For Teaching

Luke 3: What the Passage Says

145 claims across 38 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Luke 3 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Luke dates John's public work by the rulers of the time, then describes his preaching by the Jordan River: a call to turn from sin, be baptized, and live differently, with specific instructions for crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers. John says someone stronger is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and he is later put in prison by Herod for rebuking him. Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit comes down on him like a dove, and a voice from heaven calls him the beloved Son. The chapter closes with a list of Jesus' ancestors traced back through David and Abraham to Adam, and then to God.

Claim by Claim

3:1
- The events occurred in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
- Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea at that time.
- Herod was tetrarch of Galilee at that time.
- Herod's brother Philip was tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis at that time.
- Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene at that time.
3:2
- Annas and Caiaphas held the high priesthood at that time.
- The word of God came to John.
- John was the son of Zacharias.
- John was in the wilderness when the word of God came to him.
3:3
- John went into all the country around the Jordan.
- John preached a baptism of repentance.
- The baptism John preached was for the forgiveness of sins.
3:4
- What John did was written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah.
- The book speaks of a voice of one crying in the wilderness.
- The voice says to prepare the way of the Lord.
- The voice says to make his paths straight.
3:5
- Every valley shall be filled.
- Every mountain and hill shall be brought low.
- The crooked shall be made straight.
- The rough ways shall be made smooth.
3:6
- All flesh shall see the salvation of God.
3:7
- John spoke to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him.
- John called them a brood of vipers.
- John asked them who warned them to flee from the coming wrath.
3:8
- John told them to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance.
- John told them not to begin to say within themselves that they have Abraham as their father.
- John said that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
3:9
- The axe is already laid at the root of the trees.
- Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down.
- Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is thrown into the fire.
3:10
- The crowds asked John what they should do.
3:11
- John answered them.
- John said that whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none.
- John said that whoever has food should do the same.
3:12
- Tax collectors also came to be baptized.
- The tax collectors addressed John as teacher.
- The tax collectors asked John what they should do.
3:13
- John told them to exact no more than what was appointed to them.
3:14
- Soldiers also asked John what they should do.
- John told them to do violence to no one.
- John told them not to accuse anyone falsely.
- John told them to be content with their wages.
3:15
- The people were in expectation.
- All men were reasoning in their hearts about John.
- They wondered whether John was the Christ.
3:16
- John answered and spoke to them all.
- John said he baptizes with water.
- John said one mightier than he is coming.
- John said he is not worthy to unloose the strap of that one's sandals.
- John said that one will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
3:17
- The winnowing fan of the coming one is in his hand.
- He will thoroughly purge his threshing floor.
- He will gather the wheat into his barn.
- He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
3:18
- John preached many other things to the people in his exhortation.
3:19
- John reproved Herod the tetrarch concerning Herodias, the wife of Herod's brother Philip.
- John reproved Herod for all the evils Herod had done.
3:20
- Herod added this to all his other deeds.
- Herod shut John up in prison.
3:21
- All the people were baptized.
- Jesus also was baptized.
- Jesus was praying.
- The heaven was opened.
3:22
- The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus.
- The Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove.
- A voice came from heaven.
- The voice said Jesus is his beloved Son.
- The voice said he is well pleased in Jesus.
3:23
- Jesus was about thirty years of age when he began.
- Jesus was supposed to be the son of Joseph.
- Joseph was the son of Heli.
3:24
- Heli was the son of Matthat.
- Matthat was the son of Levi.
- Levi was the son of Melchi.
- Melchi was the son of Janna.
- Janna was the son of Joseph.
3:25
- Joseph was the son of Mattathias.
- Mattathias was the son of Amos.
- Amos was the son of Naum.
- Naum was the son of Esli.
- Esli was the son of Nagge.
3:26
- Nagge was the son of Maath.
- Maath was the son of Mattathias.
- Mattathias was the son of Semei.
