We tend to think that the Church Age is the ultimate in God's plan. We have heard that Jesus "will build His Church" - so churches can't fail, can they? We may fail to recognize the difference between the true Universal Church (or all those, Jew and Gentile, who are drawn to faith in Christ as their Savior in this Church Age) and the local assemblies or individual gatherings of people who claim status as a "church." The Universal Church is composed of all who believe the Gospel. Local assemblies are composed of any who come and participate.

The Epistles warn that local assemblies can go astray following false teaching. If that false teaching distorts the Gospel so that people who join believe in something other than the person and work of Christ, it will have unsaved people in it. Paul tells Timothy that the Spirit has revealed this will happen in the latter days. Why? Because mankind, even Christians, are still affected by a sinful nature. As long as sin affects man his efforts will fail.

This section of Revelation shows that it was already happening in the 1st Century when John wrote. While some would interpret these letters as allegorically speaking of different divisions of the Church Age, they are presented as being to specific local churches, and we should understand them as such. However, each also carries an indication that they are open letters that we should all heed. ("He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.") I believe it best to see these letters as showing examples of ways men lead local churches astray. (Eccl 7:29 "Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.")

Each letter is written to "the angel of" the local assembly. While we tend to think of "angel" as a heavenly, spirit being, the word basically means "messenger." Paul notes that each local church has been entrusted with a message - the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. These letters seem to make the most sense as written to that function of the local assembly - messengers and guardians of the Gospel.

We find at best mixed reviews of the churches. Some are warned that their "lampstand" - or symbol of authority as Christ's Church - may be removed. This is not to say that individuals there who believed the true Gospel would lose salvation! Indeed the letters point out that those who persevere - who believe in the Gospel - will be given the blessing promised to all believers. However, the local church may no longer truly represent Christ. In such a case their message has been lost, and those who attend may not be believers in the Gospel.

Indeed, the letters appear to show that some assemblies contain mostly unbelievers. The last states, ‘Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked...' This describes people who do not know their need for a Savior.

Overall, these "things that are" show what other Scripture also declares: that the Church Age itself will not restore the world to God. Because man is still affected by sin nature, man in the Church Age will still fail, even though God will save all that He draws to salvation through the Gospel of Christ. The Universal Church will be completed, but local assemblies will stray when they lose the Gospel entrusted to them.

So the failure of man in the Church Age means that God will do something more following the Church Age in order to restore His creation to Him. He will do exactly what He promised throughout Scripture: purify and restore Israel to be the light to the nations, pour out His righteous wrath on those who oppose Israel (as promised by His Covenants), and establish the Millennial Kingdom with Christ ruling.

But all that is the next section of Revelation. In this center section we need to realize that Christ agrees with Paul: in the Church Age individual local assemblies will fail. We need to be sure we know and safeguard the Gospel message entrusted to us, or we could be one of them.

Recall that the greatest thrust of the previous Epistles is to both correct false doctrine and to warn against false teachers. The most common warning concerns either a return to Law or to the adding of some "works" to the Gospel as necessary for Christians to really be righteous. Paul and the author of Hebrews agree that the purpose of the Law was to reveal sin and the need for God's grace. The threshold of "belief" is the realization that "my sin condemns me, so I have no hope but to trust in Christ and His work as my righteousness." Therefore for a Christian the Law had served its purpose, and had no further function for him.

A careful reading 1st John (along with 2nd John) indicates he is writing to a church that is being told (falsely) that "belief in Christ is not enough, they are not really righteous unless..." John writes to assure them that anyone claiming righteousness of themselves is not a believer, and that they should cling to his (John's) teaching and to continue to trust in their confession that there is no righteousness other than Christ's, which is counted to them simply because of their belief.

The reason false teaching is so dangerous is that it appeals to our sin nature, which wants to earn a pat on the back for our own efforts. Yet anything that adds our efforts to Christ's work by definition detracts from His work, claiming that it was not enough. We must cling to our confession of faith, that Christ's work is the only basis for my hope.

