We just kicked off a new series, “The Gospel of Luke”, at Center City Church this week. During the sermon, I realized that I had a TON of facts about Luke’s life that I wanted to share, but may have been too much to share in one setting. So, as I promised our church on Sunday, here’s some interesting facts about the author of The Gospel of Luke (taken straight from my notes):
– Luke is the longest of the four Gospels
– There are over 1,000 verses in The Gospel of Luke. Roughly half of them are verbatim the words of Jesus.
– Luke and Acts are written by the same author. Both historical accounts. Luke is about Jesus. Acts is about the early church.
– This letter was written to Theophilus (a Roman political figure) around 62 A.D.
– Wrote Luke around 30 years after the life of Jesus. Very much like an investigative reporter that gathered facts from people who walked directly with Jesus.
– Luke was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul.
– Luke was a doctor. Colossians 4:14 refers to Luke as “the beloved doctor.”
FURTHER RESEARCH FROM HISTORY BOOKS (NON-BIBLICAL)
– Luke was from a city called Antioch.
– Disciple of the apostles…trained by those who were apostles
– Great examples of the second layer of the spreading of the faith
– Followed Paul until his martyrdom
– Being a faithful number 2 allowed Paul to become a great number one
– Presumed never to be married…
– Never fathered children
– Walked away from income from medicine, marriage and blessing of children
– To travel with Paul…live like Jesus…for the cause of Christ
– Died at 84…twice the expectancy during that time
– Famed archaeologist William Ramsay said of Luke – “Luke is a historian of the first rank. This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”
– Luke is almost entirely chronological…a few minor exceptions
– 41 parts of Luke are not in any other Gospel
**I want to give a huge thank you to the team at Mars Hill Church that provided great historical context for this research.
