Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St Luke — Reading Companion

(0 User reviews) 1820

In Category - Theology

Authors: Burton, Henry, 1840-1930 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2012 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Bible. Luke -- Commentaries Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 130,496

Reading time 568 min

Text sections 14

The source record for Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St Luke — Reading Companion measures this digital text at 130,496 words, 9 hr 28 min estimated reading time, and 14 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 25.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Bible. Luke -- Commentaries,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #39856

Henry Burton's commentary on Luke, part of The Expositor's Bible series, opens with a metaphor of the four Gospels as four walls of one City of God. The excerpt shows Burton's focus on Luke's distinctive preface and his treatment of the sinful woman's tears as a natural expression of forgiven love.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg39856

Read the Text

CHAPTER I. PAGE THE GENESIS OF THE GOSPEL 1

THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS 67

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 80

THE GOSPEL OF THE JUBILEE 128

A SABBATH IN GALILEE 148

THE CALLING OF THE FOUR 162

CONCERNING PRAYER 177

THE FAITH OF THE CENTURION 195

THE ANOINTING OF THE FEET 209

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER 225

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 241

THE MIRACLES OF HEALING 255

THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES 269

THE TRANSFIGURATION 281

THE GOOD SAMARITAN 294

THE ETHICS OF THE GOSPEL 336

THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL 352

THE WATCH IN GETHSEMANE 364

THE FIRST LORD'S DAY 400

_THE GENESIS OF THE GOSPEL._

The four walls and the twelve gates of the Seer looked in different directions, but together they guarded, and opened into, one City of God. So the four Gospels look in different directions; each has its own peculiar aspect and inscription; but together they lead towards, and unveil, one Christ, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." They are the successive quarterings of the one Light. We call them "four" Gospels, though in reality they form but one, just as the seven arches of colour weave one bow; and that there should be four, and not three or five, was the purpose and design of the Mind which is above all minds. There are "diversities of operations" even in making Testaments, New or Old; but it is one Spirit who is "over all, and in all;" and back of all diversity is a heavenly unity--a unity that is not broken, but rather beautified, by the variety of its component parts.

Turning to the third Gospel, its opening sentences strike a key-note unlike the tone of the other three. Matthew, the Levite Apostle, schooled in the receipt of custom--where parleying and preambling were not allowed--goes to his subject with sharp abruptness, beginning his story with a "genesis," "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ." Mark, too, and John, without staying for any prelude, proceed at once to their portrayals of the Divine Life, each starting with the same word "beginning"--though between the "beginning" of St. Mark and that of St. John there is room for an eternity. St. Luke, on the other hand, stays to give to his Gospel a somewhat lengthy preface, a kind of vestibule, where we become acquainted with the presence and personality of the verger, before passing within the temple proper.

It is true the Evangelist does not here inscribe his name; it is true that after inserting these lines of explanation, he loses sight of himself completely, with a "sublime repressing of himself" such as John did not know; but that he here throws the shadow of himself upon the page of Scripture, calling the attention of all people and ages to the "me also," shows clearly that the personal element cannot be eliminated from the question of inspiration. Light is the same in its nature; it moves only in straight lines; it is governed by fixed laws; but in its reflections it is infinitely varied, turning to purple, blue, or gold, according to the nature of the medium and reflecting substance. And what, indeed, is beauty, what the harmony of colours, but the visible music as the same light plays upon the diverse keys? Exactly the same law rules in inspiration. As the Divine Love needed an incarnation, an enshrining in human flesh, that the Divine Word might be vocal, so the Divine Light needs its incarnation too. Indeed, we can scarcely conceive of any revelation of the Divine Mind but as coming through a human mind. It needs the human element to analyze and to throw it forward, just as the electric spark needs the dull carbon-point to make it visible. Heaven and earth are here, as elsewhere, "threads of the same loom," and if we take out one, even the earthly woof of the humanities, we leave only a tangle; and if it is true of works of art that "to know them we must know the man who produced them," it is equally important, if we would know the Scripture, that we have some knowledge of the scribe. And especially important is it here, for there are few books of Scripture on which the writer's own personality is more deeply impressed than on the Gospel of St. Luke. The "me also" is only legible in the third verse, but we may read it, between the lines, through the whole Gospel.