Paul also reveals to Timothy that the Spirit says in latter times churches will depart from the Gospel, so that while a church may continue to attract people, some will no longer carry the true Gospel, so will not lead to salvation. Thus Paul explains the reason for his emphasis to teach faithful men who can teach others, to be guardians of the trust of the Gospel. Paul knew the Gospel would eventually be diluted, but was determined that it not happen while Timothy was in leadership. In Revelation we are confronted by the fact of local churches that have strayed from the Gospel.

So with this background we come to Revelation, and we first encounter a very different glimpse of Christ than has been presented to the Church. This image is what John is told to write first, as "the things you have seen." This is a picture of Christ that the Church needs in order to see Him truly.

Christ confronts John in His glory as God, a glory that was veiled before his ascension in Acts. The picture we see is very much like the picture of God given in Genesis chapter one. In Genesis God is pictured as without equal, the Creator who is so much above His creation that all of creation must simply obey what He says. Revelation shows that Christ is this same God, One so above mankind that even "the disciple Jesus loved" can only fall at His feet.

This is Christ in His role as the God who will judge everyone. (John 5:22) That judgment will be based on belief in Christ as Savior (1 John 5:10).

This picture is necessary for the Church, because if the Church does not present Christ in this role, but only as a loving, forgiving Savior (which He is also), we give an incomplete picture, and thus not the true Christ.

The other two divisions of Revelation show why this view of Christ is first necessary. The next division, "the things that are," show Christ evaluating local assemblies or churches. The last division, "the things that will take place after these things," show Christ as Judge of the world after the Church Age.

The other Gospels frequently use the term faith, as Jesus comments on his disciples "little faith" or a Centurion's faith, yet John doesn't use it at all. John was written later, and apparently in response to misperceptions about Jesus in the developing Church.  John stresses that Jesus is and always was God, not just a man, or a man that God favored. He is the God-man. Then he explains His purpose statement above, and it implies that some of his readers (in the church) had not yet come to believe in the Divine nature of Jesus.

I didn't have a ready answer about the difference between the terms, but we should all understand it. The first thing noticed in the Greek is that both terms have a root to the concept of "trust." Then the obvious hit me: "faith" is a noun meaning trust. In the other Gospels Jesus comments on the trust that people have (or don't have) in Him. "Believe" is a verb, an action that must be taken. It is a decision to trust.

When the scriptural Gospel reveals to us the true biblical person of Jesus, and His sacrifice on our behalf, we must have a reaction to that. People have different reactions: some dismiss it, choosing not to believe. Some consider it and are interested, and seek more information. Some accept God's word and choose to believe. The "believing" that results in salvation is not a tentative, "sounds good to me" reaction. It is a one time, irrevocable decision to trust only in the person and work of Jesus, God the Son.

That action of believing gives the unshakable faith that we must have. Remember, in Genesis 15 it says first that "Then he believed in the Lord" and the resulting faith (or trust) was then the basis on which Abraham was considered righteous. The decisive act of believing always precedes true faith.

So after presenting this purpose, John proceeds to show us the example of Peter, and How Jesus brought him from someone trying to trust, to one who made the decision to trust. John 21 shows the disciples at the lake in Galilee, waiting for Jesus as the women from the grave had told them to do. It appears that at this time they don't know what to expect. This is where Jesus found them, where they had been commercial fishermen. They travelled with Him, expecting Him to bring about the promised Kingdom in Israel. Instead He told them that He was going somewhere that they could not follow, then He died, was resurrected, and told Mary that He would ascend to the Father.

Peter suddenly said he was going fishing, and they proceeded to do commercial-style fishing again. I think this indicates that Peter believed it was time to go back to his previous life, that since Jesus was "going back" to His Father, it was time for them to go back to their lives.

When they recognized Jesus from their boat, Peter's actions seem to make no sense. He was stripped for work, but he put on his cloak before "throwing himself into the sea." If he was excited and about to swim to Jesus, why encumber himself first? But the text isn't clear that he swam to Jesus. It contrasts that the other disciples "came" to land.

