| We aren't given a lot of
information. He was obviously not a self-promoter!
Luke/Acts was written first and foremost for a
friend of his - Theophilus - who obviously didn't
need to be introduced to him; and he says little
about his own role in Acts. (Even when he joins
Paul on a missionary trip, he calls no attention
to the fact; we simply notice suddenly that the `he'
has changed into a `we'.) In the rest of the New
Testament, he is mentioned only three
times: in Col 4:14 (`Dear Doctor
Luke sends his greetings'), 2 Tim 4:11 (`Only
Luke is with me'), and Philemon 24 (`Mark,
Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow-workers,
send their greetings').
He wasn't
Jewish; Col 4:11 distinguishes Mark,
Aristarchus and Jesus Justus as `the only Jewish
Christians among my co-workers'. This means he can't be
the same Luke as the `Lucius' mentioned in Romans
16:11, who was a relative of Paul's. (However, E.E.Ellis
in The Gospel of Luke [1974] disagrees: he claims
that Col 4:11 refers to a group which doesn't
include Luke, and so he may have been a Jewish
Christian of the Dispersion.)
He
certainly enjoyed travel. He remembers
clearly, and describes in detail, the sea
journeys he took with Paul. He was somebody who
noticed the details of strange places (which is
why he's so good at noting local customs and
getting the names of officials exactly right) and
revelled in cultural difference. No wonder God
chose him to write the Gospel which would stress
the worldwide scope of the Christian message.
Did he
have a brother? It's unusual that he
says nothing about Titus of Antioch, who was
extremely important in Paul's work.(Titus is
mentioned 13 times in the New Testament but never
in Acts.) Is this because he didn't want to
mention him in case he seemed to be giving in to
family pride? (This suggestion was first made by
W M Ramsay in 1920.) Click here to read what early Christian historians said about Luke.
|
A website to help you study the
Gospel of Luke, one of the key documents of the Christian faith
