Luke—Beloved Physician and Historian - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Forasmuch as many have undertaken to draw up a relation concerning the matters fully believed among us, as those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word have delivered them to us, it has seemed good to me also, accurately acquainted from the origin with all things, to write to thee with method, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things in which thou hast been instructed.
Luke 1:1-4

Luke—Beloved Physician and Historian
These verses introduce the Gospel of Luke, a carefully written, well-researched book presenting the Lord Jesus as true Man on earth. In Volume 2, the Acts of the Apostles, this inspired historian gives us an account of the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit as a Divine Person who replaced the Lord Jesus on earth and worked through the apostles in the Assembly.

Luke, who was evidently a Greek, first comes to our notice in Acts 16:10, where the quiet change of pronouns from they to we shows that he had joined Paul, Silas, and Timothy as they traveled from Troas to Macedonia to announce the gospel. In the next few chapters we see more of this subtle way of showing when he was a part of the team journeying with Paul. He was also with him when Paul suffered shipwreck on the way to Rome as a prisoner. Paul gives greetings from him in his letter to Philemon and, writing to the Colossians, he refers to Luke as "the beloved physician." In his final letter Paul tells Timothy, . What a comfort he was to Paul the aged prisoner!

In both books he writes, Luke begins with a note to Theophilus, a person unknown to us whose name means "Friend of God." The title, most excellent in Luke 1 is gone in Acts 1, perhaps indicating that his interest in Jesus had cost this man of rank his title.

Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.