As we return to Luke 5-8, let’s make an overall point about the “synoptic” gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three are called “synoptic,” which means “seen together,” because they present most of the same material about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The order varies as we see when we read the three, but the content is parallel. It is possible to create a parallel of these three gospels where we can read the same events in Jesus life from each side-by-side. When we do this, we find an amazing consistency among the accounts that are included in all three or in two of the three. The accounts seldom have precisely the same details, but they are quite similar. Some have noted the “stories,” must be just that–stories, because they aren’t exactly the same. Yet, we know from daily life, when two or more people witness the same event, they don’t offer their account of the event with exactly the same words. In fact, when I was growing up, my Mom always knew when Kenn and I had created a story about something wrong we had done, when the words lined up perfectly. (That wasn’t too often, because we were usually too busy trying to convince Mom the other one had done it!) Anyway, as you read Luke 5-8 again, you’ll see many parallels to Matthew and/or Mark. You might even want to read the accounts side-by-side to see the similarities and differences in them.