This substantial, reliable introduction examines the character and purpose of Luke and Acts and provides a thorough yet economical treatment of Luke's social, historical, and literary context. Karl Allen Kuhn presents Luke's narrative as a "kingdom story" that both announces the arrival of God's reign in Jesus and describes the ministry of the early church, revealing the character of the kingdom as dramatically at odds with the kingdom of Rome. Kuhn explores the background, literary features, plotting, and themes of Luke and Acts but also offers significant, fresh insights into the persuasive force of Luke's impressively crafted and rhetorically charged narrative.

Modern biblical scholarship has long been preoccupied with the relationship between history and doctrine. Karl A. Kuhn argues that an overly rational approach to the thought of the biblical authors misses the equally important but long neglected affective dimension of biblical narrative.In Part I of The Heart of Biblical Narrative, Kuhn presents an approach to the Bible that applies "affective analysis" to get at a "cardiography of biblical narrative." Biblical narrative in both Israel's scripture and the New Testament is understood fundamentally as an attempt to persuade and move the reader, not simply to convince the reader of certain truths.In Part II, Kuhn's close reading of the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel shows how biblical authors employed pathos as a way of drawing readers into their narrative and, thereby, their understanding of reality.

In Having Words with God, Karl Kuhn introduces an approach to Scripture that regards Scripture as a sacred dialogue between God and humanity, and believers and one another. He shows how the Bible bears witness to an ongoing conversation which God initiates, inspires, and guides among humanity. Together, he says, believers then discern and express the character of God, God's will, and what it means to be God's people. Kuhn illustrates the various ways Scripture both embodies and invites believers into this sacred conversation and he offers practical suggestions on how readers can may make use of this approach in their own study of Scripture.

Human beings are embedded in a set of social relations. A social network is one way of conceiving that set of relations in terms of a number of persons connected to one another by varying degrees of relatedness. In the early Jesus group documents featuring Paul and coworkers, it takes little effort to envision the apostle's collection of friends and friends of friends that is the Pauline network. The persons who constituted that network are the focus of this set of books. For Christians of the Western tradition, these persons are significant ancestors in faith. While each of them is worth knowing by themselves, it is largely because of their standing within that web of social relations woven about and around Paul that they are of lasting interest. Through this series we hope to come to know those persons in ways befitting their first-century Mediterranean culture. What can we discover about the author of the third gospel and Acts, the companion of Paul whom tradition names Luke? How might that enable us to better appreciate the writings he produced that comprise roughly a quarter of the New Testament? Using literacy in the Greco-Roman world and Luke's advanced literary acumen as his primary clues, Karl Allen Kuhn argues that the evangelist was a member of the social elite. Social scientific models tell us that as an elite, Luke would have benefited from a highly stratified social and economic hierarchy that ensured the flow of wealth and resources to a few at the expense of the many. And yet, Kuhn argues, scene after scene of Luke's narrative challenge the stratified world shaped by Rome, calling its readers to embrace a new Kingdom and a new Lord. Writing to the most excellent Theophilus," Luke calls upon his fellow elites to join him in leaving behind the world that has given them so much and to devote themselves not to the Emperor but to the true Savior of humankind. Karl Allen Kuhn is associate professor of religion at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He is the author of numerous articles on Luke and biblical interpretation, and coauthor of the Lectionary commentary New Proclamation, Year C, 2010. His books include Having Words with God: The Bible as Conversation and The Heart of Biblical Narrative: Rediscovering Biblical Appeal to the Emotions. "