Abstract:
It has been shown by scholars that Mediterranean culture of the first century exhibits certain distinctive characteristics in personality type and in concomitant social behaviour. Generally speaking, Mediterranean people can be described as of the interdependent personality type as opposed to the independent type of the modern Western world. The New Testament as a collection of documents reflects the values that prevailed at the time of writing. More importantly, each of these documents reflects an interpretive evaluation of past events for contemporary society, and at the same time intrinsically contains a vision for the future. In this article I wish to explore the implications of the Gospel of Luke's transformational guidelines for the church leaders of his day. His vision for the future of the church, I believe, can be presented in the form of the conviction: People are more important than rules and boundaries.