Perhaps Peter saw his returning to fishing for fish (rather than for men) as another failure on his part. Perhaps covering his "work uniform" was a reaction like Adam and Eve trying to hide their sin. Perhaps weighting himself with clothing he was "throwing himself" to the sea either to hide on the other side of the boat, or to dramatically end it all there. In any case, when Jesus asked for some of their fish, Peter came "up" from the lake dragging the net of fish.

After breakfast Jesus addressed Peter as "Simon, son of John" - which was how Peter was known in his earlier life as a fisherman. He asked him "Do you love (agape) me...?" Agape is a love of the will; a decisive, irrevocable, one-time decision to love until death. Peter did not answer that he had made that decision. So John shows Jesus repeating the question, demonstrating that there is still the opportunity, and the requirement to do so.

John felt that his readers needed to make a similar decisive, irrevocable, one-time decision to believe, to place their trust in God the Son. So after presenting his Gospel revealing God the Son, he first explains what they must do, then presents this story showing what believing looks like. He says not to be what Simon was: someone wanting to follow but not fully trusting, but to be what Peter would become: someone for whom there was no going back, who would suffer and die for his belief in Jesus.

John's readers needed to make that decision. Do you?

Some will use this verse to claim that Jesus meant his Kingdom was really a "spiritual kingdom." However, that is not what other Scriptures define, for the Kingdom was to be a literal kingdom in Israel, with Jesus ruling Judah and Israel - a real, geo-political kingdom.

But we must also agree with what Jesus told Pilate. In fact, His kingdom was not of the "Roman World" that was Pilate's concern (the Roman realm). It was also not of the 20th Century world, for He has not yet come to Israel. It could be of the 21st Century world or later, whenever Jesus returns. I pray it will be quickly.

This understanding is more consistent with the total description of Scripture.

However, this analysis is too simple to agree with John's major theme of the Deity of Jesus. So we need to add to it from another of John's writings that also stresses His Deity.

 In the book of Revelation, after Jesus' letters to the churches, the writings focus on the time of the future Great Tribulation of Israel, then eventually on the Kingdom, the Great White Throne Judgment, and finally Eternity itself. These events are also clearly future. Revelation chapter 11 looks late into the Tribulation, to the 7th Trumpet judgment that contains the 7 bowl judgments. At that time, after the "two witnesses" in Jerusalem are resurrected and lifted bodily into heaven, we see the 7th trumpet sound, and in verse 15 loud voices in heaven say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever."

This confirms that His promised kingdom was not of this world in Roman times, but it will be of this world in the future.

But this alone is not enough to say how I respond to Him now, for I live in these times. The Pharisees made the mistake (among others) of seeing the promised Kingdom only in far future terms, so they were not ready to confront Him then. I can take a scholarly look and say His Kingdom is future, but I also better know how to respond to Him today.

Scripture tells us that too. We respond to Him as Savior, then understand He is Master and Lord, as He controls our destiny, and has already granted it in Salvation.  We owe Him everything. That's the way we see Him today.

So how do we do the works of God? Well, as we see in the Epistles, Paul helps us understand this more when he notes that the true purpose of the Law was to reveal sin. No one could be justified by the Law, because that was not its purpose. As we found in our reading of the Old Testament, the purpose of the Law (agreeing with Paul) was to be a spotlight revealing man's sin, and revealing our need for God's grace.

The purpose of the Law is fulfilled for someone when they recognize their desperate need for the Savior because of their sin. Once they come to saving belief the Law has no further use for them, as long as they cling to Christ and His work as their only hope. If they turn back to the Law, or trying to earn favor by some means of performance, they are denying their confession of faith, by effectively saying "I can still earn something!"

John notes this purpose for the Law, when He records Jesus saying to the Pharisees, "Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses." Moses accused them because he wrote them the Mosaic Law, which they would not fully obey. However, the Law was not fulfilled for them, because they did not see their sin through it. 

John wrote his Gospel well after the others, responding to the need to clarify some things for the Church, to keep the Church firmly on the Gospel. So he includes the little example in John 6:

"Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?' Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.'"

As Scriptures note in 1 Samuel 15, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." The New Testament will go on to agree with Jesus in John 6 that "obedience" is indeed obedience to the Gospel, or believing in Jesus Christ.