- Semei was the son of Joseph.
- Joseph was the son of Juda.
3:27
- Juda was the son of Joanna.
- Joanna was the son of Rhesa.
- Rhesa was the son of Zorobabel.
- Zorobabel was the son of Salathiel.
- Salathiel was the son of Neri.
3:28
- Neri was the son of Melchi.
- Melchi was the son of Addi.
- Addi was the son of Cosam.
- Cosam was the son of Elmodam.
- Elmodam was the son of Er.
3:29
- Er was the son of Jose.
- Jose was the son of Eliezer.
- Eliezer was the son of Jorim.
- Jorim was the son of Matthat.
- Matthat was the son of Levi.
3:30
- Levi was the son of Simeon.
- Simeon was the son of Juda.
- Juda was the son of Joseph.
- Joseph was the son of Jonan.
- Jonan was the son of Eliakim.
3:31
- Eliakim was the son of Melea.
- Melea was the son of Menan.
- Menan was the son of Mattatha.
- Mattatha was the son of Nathan.
- Nathan was the son of David.
3:32
- David was the son of Jesse.
- Jesse was the son of Obed.
- Obed was the son of Booz.
- Booz was the son of Salmon.
- Salmon was the son of Naasson.
3:33
- Naasson was the son of Aminadab.
- Aminadab was the son of Aram.
- Aram was the son of Esrom.
- Esrom was the son of Phares.
- Phares was the son of Juda.
3:34
- Juda was the son of Jacob.
- Jacob was the son of Isaac.
- Isaac was the son of Abraham.
- Abraham was the son of Thara.
- Thara was the son of Nachor.
3:35
- Nachor was the son of Saruch.
- Saruch was the son of Ragau.
- Ragau was the son of Phalec.
- Phalec was the son of Heber.
- Heber was the son of Sala.
3:36
- Sala was the son of Cainan.
- Cainan was the son of Arphaxad.
- Arphaxad was the son of Sem.
- Sem was the son of Noe.
- Noe was the son of Lamech.
3:37
- Lamech was the son of Mathusala.
- Mathusala was the son of Enoch.
- Enoch was the son of Jared.
- Jared was the son of Maleleel.
- Maleleel was the son of Cainan.
3:38
- Cainan was the son of Enos.
- Enos was the son of Seth.
- Seth was the son of Adam.
- Adam was the son of God.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1: Luke dates the scene the way a Roman document would, by the reigning emperor and the local officials. The fifteenth year of Tiberius falls around AD 28 or 29, depending on which system of counting regnal years is used. A "tetrarch" was literally a ruler of a fourth part, and came to mean a petty ruler of a district under Roman oversight, a rank below king. The Herod named here is Herod Antipas, a son of the Herod who ruled when Jesus was born. A "governor" of Judaea was a Roman prefect appointed from Rome, with the authority to execute.
3:2: Israel was meant to have one high priest at a time, holding office for life. Annas had been deposed by the Romans years earlier but kept enormous influence; Caiaphas, his son in law, held the office at this time. Naming both reflects that split between formal office and real power. "The word of God came unto" is the standard Old Testament formula for the start of a prophet's commission, so Luke is presenting John in the line of the prophets.
3:3: Ritual washing was familiar to Jewish readers, but it was normally repeated and self administered, for ceremonial uncleanness. John's baptism is a single act, done to a person by someone else, tied to a decision. "Repentance" translates a word meaning a change of mind that turns into a change of direction. "Remission" in 1611 English means release or cancellation, as of a debt.
3:4: "Esaias" is the Greek form of Isaiah. The quotation is from Isaiah 40, where the picture is of road crews going ahead of a king to make his route passable. In the Hebrew of Isaiah the phrase "in the wilderness" most likely belongs with "prepare the way"; the Greek version Luke quotes attaches it to the voice instead. Both readings are old.
3:5: The valleys, hills and crooked roads are literal roadbuilding language, not a description of landscape in general. Filling, leveling and straightening are what an engineering crew does to a road before an important arrival.
3:6: "All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for every living human being, not a statement about bodies.
3:7: "Generation of vipers" means a brood or litter of poisonous snakes, not a period of time. "The wrath to come" is a standard prophetic phrase for the judgment expected at the end of the age; his question has an edge to it, as though he is surprised to see them running.
3:8: Descent from Abraham was the basis of the claim to belong to God's covenant people, and John's hearers would have regarded it as a guarantee of standing. In Aramaic, the language John would have spoken, the words for "stones" and "children" sound nearly alike, so the saying is also a pun.
3:9: An axe laid at the root is not a threat about the far future but a picture of the woodsman already in position, tool down and ready to swing.
3:11: The word translated "coats" is the tunic worn next to the skin. Owning two was ordinary comfort rather than wealth, which is what gives the demand its bite. "Meat" in 1611 English means food of any kind, not flesh specifically.
