Interpretation of The Saint John's Bible: The Luke Anthology

Sept. 5, 2026

By Joel Allen, Ph.D., Professor of Religion and Philosophy

This illumination gathers together a group of stories which are found only in Luke’s gospel: Parable of the Lost Coin, Parable of the Lost Sheep, Parable of the Good Samaritan, Parable of the Prodigal Son, Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the story of Mary and Martha. These stories are illuminated to direct our attention to the glorious and golden Christ at the top right. Christ is the interpretive center of this anthology and the center holds.

Directly at their center, we find a reference to one of the most devastating events of the modern age. David Jackson was working on this illumination when he heard the news of the attacks on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. Rather than putting his work aside or shifting to darker themes of vengeance being felt by all, Jackson embraced this attack into the illumination—indeed at the very center. The Prodigal Son story now speaks to evils as current and shocking as the falling towers of trade in NYC.

What does it mean to serve a God who is able and willing to forgive the world’s greatest evils? The story of the Prodigal grapples with the challenge of forgiving evil even in its more extreme forms. Jackson, when interviewed about this later, said that thinking about this parable helped him to realize that the only way forward was to forgive. We cannot live the rest of our lives in a state of hate.

Jackson depicted the two WTC towers in sheets of gold which in the Saint John’s Bible always depicts something divine, grace-giving, and God-like. The gold speaks to the reality that these tragic events and these lost lives matter and they matter to God. God’s power, redemption and care are still available and precious.

Some thoughts.

1. Forgiveness is an act of will which may require time and practice. It isn’t enough to say, “I forgive you” to someone who has deeply harmed us. It isn’t enough to ignore the harm done. Forgiveness is a deep act of will-power that refuses to be controlled by darkness and vengeance. Only then can healing bring renewal.
2. For Jackson, and for us, deep engagement with spiritual art can provide solace and clarity for us in working through life’s great tragedies. Art can be a process of spiritual renewal. By looking in a state of meditative contemplation, we can enter into the word of God.
3. The use of gold to depict something as tragic as this, something which seems thoroughly evil and barbaric, reminds us that God is fully able to transform and redeem. Evil is never the end of the story. God always wins in the end.
4. Christ is still the center of life and that center still holds. Everything points to Christ if we have eyes to see.
5. The Prodigal Son parable doesn't minimize the son's betrayal; the father sees him from a long way off, meaning he was watching and waiting. Forgiveness here is not amnesia but costly, active, and initiated by love.

Luke Anthology (detail), Donald Jackson with contributions from Aidan Hart and Sally Mae Joseph, © 2002 The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Dakota Wesleyan University is a community rooted in the values of learning, leadership, faith, and service. The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Edition, presented to the university in 2024, is a remarkable treasure, inspired by the first handwritten and illuminated Bible in over 500 years. Only 299 copies have been produced and the set housed at DWU is the only one in the Dakotas. This work of sacred art has been entrusted to DWU by long-time friends the Christen family. DWU makes these beautiful volumes available for viewing in the McGovern Library and Wagner Chapel, where anyone can experience the Word of God in a deeply personal way. You are welcome to turn the pages, read the scriptures, and immerse yourselves in their beauty.