| Lk | Mt | ||
| 1 | = | 1 | The preaching of the Baptist |
| 2 | = | 2 | The messianic announcement of the Baptist |
| 3 | = | 3 | The temptation |
| 4 | = | 4 | Blessed are the poor |
| 5 | = | 7 | Blessed are ye that hunger |
| 6 | = | 11 | Blessed are ye when men hate you |
| 8 | = | 23 | Love your enemies |
| 13 | = | 40 | Tree known by its fruits |
| 15 | = | 41 | Why call ye me “Lord, Lord”? |
| 16 | = | 42 | House on rock and sand (with and without foundation) |
| 17 | = | 44 | The centurion’s servant healed |
| 18 | = | 62 | Question of John the Baptist, and Jesus’ answer |
| 19 | = | 63 | Jesus’ testimony to John |
| 25 | = | 46 | Two men who would follow Jesus |
| 27 | = | 47 | The harvest is great, the laborers are few |
| 29 | = | 52 | Instructions to disciples as to what to take on journey |
| 30 | = | 53 | Conduct on the way; greet the house |
| 31 | = | 54 | Whoever receives you, receives you not |
| 32 | = | 55 | More tolerable for Sodom |
| 47 | = | 91 | Woes upon the Pharisees |
| 47 | = | 92 | Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven (take away the key of knowledge) |
| 55 | = | 98 | The watching servant |
| 56 | = | 99 | The true and false servants |
| 62 | = | 76 | Parable of the Mustard Seed |
| 63 | = | 77 | Parable of the Yeast |
| 81 | = | 94 | The day of the Son of man |
| 82 | = | 96 | The days of Noah |
Each of these groups—one of seven sections, two of four, and six of two sections each—probably stood, within itself, in the same order as that in which we now find it in Matthew and Luke.
The sections grouped in Table X have suffered such slight transpositions as to make it probable that each of the groups constituted a continuous passage, probably in the order preserved by Luke.
TABLE X
| Lk | Mt | ||
| 21 | = | 58 | Things hidden and revealed |
| 23 | = | 48 | The mission of the twelve |
| 24 | = | 54 | Whoever shall not receive you |
| 25 | = | 46 | Two men who would follow Jesus |
| 27 | = | 47 | The harvest is great, the laborers are few |
| 28 | = | 55 | I send you forth as lambs among wolves |
| 29 | = | 52 | Instructions as to what to take on journey |
| 30 | = | 53 | Greet the house |
| 31 | = | 54 | Whoever receives you |
| 32 | = | 55 | More tolerable for Sodom |
| 33 | = | 63 | Woes upon Galilean cities |
| 34 | = | 61 | He that receiveth you receiveth me |
| 36 | = | 65 | Wise and prudent; all things are given unto me of my Father |
| 41 | = | 68 | The Beelzebul controversy |
| 42 | = | 73 | About backsliding, “empty, swept and garnished” |
| 43 | = | 70 | The sign of Jonah |
| 44 | = | 72 | Queen of the South |
| 45 | = | 71 | The men of Nineveh |
| 49 | = | 68 | Blasphemy against the Son of man |
| 48 | = | 58 | Fearless confession; be not afraid of them |
| 50 | = | 56 | Take no thot what ye shall answer |
| 51 | = | 32 | About care |
| 53 | = | 29 | About treasures, not on the earth |
| 81 | = | 94 | The day of the Son of man |
| 82 | = | 96 | The days of Noah |
| 85 | = | 97 | The one taken, the other left |
| 86 | = | 95 | Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered |
There is one other item, which I owe to Mr. Streeter,[136] that strongly supports the assumption that Luke has preserved the Q material in its most nearly original form. That is, that Luke allows himself much less liberty in the rearrangement of Mark’s order than does Matthew. The best single testimony to his faithfulness to Mark’s order is seen in the fact that where he makes his great omission from Mk (Mk vi, 45-viii, 26), beginning at that point his great interpolation (Lk ix, 51-xviii, 14), he does not, after returning to Mark, go back and pick up any single item that he has omitted. Detached sayings, some brief, and some, like the Beelzebul controversy, of considerable length, which he places in a different connection from that in which Mark gives them, can uniformly be shown to have stood in Q as well as in Mark,[137] and Luke follows Q’s order with Q’s wording. In the earlier part of his narrative, Luke does permit himself some little freedom in deviating from Mark’s order; notably in the imprisonment of John the Baptist, the call of the first disciples, and the rejection at Nazareth (in each case, apparently, at the expense of some anachronism). Except for these instances his transpositions of Marcan material are slight, and usually amount rather to its rearrangement within a single section than to a genuine change of order in the structure. An exception to this rule is his passion narrative, where his use of Mark is greatly influenced by his special source.
Q was apparently a collection of sayings, without chronological framework or data of any sort. But to the sayings of Jesus there was prefixed a slight account of the preaching of John the Baptist. This will not seem strange when it is remembered that Q was a Palestinian document, and that the cult of John the Baptist long survived the origin of Christianity. What is not so easy to explain is Q’s apparent inclusion of one narrative, the story of the centurion’s servant. It also contained an account of the sending out of the twelve, but apparently no reference to the passion. The absence of narratives, or of any chronological hints, would make its rearrangement easy; perhaps it suffered some derangement at the hands of those who added the sections peculiar to Matthew’s and Luke’s recensions (as it did at the hands of Matthew himself), and who are responsible for some of the deviations between the two. As Mr. Streeter suggests, if Mark were lost, we could not, from Matthew and Luke, be sure either of Mark’s content or his order. No more can we of Q. About all that can be said is that the strong probability is that Luke more nearly than Matthew reproduces that order.