Would you consider yourself to be someone who’s generally open to new things?
1
When the women found the tomb empty, what sort of things do you think would have been going through their minds?
2
Why do you think Peter went to investigate the tomb himself? Luke notes that Peter found the linen that had wrapped Jesus’ body still lying in the tomb. Why might that detail have stuck in Peter’s mind?
3
Why do you think Jesus initially allowed the two travellers on the road to tell him what had recently happened, rather than immediately revealing himself?
4
Why did Jesus in v.25-27, and the angels back in v.6-7, think that the followers of Jesus should have understood what was going on?
5
Can you sympathise with the disciples’ immediate reaction to seeing Jesus (v.37)?
6
How does Jesus prove to his disciples that he really is alive again? If you were there, would this persuade you?
7
What is the disciples’ part in God’s plan to be? How will Jesus help them in this? From what we’ve seen of the disciples (in this chapter and previously), why is this help essential?
8
Given that the disciples did indeed become “witnesses of these things”, often at great cost to themselves, what do you think motivated them to do it and keep going?
9
Why is it important that we have certainty about whether Jesus rose from the dead? Why might it be important for you personally to have certainty about whether Jesus rose from the dead?
10
How could believing in the resurrection of Jesus change your outlook on life, today and in the future?
11
As we’ve reached the conclusion of Luke’s book, has it changed your perspective in any way about Jesus or about Christianity?
Over the following 40 days, Jesus’ resurrection appearances continued — in a room, by a lake, on a hillside — to his eleven disciples and many of his other followers. At one point he appeared to a group of over 500 people the same time. It is easy for us in the 21st Century to imagine that people in the 1st Century had no trouble at all believing that someone had risen from the dead. But Luke’s account seems to emphasise the disciples’ slowness to believe. Far from extolling the virtues of ‘blind faith’ that disregards rationality and evidence, Luke shows us the ways that they irrationally held onto their disbelief: first in the face of what they had seen and heard from Jesus before he died, then disregarding what the women told them, and for a while even refusing the evidence of their own eyes.
The famous High-Court judge, Sir Edward Clarke once said:
Do you think the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is compelling? What do you think is the most believable explanation of the events?
If you think that Jesus’ resurrection might be true, you should tell other people that! It really is life-changing, history-changing, world-changing news. And you should go to a local church, where Christian believers meet together each Sunday to remember Jesus’ life, learn from him, celebrate his resurrection, and help one another to live in light of it.
Finally, did you know that Luke’s account of Jesus’ life is actually only the first half of Luke’s writings which are recorded in the Bible? Luke also wrote the book of ‘Acts’. It’s full of stories about the disciples going out on their witnessing mission, by God’s help. It might help to give you courage to live in light of Jesus’ resurrection too! You should get a copy of a Bible and start reading that.