Paul notes in Romans 1 that his purpose is to "to bring about the obedience of faith"
In Romans 6 he notes people can either obey sin by rejecting the Gospel or "of obedience resulting in righteousness" by accepting the Gospel.

 This is the defining difference today: that people either obey or disobey the Gospel about Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. To avoid placing your focus elsewhere, such as on good you think you are doing yourself, daily remember how Christ is your only and total hope. This is "taking up your cross daily" - understanding that you deserve execution, except that He has taken that for you. Don't focus on your past sin and glorify it, but remembering your need, focus on what Christ has done, and glorify Him. Hold fast your confession of faith, for that is obedience, and the humility that it brings enables you to love one another, as He also commanded.

The Church in Ephesus had a tradition that when John was very old, he would be carried into their assembly and tell them, "Little children, love one another." Eventually they asked him why that was all he ever told them. He replied, "That is what He commanded, so it is enough."

It is common in Christian circles to say that we should see the death of a Believer as a time for rejoicing. True, the person is with the Lord, and not destined for punishment, but should death ever be a time to rejoice? How does God see death? Jesus said "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" - so in Jesus' response to death we see God's response.

Jesus could have gone to Bethany in time to prevent Lazarus' death. Yet He intentionally waited two days until Lazarus had died before starting. This is curious, because the text tells us that the delay was because He loved them. ("Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.")

He makes sense of this when he tells his disciples "Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him." There is purpose behind this episode, as it is further proof of Jesus' Deity, which is the theme of John's Gospel. But that purpose does not mean that death should be viewed as a happy occasion.

We must take note of Jesus' attitude when He confronts the death in person: "Jesus wept." This clearly is not quiet tears, but a display of mourning, for "the Jews were saying, ‘See how He loved him!'"

God hates death. He mourns over death. He did not create man so that he should die and "go to heaven" - but the sin of one man brought death into the world. Death is an abomination in God's creation.

Psalm 116 says, "Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His godly ones." This does not mean that God rejoices over their deaths, but that He does not take their deaths lightly. Their lives are more precious than their deaths.

Death should be a time for us to grieve also, for people should not die. Death in this world reminds us that the world is broken by sin, the cause of death. We should mourn for the death, as we should mourn for the sin in the world; and for the sin in us.

God will restore the world, and eliminate sin and death. It will be a terrible judgment, but one that is necessary, just as Lazarus' death was both terrible and necessary. But it would be far worse for the world to continue as it is. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

One point is the time of day that this took place. The text says it was the 6th hour. In Jewish reckoning the day begins at 6:00, so the 6th hour would be noon. So some say that the women of the city would have drawn their morning's water much earlier, and this woman was avoiding them by coming at mid-day. However, there is a big problem with this. In the first Century there were both Jewish and Roman methods of keeping time. Roman time started at 12:00 like ours. So if John used Roman time reference this would have been 6:00 PM. In fact, the time references used by John for the crucifixion - when compared to the other Gospels - show that John used Roman time for his Gospel.

The text also says Jesus was tired from the day's travel. This, and the distance traveled to get to this city, make the 6:00 PM time much more likely. Near this time women would have come to draw water for the evening uses.

Another point is the claim that it would be shameful for a woman to speak to a man. However, the Gospels include many cases of women speaking to Jesus, and they don't indicate a moral problem. There's another Biblical story that shows this more clearly.

Let's consider this other story of a woman at a well, that suggests how this would have been read by John's audience. Remember, this happened at Jacob's well. Jacob's mother, Rebekah, also had a meeting at a well in Genesis 24. Isaac had sent his servant to Nahor to find a bride for Jacob.

This servant arrived at Nahor's well at evening, or about 6:00 PM, just like Jesus in John's story. He was tired and waited at the well, just like Jesus did. Rebekah was the first woman to come to the well, like the Samaritan woman. The servant asked her for a drink, just as Jesus asked this woman. John's original readers would probably have seen these parallels, and would have known that Rebekah was subsequently shown to be a woman of good character; so they would have expected the same here.

