What are the different characteristics between Luke and John?

Answer 1

Luke is longer than John. It also stresses the details of Jesus' birth more than John and is more chronological in form. The structure of John is more thematic in nature. While each recognizes the divinity of Christ, Luke stresses the universality of the divinity and associated salvation while John focuses on the legitimacy of Christ as Messiah. John is more theological than any other Gospel.

Answer 2

Answer
There are, of course, similarities between Luke's Gospel and Matthew's Gospel, since they both used Mark's Gospel and the hypothetical 'Q' document as their primary sources for information about the life and sayings of Jesus. However, there are also some surprising differences, some of which follow:

The two gospels provide stories of the birth of Jesus, but the accounts could scarcely be more different.
Luke says that the angel appeared to Mary to announce that she would have a son. He has Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem from their home in Nazareth, Galilee, because of a census to be conducted in the Roman Empire. Angels appear to shepherds to announce the great event. Shortly after the birth, the young family travelled to Jerusalem for Mary's ritual purification, then they return peacefully to Nazareth.

Matthew says that the angel appeared to Joseph to announce that Mary would have a son. Not only did Matthew know nothing of the account in Luke's Gospel, but the two accounts would not have made sense together. Instead of angels appearing to shepherds, magi followed a star from the east to worship Jesus. The family fled to Egypt, to escape the slaughter of the infants, then returned after Herod's death, but turned aside and journeyed to Galilee instead.

The two gospels provide the genealogy of Jesus, through the male line from Joseph and back through the great Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, and King David. The two genealogies are so different that they could not both be correct. Matthew said that Joseph's father was called Jacob, while Luke said that Joseph's father was Heli. Matthew said that Zorobabel's paternal grandfather was Jechonias, while Luke said that he was called Neri. In fact they both differ from the Old Testament genealogy of King David and his successors.

Because the Q Document was only a sayings document, it provided no infromation on when Jesus spoke these sayings, or in what context. Although Luke and Matthew followed Q reasonably faithfully, they often placed them at different times or places in their respective gospels.

The author of Matthew seems to have had a complete copy of Mark's Gospel, and followed it quite well. However, there is a "Missing Block" in Luke. The author of Luke clearly was entirely unaware that a large section of Mark's Gospel was missing from his source. Not only did he omit the important miracle of Jesus walking on water, he concatenated the previous verse from Mark into the verse that Mark had following the Missing Block.

In line with Mark, Matthew has Pontius Pilate conduct the trial when the priests brought Jesus to him, but Luke has Pilate seek to have Herod judge Jesus instead.

Matthew and Luke provide different last words of Jesus on the cross. Matthew tells us that there was an earthquake at the time of Jesus' death and that the graves were opened, and many dead bodies rose up and walked into town and were seen by many. Luke seems to have been unaware of this great miracle.

The two stories of the resurrection appearances are remarkably different:
Matthew says that when the women came on the third day, there was an earthquake and an angel moved the stone. The angel told them that Jesus was risen. Jesus appeared to the women as they returned to tell the disciples, and said that the disciples must go to Galilee where he would meet them. Jesus appeared to the disciples in a mountain in Galilee.

Luke says that the women came on the third day and found the stone already rolled away. They saw two men in shining garments, who said that Jesus was risen. On receiving the news, Peter ran to the tomb and looked for himself. Jesus later appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and returned with the to Jerusalem, where they ate in an upstairs room. He led them out on the road to Bethany, where he was taken bodily up into heaven.

Answer 3

For Luke, Jesus was a mortal with divine powers, but had not pre-existed. For John, Jesus was God, and there are passages where Jesus actually claimed this to be the case.

More than in any other Gospel, Luke had Jesus show compassion for the poor. John did not portray Jesus as particularly interested in helping the poor. In John's Gospel, many of the friends of Jesus were rich. Some of the best miracles that John presented involved helping his own rich friends.

Luke had Jesus tell his followers to love their enemies. In John's Gospel, Jesus told his followers to love one another, so that others would know that they were his followers. In other words, there is no longer an admonition to love your enemies.