Continue Reading →

Henry Burton begins his commentary on the third Gospel by comparing the four Gospels to the four walls and twelve gates of the Seer's City of God, each looking in a different direction yet guarding one city. He immediately highlights Luke's distinctive literary approach: unlike Matthew's abruptness or Mark's and John's immediate beginnings, Luke provides a 'somewhat lengthy preface.' This observation sets the tone for a work that attends to the evangelist's particular narrative choices.

The excerpt from the commentary on the anointing woman (Luke 7) reveals Burton's method: he reads the woman's tears not as hysterical but as 'the perfectly natural accompaniment of profound emotion,' and traces her love to a prior forgiveness from Jesus. Burton's prose is itself metaphorical, comparing tears to dew-drops 'wrought in the darkness' and the woman's soul to a chaos turned into Paradise.

The Four Gospels as One Light

Burton opens with a sustained architectural and optical metaphor: the four Gospels are 'successive quarterings of the one Light,' and their diversity beautifies an underlying unity. He explicitly rejects the idea that the number four is arbitrary, attributing it to 'the Mind which is above all minds.' This is not a neutral introduction but a theological claim about divine design in the canon's structure. The metaphor of the rainbow—'seven arches of colour weave one bow'—reinforces his insistence that variety does not compromise unity. Readers should note that Burton's own commentary will frequently employ such figurative language to explain biblical passages, as seen in the anointing scene where he compares the woman's tears to rain released by mountain ranges.

Luke's Distinctive Preface

Burton contrasts Luke's opening with the other Synoptics: Matthew begins with 'sharp abruptness,' Mark and John with the word 'beginning' (though he notes that between Mark's beginning and John's 'there is room for an eternity'). Luke alone 'stays to give to his Gospel a somewhat lengthy preface.' This observation is grounded in the text's own wording—Burton quotes the opening sentences—and it signals his interest in the evangelist's literary persona. The commentary thus positions itself as attentive to the specific rhetorical choices of each Gospel writer, not merely to harmonization. Burton's own style mirrors this attentiveness: he pauses over details like the woman's tears and the parable's structure, treating them as deliberate narrative devices.

Tears as Natural Theology

In the exposition of Luke 7, Burton rejects the notion that the woman's weeping is 'acted grief' or 'hysterical tempest.' Instead, he reads it as 'the perfectly natural accompaniment of profound emotion,' a storm of 'mingled but diverse elements.' His explanation draws on a meteorological simile: as winds blow from the sea and mountains cause rain, so the woman's past memories are 'blown up suddenly' and find relief in tears. Crucially, Burton insists that the tears are simultaneously penitent, grateful, and hopeful—'all suffused and brightened by the touch of mercy.' He grounds this interpretation in Jesus' own parable of the two debtors, arguing that the woman's love flows from a forgiveness already received. The passage exemplifies Burton's method: he uses figurative language to explicate the psychological and spiritual dynamics of the narrative, while staying close to the biblical text's own cues.

Burton's commentary rewards readers who attend to his own literary craft as much as to his exegesis. His metaphors—the rainbow, the mountain ranges, the dew-drops—are not decorative but argumentative, shaping how he understands the Gospel's meaning. The excerpts suggest a work that balances close reading with homiletical warmth, and that treats Luke's narrative as a carefully constructed theological account. Readers should expect a commentary that is as interested in how the story is told as in what it teaches.

There’s something tender about how Burton describes the sinful woman’s tears—not shame, but love finally able to flow. It stayed with me long after I closed the book. I felt that same quiet ache reading his Job, where grief isn’t answered but somehow held. Expositor's Bible: The Book of Job — A Reader’s Guide lingered the same way, like a hand on my shoulder.