When reading events in the gospels that all four writers choose to cover, certain words or phrases that one author chooses to use often will jump off the page at me. It is this way in how all four gospel writers include Peter’s huge failure on the night of Jesus’ arrest.
The gospel of John includes a brief summary of this event, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke go into greater detail about what happened. However, each of these three gospels shift the exact words of Jesus’ warning to Peter.
Matthew writes that Jesus said, “Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” (Matt 26:75)
Mark includes an extra detail when he quotes Jesus as saying, “Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” (Mark 14:72) – Mark includes the detail where a rooster will crow twice rather than once.
But only Luke includes a detail that frames time. Luke quotes Jesus warning Peter by saying, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.” (Luke 22:61)
Luke includes the word “today” in his quote. This prompts me to look at Luke’s writing differently.
If there was any question in your mind about how people in that time period calculated their days, Luke tells us that these days must have been calculated from sunset to sunset – or at least that is how he does it. This has strong implications as we read Luke’s writing, because not only did Luke write the gospel that bears his name, but also the book of Acts, which details the history of the early church.
When Luke frames Jesus’ words as saying that previous evening, after the sun has set, that “today”, Peter will deny Him, we get a picture that Luke firmly believes in a sunset-to-sunset way of framing a day, rather than our typical thought where days go from midnight-to-midnight or sunrise-to-sunrise.
This observation is one that prompts me to pay closer attention to the other places in the scripture where Luke is writing about days, evenings, and nights and it helps me understand exactly the time Luke meant when he was writing.
This also leads me to a big thought: Comparing how each gospel writer shares an event is just as important as comparing how a single writer uses a consistent idea throughout his writings. Had I not compared all four gospels, I may not have noticed Luke’s unique framing of time, and now that I see this detail, I can use it to understand all other areas where Luke references the passing of time.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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