order is not the only faithful reading plan 
• focusing on the New Testament for practical guidance on following Jesus today 
• dividing the New Testament into four Gospel-anchored chunks to avoid repetition 
• why Luke and Acts work as a single narrative arc 
• Luke 1 read aloud: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Gabriel’s announcement, Mary’s yes, John’s birth, Zechariah’s prophecy 
• linking Luke 1 to Malachi and the theme of God speaking after a long silence 

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Transcript

Welcome And New Podcast Name

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This is the Outloud Bible Podcast, and this is Mike. Thanks for joining me here today. I'll tell you what, I gotta retrain myself when it comes to introducing this podcast now because uh we recently changed the name slightly from Outloud Bible Project Podcast to Outloud Bible Podcast. A slight change in the wording, but I think it's a significant one. The the project part was oh, what if we just read through the whole Bible out loud, put it in a podcast? You know, let's let's do this project and see what happens. And well, hey, over 400 episodes later, we've done that. And now, now what? Are we just done? No, we're not just done. I think when you read through the Bible, the best thing to do next is read it again. And so that's what we're gonna do. Now, I don't believe that we need to read the Bible like cover to cover. Yes, please read everything between the covers. But in the order that the Bible is

Why Bible Order Trips Us Up

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written and organized, I don't think it's important that you have to follow that particular order. Now, listen, every word in the Bible is inspired by God and it is there on purpose, and we can trust that the words we read and the message that we read in the Bible is exactly what God wants us to know for a life of righteousness and obeying Him and uh finding our hope and our purpose in the pages of this book. I believe we can trust that. The order that the books of the Bible are written in or or presented in, I don't think that is holy. I I that was just decided a long time ago, and hey, that's fine. Um, but it's I think the the problem we face or a lot of people face when they try to read the Bible. It's like, all right, I'm gonna read the Bible, is you can kind of start in two places. You could start in Genesis or you could start in Matthew, the right, you can start in the Old Testament or the New Testament. And when you start in Genesis, it's a great start, a lot of great stories in Genesis and the beginning of everything, and gives you a great context for the whole Bible. You gotta know Genesis, and so you can get through Genesis pretty well, and then Exodus. Oh, there's some cool stories, the the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, and some interesting stories in the wilderness, and then you get some laws, and it's like, oh, this is a lot of laws. Okay, but you can get through it, and then Leviticus happens, and it's like, okay, this is all laws, and then numbers. What am I supposed to do with this? And then Deuteronomy is like all that over again. It's like, okay, and people will derail. If you start reading in like January 1st to read through the Bible, you might make it through February, but then it gets to be a slog. And a lot of people don't make it when they just read it at the beginning. Uh, they don't make it very far. And I think that's a shame. And if you start reading in the New Testament, you have Matthew, which is like, all right, let's read the Gospel of Matthew, and it's a genealogy. Okay, well, you get through the genealogy and it's oh, stories about Jesus. Great. And uh, and then you start Mark, and then it's like, oh, it's more stories about Jesus. Uh, in fact, they're mostly the same that we read previously, and then, okay, well, then Luke. And then it's like, oh, well, uh, again, same stories about Jesus. A lot of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are writing the same things. And so it's like, I'm glad it's about Jesus. That's great, but it's kind of repetitive sometimes, and it's easy to get derailed uh and just kind of fall off the wagon as you read through the New Testament in the order that it's presented. So, all that to say, I don't think that the order that the books are in are holy or inspired. It's just a way that some people organized it back then. So we have the freedom to play with what order are we going to read these in? Now, but I do want to preserve a sense of the progression and the kind of the chronology and the timeline of the Bible so that we do have a sense of like it's not disjointed parts that we have to make sense of, that we can follow an overall story arc and see how things fit together that way without necessarily going in the order that they're presented. So, so in light of that, we're going to start this next season of the podcast reading the New Testament. And we're going to take the whole New Testament in this season. We're not going to touch