But in their conversation, Jesus tells the woman, "call your husband" and she replies "I have no husband." Just as Isaac's servant knew when he saw Rebekah that she was an unmarried maiden, it was common in these cultures for there to be a visual indication in apparel that the woman was a maiden, so we should probably see this woman's response as surprise. She expected Jesus to know she had never been married.

Jesus tells her, "You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband'," which seems to indicate this is true. Yet He continues, "you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband."

This would not be what John's readers were expecting, and it clearly astonished the woman, who replied, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet." This sounds much like the earlier response of Nathaniel, when Jesus told him something he was sure no one else could know. A prophet was one who exposes sin known to God, and this woman thought only she and God knew about this.

How could this be? Well, we focus on a ceremony as the beginning of marriage, but that wasn't the case in older cultures. "Common law" marriages were normal, and even in the traditional Jewish ceremony the wedding party gathered at the house of the groom's father and waited while the bride and groom went to a private room and consummated the marriage physically. Then the party celebrated, because that act is what began the marriage.

Think also in Judges 21 when brides were needed for the tribe of Benjamin. They were told to just take women to be their wives. Once they consummated the relationship they would be their wives, and there was no going back.

I believe this conversation reveals that this woman had never been officially married, but had had five secret physical affairs with men, and was currently having an affair with a married man. ("is not your husband.") This explains why she was so astonished at Jesus' statement: He must be from God. This fits with John's purpose of this Gospel, to show Jesus' Deity.

It also shows us how seriously God considers sexual relationships. Our culture tries to say they have no meaning, but God says they should constitute marriage.

Tradition also says he wrote this Gospel for the Church. However, he states a very evangelical purpose for it: 20:31 says, "but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." Since our normal understanding is that letters to the Church are to those who are Believers already, possibly the audience was different, or it was for the Church to use to evangelize others, or the Church assemblies were not presenting the Gospel clearly, so all attendees were not reaching saving faith.

There is some reason to believe this last was the case, and John was correcting an earlier emphasis to clarify the whole truth about Jesus Christ. For example, the gospel of Mark omits all detail of Jesus' origins, and first introduces Him as an adult at His baptism, when He begins his ministry of service. This makes sense for Mark's audience of servants (slaves), but this could be mis-interpreted that Jesus was a man upon whom the Spirit came, then making Him the Son of God. In fact, this was one of the early heresies that the Church later had to clarify by study of the entire Scriptures.

Reading just one Gospel may not give the entire picture about Jesus. Luke (as well as Mark) emphasized the humanity of Jesus as the ideal man. John, an eyewitness to the person, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus, gives a balance to the humanity of Jesus by emphasizing the Deity of Jesus in this Gospel.

John leaves no doubt about the Deity of Jesus. His genealogy makes this clear from the start: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The "Word" as presented in John is Jesus, the Final Word of God.

(Today there are still some of the old heresies around, and as a result some sects distort this verse in their bibles to say "the Word was a god." This translation violates the rules of Greek grammar, which say that two nouns joined only by a verb of being state an equivalence or identity. The original Greek says "the Word was God" which is a statement of identity.)

John's introduction makes it clear that Jesus was always God the Son, created everything that exists, and then became man in order to die for our sins. Scripture makes it clear that Jesus remains forever more the God-man; fully God, yet fully man.

The statements of Jesus' Deity are continuous through John, but we may not recognize them as clearly as the original audience did. For example, Jesus makes seven statements throughout the book that echo the "I AM" statement of YHWH to Moses: "I AM the bread of life," "I AM the light of the world," "I AM the door," "I AM the Good Shepherd," "I AM the resurrection and the life," "I AM the way, the truth, and the life," and "I AM the true vine."

Then as a variation He makes it clearer when He says to the Jews at the Temple, "I and the Father are One." It is clear that the Jews understood His claim as they then tried to stone Him, saying "You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God."