3:12: "Publicans" were not innkeepers. They were locals who bought or held the right to collect Rome's tolls and taxes, and they made their living on whatever they could take above the required amount. They were despised both as extortioners and as collaborators with an occupying power. "Master" here translates the ordinary word for teacher.
3:13: The system itself allowed the collector to keep the surplus, so John is not abolishing the job, he is removing the profit margin that made it hateful.
3:14: These are probably soldiers in the service of Herod Antipas rather than Roman legionaries. "Do violence to no man" renders a verb meaning to shake someone down, to extort by intimidation. "Accuse falsely" renders a word for bringing a trumped up charge in order to squeeze money out of the accused. Both were standard abuses by armed men who were rarely held to account.
3:15: "Christ" is not a name but a title, the Greek for "anointed one," the same word as the Hebrew "Messiah." Kings and priests were anointed with oil at their installation, and the term had come to mean the deliverer many expected.
3:16: "Latchet" is the strap of a sandal. Untying and carrying a man's sandals was slaves' work, and Jewish teaching held that a disciple could be required to do almost anything for his teacher except this. John is placing himself below even that line. "Holy Ghost" in 1611 English simply means Holy Spirit; "ghost" then meant spirit, without the modern sense of an apparition.
3:17: A "fan" here is a winnowing fork or shovel, not a device for moving air. Threshed grain was tossed into the wind from a flat, hard "floor" of packed earth or stone; the heavy kernels fell back and the light husks, the "chaff," blew aside to be swept up and burned. "Throughly purge" means thoroughly clear, and "garner" means granary or barn.
3:18: The verb behind "preached" is the one meaning to announce good news, which sits deliberately alongside the harsh warnings just quoted.
3:19: Herodias had been married to a half brother of Antipas. Antipas divorced his own wife to marry her, and Jewish law forbade marrying a brother's wife while the brother lived. The offense John names is therefore a legal one, not merely a scandal. Some manuscripts name the brother Philip, as the King James does, though this Philip is not the tetrarch of verse 1.
3:22: A voice from heaven declaring sonship echoes two Old Testament lines the audience would recognize, the enthronement words of Psalm 2 addressed to the king and the opening of Isaiah 42 addressed to God's chosen servant. "In thee I am well pleased" translates a verb of settled approval, not a passing mood.
3:23: The Greek phrasing behind "began to be about thirty years of age" is loose, and can be read either as a statement of his age or as saying that he was about thirty when he began his public work. Thirty was the traditional age for entering full service, as in the case of priests and of David's accession. "As was supposed" flags that the line which follows traces legal, not biological, descent. Luke's list differs substantially from the genealogy in Matthew 1; the differences have never been resolved with certainty, and ancient genealogies routinely recorded legal or adoptive links rather than strict biology.
3:24: The names in the King James are in their Greek forms, which is why familiar figures look unfamiliar: Zorobabel is Zerubbabel, Booz is Boaz, Juda is Judah, Noe is Noah, Sem is Shem, Thara is Terah. Luke's list also runs backward, from Jesus toward the beginning, the reverse of the usual Old Testament pattern.
3:27: Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are known from the return from exile in Babylon in the late sixth century BC; Zerubbabel led the rebuilding of the temple. They are the one fixed point where Luke's list and Matthew's touch between David and Joseph.
3:31: Luke traces the line through Nathan, another son of David, while Matthew traces it through Solomon and the royal succession. This is the largest single divergence between the two lists.
3:32: These names come from the book of Ruth: Boaz married Ruth, their son was Obed, and Obed was the father of Jesse, David's father.
3:33: The manuscripts differ here. Some read one name, Ram or Aram, between Amminadab and Hezron; others insert two, Admin and Arni. The plain rendering follows one of the shorter readings.
3:34: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the founding ancestors of Israel in Genesis. Thara and Nachor are the Greek forms of Terah and Nahor, Abraham's father and grandfather.
3:36: This Cainan, between Arphaxad and Shelah, appears in the Greek version of Genesis that Luke used but not in the Hebrew text, which is why he is absent from Genesis 11 in most English Bibles.
3:37: Mathusala is Methuselah, the man Genesis records as living longer than anyone else, 969 years.
3:38: Ending at Adam rather than at Abraham gives the list a different reach from Matthew's, which stops at Abraham. Calling Adam "the son of God" uses the same phrase applied to Jesus in verse 22, here in the sense of one who came directly from God rather than from a human parent.

Read Luke 3