A New Way To Read The New Testament

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on the Old Testament. Uh, we're going to save that for another read-through. And I'm looking forward to that. You know, if you know me, I you know I love the Old Testament and I love pulling out little nuggets that we can find there. But for this season, we're going to focus on the New Testament. Part of the reason the New Testament is so popular is because it's easy to understand how to apply it to our life today. Much of it was written for the benefit of a non-Jewish audience, uh, Gentiles who are hearing about this Jesus thing. And okay, well, well, I apparently we fit into this, we fit into God's plan somehow, and and what are we supposed to do with it? How do we follow Jesus, right? If we're not Jewish and and we didn't know Jesus, but in light of what Jesus did, what it how are we supposed to live now? Like that's why the New Testament was much of the New Testament was written to teach people how to follow Jesus now that he came to earth, he died, he resurrected, he went back to heaven. What do we do now? Well, that's why it's easy for us to understand because we live in that era today. We live in the era of the church that's been established, which is God's plan A for reaching more and more people in the world. Plan A and the only plan, that's us. And so whether we're an unbeliever or a new believer or a more veteran believer, the New Testament has a lot of practical wisdom for how to follow and serve Jesus today. So we're gonna focus on that as we read through the New Testament. Now we're not gonna read it in the order that it's laid out in the Bible. We're gonna divide it up into basically four chunks, where each chunk of the New Testament is anchored by one of the Gospels. And when we do that, we find that there are a number of other smaller letters or books in the New Testament that are associated with one of the Gospels. This way, we won't read all four Gospels all at once and feel repetitive. And instead, we're gonna find similar themes and keep in the same headspace and mindset as we take a chunk of the New Testament in light of what one of the Gospels is trying to communicate with us. So, with that said, we're gonna start today reading the book of Luke. Now, Luke, the author here, he was not a direct follower of Jesus in terms of being one of his disciples like Matthew was or John,

Why Start With Luke And Acts

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but Luke was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul, and he wanted to put together a whole narrative of the good news, the gospel of Jesus, as a story. And then he wrote Luke part two, as I like to call it, the book of Acts, where he followed the events that started the church. After Jesus was resurrected and went to heaven, Jesus formed the church through the power of the Holy Spirit, and Paul, Luke's friend, uh, was set up as an apostle to reach the Gentiles, and there's a lot of stories that that accompany that time, that era of the Christian history. So when we read Luke and Acts together, we find the whole narrative of the New Testament. And for that reason, I think it's going to be a great start to our read through of the New Testament. So today we're just going to start by reading Luke chapter one, just the one chapter. It's a little bit longer than other chapters, so it'll give us plenty to think about. Luke is writing to, uh, as you'll see in his address at the beginning, uh, to Theophilus. We're not sure. Is that a real person named Theophilus? Could be, perhaps. Uh Theophilus also is the Greek word for the lover of God. So it could be a term to address any reader who loves God and wants to know the story of God's love expressed through Jesus. So I don't know, but if you love God, then this story is for you. Here's Luke chapter 1 in the New English Translation. Now, many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and

