Luke the historian and the theologian gives this call—we do know these things about Jesus—that he lived, taught, performed miracles, was hung on a cross and died, then rose from the dead, validating his claim to be the son of God, the savior of the world. When we realize these things about Jesus, we become part of something bigger than ourselves. We become part of this fire that has spread through the entire world.

A few years ago, my daughter and I were playing Battleship, and she shot misses on spaces C 8,9, and 10. Or that’s how I remember it and had it marked. But later she said “C9,” and I said, “you already tried that one, sweetie.” She said “No I didn’t. I shot J 8,9, and 10.” And I said, “No, I marked them; you said C 8,9, and 10.” She insisted just as vehemently, “No, Dad. I said J 8,9, and 10.” Now, of course, there’s a true answer to that question, but we’ll never recover it, because we were the only two people there, and we just flat out are both sure—even to this day!—that we were right.

That’s a bit of a parable, you might say—a silly example of a big problem in our world these days. Any truth seems to immediately get challenged by a flood of false claims. We live in the middle of an infodemic, as Ed Yost at The Atlantic termed it a couple of years back, and that infodemic wasn’t just about COVID and vaccines. It seems to be about everything—the environment, the government, foreign policy, race—you name it. A society awash in information has no way anymore to control and debunk false information. Now add in the power of AI and deepfakes, and, well…

And in a few things—a VERY few things—I’m an expert; I know a lot. But in most things, I hardly know this or that for sure for myself. It depends on who you read and where you get your news. How can you possibly know what’s true anymore? It’s easy to despair of knowing the truth on much anything, to just throw up your hands, say “Who knows?” and then go on with life as a cynic.

But here’s the thing—there’s no doubt that my daughter and I did play Battleship. Even if we can’t be certain of every detail of the past, we can be certain of some things—and here’s the important point—certain enough to act.

To switch the example, if you want to drive from Washington, DC down to Charlottesville, VA, you can get out a map and figure out the route. Now are you truly, 100%, no matter what, certain you read the map correctly? Is it truly impossible that you misread the map? Of course not. But you still get on the road and start driving.

Or maybe you get directions these days more by trust. You let the Waze lady, or the Apple Maps voice, or the Google Maps Voice direct—you just do what she says. Now do you absolutely, no matter what, know that the GPS hasn’t made an error? That the programmers didn’t mess up, or that the phone didn’t get north and south backwards? No, you can’t know it in that sense. But you DO get in the car and trust that voice and start driving.

Even if you don’t have true, undeniable, perfect epistemic certainty, you can live your life, you act on what you know to be true.

In our education system, we teach people to question assumptions, to overturn ideas, to test if what they think is really true. The ancient philosopher Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

BUT the purpose of that questioning is to find out what really is true and correct and good, not to wallow in uncertainty forever!

And the biblical historian Luke wrote to make sure we realize that we can be certain of the gospel, certain enough to stake our lives on it.

Luke’s history is a two-part narrative, starting with the Gospel of Luke, which bears his name. That got us to Easter. Now he brings us further with the book of Acts. Starting with the beginning of the book, v.1-3, Luke tells what we know about Jesus:

“In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

Luke packs a lot in here, first that we are reading the sequel, or maybe better put, we’re reading volume 2. Luke had always planned this to be a 2-book series, so to speak, and he makes it clear right at the start. Look at his first words: “In my first book”—that this is the continuation of the story he has been telling since chapter 1 of the gospel that bears his name.

In fact, if we look at the way he addresses this in v.1—“O Theophilus”—he’s meaning to tie this book tightly to what he had already written. In antiquity, if you wrote a multivolume work, you added a preface to the first volume that was supposed to apply to the entire series. And Luke is widely recognized as a detailed and accurate historian. What he writes comports very well with what we know of the Roman world of the time and his style matches that of other historical authors.

So, the purpose statement for both books is really verse 4 of chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke. There Luke writes:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

Luke had spent years with the apostle Paul, and he had also spent years researching what he wrote. Later in Acts, he begins saying, “we” as in “We did this; we went here; etc.,” meaning that later he becomes an eyewitness, but he carefully researched everything before he became part of the events himself.

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