in orderly sequence, one after another: laid out in the order that follows
This adverb describes things set out one after another in an orderly sequence. Its basic claim is that a series is arranged rather than random. What it does not settle on its own is which kind of order is meant; that comes from the context.
In some places the sequence is one of time: the line of prophets running on after Samuel, or the sense of what happened next. In one place it is a sequence of place, as Paul moves from one region to the next. In still others it names a coherent, well-ordered account or retelling that need not follow the exact order in which events happened. The single word covers all three because each is simply a different kind of order.
This is the word Luke chooses in his preface when he says he wrote his account in order, which has made it one of the most discussed adverbs in the New Testament. The debate is not over what the word means but over which kind of order Luke is claiming. His own use of it elsewhere, for travel from region to region and for a retelling that does not track the exact sequence of events, has persuaded most scholars that he promises a coherent, well-arranged narrative rather than a strict event-by-event chronology.
Nuances
What kind of order Luke claims for his Gospel by writing that he composed it "in orderly sequence" (Luke 1:3). All sides agree the word means orderly, one-after-another sequence; the dispute is over whether Luke promises strict chronology, a coherent and systematic literary arrangement, or the sequence of God's saving acts. The question bears on how to judge Luke's rearrangements of his source material.
- majorityA coherent, systematic literary arrangement that need not be chronological. The ordering principle may be temporal, thematic, geographical, or theological depending on the material, and Luke's own use of the word in Acts (18:23 geographical; 11:4 a retelling that does not follow event-order) shows he does not restrict it to time-order. David Moessner refines this as an artful narrative arrangement meant to produce the reader's assured understanding.; Henry J. Cadbury, 'Commentary on the Preface of Luke,' in The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, vol. 2 (1922), 489-510; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible 28; 1981), 297-298; Loveday Alexander, The Preface to Luke's Gospel (SNTSMS 78; Cambridge, 1993), 130-136; David P. Moessner, 'The Meaning of ΚΑΘΕΞΗΣ in the Lucan Prologue,' in The Four Gospels 1992 (BETL 100), vol. 2, 1513-1528
- minorityA broadly or strictly chronological order. On this reading Luke claims to set the events out in the sequence they occurred, and the word's temporal uses are taken as its primary force.; Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to S. Luke (ICC, 5th ed., 1922), 5; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC; 1978), 41-43; Benjamin W. W. Fung, Aida B. Spencer, and Francois P. Viljoen, 'What does καθεξῆς in Luke 1:3 mean?' In die Skriflig 51/1 (2017)
- minorityThe order of salvation history: the objective sequence of God's saving acts and the continuity between what happened in Jesus and what unfolds in the church.; Gerhard Schneider, 'Zur Bedeutung von καθεξῆς im lukanischen Doppelwerk,' ZNW 68 (1977), 128-131; Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, vol. 1 (1986), 10