Luke is a Doctor (Col.4:14).  And he brings his training and experience as a Doctor to the health of the Church.   When he sees a disease spreading through the ‘body of Christ’ he is quick to diagnose it and treat it so as to restore health.

The disease Luke sees lurking in the shadows of the Church is insecurity.  People aren’t confident in what they believe about Jesus, or why they believe it.  That’s a pretty serious thing.  If children aren’t secure and confident in their parents’ love for them, or their expectations about their behaviour, or the consistency of their character and relationship, that could lead to some serious issues.  We need confidence and security if we are to mature in a healthy way.  It’s the same for our spiritual growth.  Insecurity and uncertainty cripple our progress as Christians, and lead to unhealthy spiritual development.

Luke’s course of medication is 24 Chapters of reliable, historically verifiable history. 

Faith is often presented as a leap in the dark...  something you do when the evidence runs out.  That isn’t at all how Luke sees things.  For him, when you look at the evidence, believing in Jesus is the only sensible and informed thing to do.  To reject Him is the leap in the dark.  I’ve recommended Lee Strobel’s ‘Case for Christ’ recently.  I’d do so again here.  if not the book, then the film (2017) might make for good Christmas watching... and for conversations afterwards.

You can stream the movie online here.

This could be a great opportunity to get your child(ren) or young people talking about the questions they have about their faith.  It can be exciting to help them think and talk, and pray, their questions, doubts and fears through – and it takes away the power for those questions to undermine faith.

Some other questions you could have fun with would be: Who are the servants of the Word Luke refers to in 1:2?  He means the prophets of the Old Testament.  One of the most helpful things we could do here would be to identify a handful of the prophecies that Luke appeals to – even in the first couple of chapters of his Gospel account...  draw a timeline and draw (or make from Play Dough) different prophets and place them on the time line.  What prophecies did they make about the coming of Jesus?  How long ago?  How were they fulfilled by Jesus?  There are well over 300 – so plenty to choose from.   Celebrating God’s faithfulness and wisdom, and His ruling and over-ruling of history is a great way to worship together as a family. 

If you have older children, then as we come into Advent, you might want to do a similar exercise about the SECOND coming of Christ.  Can you piece together the Bible’s teaching about His return?  Reflect together as a family on how we can best prepare for that coming!

If you are thinking about creating an Advent theme to your Family Worship, don’t forget the Jesse Tree series on the MIE website.  It takes you right through Advent and is packed with ideas for family worship. There are some other great Advent Resources you might want to have a look at...