Luke 1 Read Aloud

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servants of the word from the beginning. So it seemed good to me as well, because I've followed all things carefully from the beginning to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know for certain the things you were taught. During the reign of Herod, king of Judea, there lived a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah, and he had a wife named Elizabeth, who was a descendant of Aaron. They were both righteous in the sight of God, following all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly, but they didn't have a child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both very old. Now when Zechariah was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the holy place of the Lord and burn incense. Now, the whole crowd of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. An angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense appeared to him, and Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear. But the angel said to him, Don't be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. You'll name him John. Joy and gladness will come to you, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go as a forerunner before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him. Well Zechariah said to the angel, how can I be sure of this? I for I'm an old man, and my wife is old as well. The angel answered him, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. And now because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will be silent, unable to speak until the day these things take place. Now the people were waiting for Zechariah and they began to wonder why he was delayed in the holy place. When he came out he was not able to speak to them. They realized that he had seen a vision in the holy place because he was making signs to them and remained unable to speak. And when his time of service was over he went to his home. After some time his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and for five months she kept herself in seclusion. She said, This is what the Lord has done for me at the time when he has been gracious to me to take away my disgrace among people. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled by his words and began to wonder about the meaning of this greeting. So the angel said to her, Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Listen, you will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end. Mary said to the angel, how how will this be since I've I've not been intimate with a man? The angel replied, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the child to be born will be holy. He'll be called the Son of God. And look, your relative, Elizabeth, has also become pregnant with a son in her old age. Although she was barren, she's now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible with God. So Mary said, Yes, I I'm a servant of the Lord. Let this happen to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. In those days Mary got up and went hurriedly into the hill country to a town of Judah, and entered Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaimed with a loud voice, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child in your womb, and who am I that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me? For the instant the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, and blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. And Mary said, My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, because He's looked upon the humble state of a servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, because he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. From generation to generation he is merciful to those who fear him. He has demonstrated power with his arm, he's scattered those whose pride wells up from the sheer arrogance of their hearts. He's brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of lowly position. He's filled the hungry with good things, and he's sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham, and to his descendants forever. So Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then returned to her home. Now the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father. But his mother replied, No, he must be named John. They said to her, But none of your relatives bears this name. So they made signs to the baby's father, inquiring what he wanted to name his son, which is just so funny to me because Zechariah couldn't speak, but he wasn't deaf, but they had just gotten so used to being unable to communicate with him. They were like, uh they're doing trying to do sign language themselves to him, which is just a funny detail. So he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, His name is John. And they were all amazed. Immediately Zechariah's mouth was opened and his tongue released, and he spoke, blessing God. All their neighbors were filled with fear, and throughout the entire hill country of Judea all these things were talked about. All who heard these things kept them in their hearts, saying, What then will this child be? For the Lord's hand was indeed with him. Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because he has come to help and has redeemed his people. For he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through that mouth of his holy prophets from long ago, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. He has done this to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, this oath grants that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, may serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him for as long as we live. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. Because of our God's tender mercy, the dawn will break upon us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child kept growing and becoming strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he was revealed to Israel. What I love about the story of John the Baptist is that in order to fully appreciate what happens here at the beginning of the book of Luke, we have to remember what was last

Malachi’s Promise And God’s Silence

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said by God to his people. That's in the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, the last prophet to speak on behalf of the Lord before this. The Book of Malachi, the very last words out of God's mouth through his prophet Malachi, says this look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Doesn't that sound familiar? That's what we just read. That's what Gabriel said to announce Zechariah's son. But what's even more amazing is that Malachi was written almost four hundred years earlier. Four hundred years not hearing from God, not hearing a prophet speak on behalf of God, the Holy Spirit was not moving or speaking in that time at all. When God finally did speak, he picked up right where he left off. But can you relate to a long period of time like that where you just feel like you haven't heard from God, you haven't seen him move, maybe he feels distant, he feels far off, and you're like, I want to stay faithful to him, I just I just I don't feel like I'm hearing anything. And that can be a long, lonely season. The longer it goes, the harder it is to believe what you had been told and to to cling to that as as truth and to keep having faith. But one beautiful thing about the story of the coming of John the Baptist here in Luke chapter one is the truth that God does not forget what he has said that he will do. The hope and the future that he has talked about will come. He will not be silent forever, he will not feel distant forever, the season will pass and he will pick up right where he left off. But this time, at the perfect time, if you feel like God is being silent, go back to what he has already said. Read it, memorize it, cling to it, keep living

Hold To What God Already Said

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it, and then when the time is right, you'll be ready. That's the Thinking Out Loud thought for the day. Thanks for joining me here in this reading today. I'm excited to see you next time as we continue the book of Luke on the Out Loud Bible Podcast.