From all this and John's stated purpose we can conclude that belief in the Deity of Jesus is necessary for Salvation. Due to the other Gospels emphasizing the humanity of Jesus, some likely came into the church following Him or His teaching, but saw Him only as a man sent and used by God. Belief in only a man giving his life for you can not bring Salvation. Scriptures proclaim that Salvation is totally a work of God. As God, Jesus had infinite worth, so that His sacrifice was more than enough to offset the sin of the entire world. Therefore, He can promise salvation to all who will believe, but they must believe in Jesus as presented in the totality of God's word, not some other image of a Jesus. And of course, they also must understand that they need a Savior, and trust only in His work, not in any way their own "goodness." As Jesus said, "There is only One who is Good."

John shows us clearly Who is that One.

He begins saying to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." He says this, and yet He sends them right out. They "go" rather than just pray.

When they return they report, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." Jesus' response concludes with "Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven."

I think this section is best understood in light of scriptural teaching that Salvation is entirely a work of God. When we participate in evangelism, we should recognize this, and see it as an opportunity to be amazed as we witness God's great work. If we focus on our going, we see ourselves in the spotlight. If we pray that God will send and control, He is in the spotlight.

Jesus' teaching is often very critical of the Pharisees obsession with earning rewards, and in the parable of the vineyard He corrects this, showing all workers receive the same - a generous Gift of the Lord. This seems consistent with His response to these "workers" - that they not rejoice over their successes, but in the Salvation that has already been granted, that their names were written. As we see later in Revelation, all our names are written there. That is our reward: His gracious gift.

The normal criteria for considering a book as part of the New Testament included that it was either written by an Apostle, or written under an Apostle's authority. Luke is considered to be written under Paul's authority, although it records events that Paul also did not witness. Paul cites Luke in 2nd Timothy, calling his writing Scripture.

Luke announces that he used eyewitness sources in compiling his account, and from the content we can deduce some of these. Blocks of text duplicate blocks of Matthew, and other blocks duplicate some of Mark. Much of the added (unique) material appears to originate with Mary, mother of Jesus, as it includes details about her relatives, private thoughts, and incidents that happened in or near Nazareth, which remained her hometown after Jesus moved his ministry to Capernaum.

Luke addresses his letter to Theophilus, a Greek name that means "one who loves God." This is generally accepted to be real person, but Luke travelled with Paul, and when Paul first entered a new city he would preach in the synagogue, where he could reach both Jews and Gentile "God-fearers." Some have suggested that the similarity between "Theophius" and "God-fearer" may mean Luke was writing to Gentiles who were seeking YHWH.

Luke states his purpose as "so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." The best understanding of this is that it is an evangelical purpose, to reach people who had heard about Jesus, so that by knowing the truth they could come to believe with saving faith.

Luke has prepared "an orderly account" - organizing much of the material differently than Matthew or Mark, in order to emphasize his "proof" to a Greek way of thinking. While Matthew is strongly concerned with showing the Pharisees wrongly opposed and rejected Jesus, and Mark stresses Jesus' sacrifice for the nation of Israel, Luke uses the teaching of Jesus more to compare attitudes of those who seek God with those who do not.

Also, Matthew (and probably Mark) were written to Jews to whom the Mosaic Law had been written. Luke is written to people who had little knowledge of the Law. Since Paul makes it clear that the purpose of the Law was to reveal sin, and thus one's need for a Savior, it appears that Luke was including much of his detail to also show his readers their need for a Savior. There is more detail that would draw them to compare Jesus' teaching to their way of life.

Luke comes across as more intimate communication than Matthew and Mark. Many Christians consider it their favorite Gospel, probably for this reason, but also because our reasoning is more "Greek" than "Hebrew" in nature.

Luke presents Jesus as the sinless man who came to save that which is lost. He presents Jesus' genealogy from Mary's line, tracing back to Adam, who brought sin. Jesus, of course, is the solution or help that man needs because of that sin. Luke stresses that Jesus came for all men, Gentile as well as Jew.

Many believe Luke is chronological, but details show that is not strictly true. For example, Chapter three shows John the Baptist being locked in prison by Herod, then Jesus being baptized. This is a logical arrangement by topic, not chronological. Thus the chronology of Luke is not absolute.