Luke 1:4

Luke begins the way the historians of the Greek world began their books, with a formal prologue that states the writer’s purpose and method and names the person he is writing for. Educated readers of his day would have recognised it at once. Their historians researched widely, spoke with eyewitnesses and consulted earlier records, and they said so at the start of their works. Luke uses this familiar form to tell Theophilus, and the wider Gentile readership that would read with him, that what follows is a carefully researched account of real events. Of the four Gospel writers, Luke alone opens by describing how he gathered his material.

The prologue also stands over a second book. Luke writes to the same Theophilus at the start of Acts: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). There he goes on to tell how the risen Jesus “shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs” (Acts 1:3). The Gospel and Acts form one continuous account, from the life of Jesus to the spread of the gospel through the early church, and this opening sets the tone for both.

The church has long identified the writer as Luke, the companion of Paul whom Paul calls “Luke, the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14), and has held that he was a Gentile.

By the time Luke wrote, “many” had already “taken in hand” to write about Jesus. The Greek verb, epicheiréō, is made of the words for “upon” and “hand”, and it means to put your hand to a task, to undertake it. The earlier writers made a deliberate and purposeful effort, and Luke speaks of it plainly. Accounts and oral teaching about Jesus were circulating among the churches of the first century, and Luke adds his own to them, as the word “also” in verse 3 shows. His careful description of his own method suggests that he aimed to give a fuller and more thoroughly checked account than some of these, though he names none of them and finds fault with none.

What the many set out to do was “to set forth in order a declaration”. The verb behind “set forth in order”, anatássomai, means to arrange things in sequence. The word for declaration, diḗgesis, comes from diēgeomai, “to narrate fully”, and it means a complete narrative told in detail.

The subject of all these accounts is “those things which are most surely believed among us”. The verb here, plērophoréō, joins the words for “full” and “carry”, and it means to bring something to its full measure. It can mean to assure someone completely, and it can mean to carry something out completely. The KJV takes the first sense, things believed with full assurance. Some modern translations take the second and speak of “the things that have been accomplished among us”. Both are true of what Luke records. These events had been fulfilled in history and seen by witnesses, and so the church held them with deep conviction. “Those things” are the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, which Luke’s Gospel tells from the angels’ announcements at its start to the appearances of the risen Lord at its end (Luke 24:36–49).

“Among us” makes this the shared faith of the whole church. The gospel was held in common from the start, by a community of believers who affirmed it together, and Luke counts himself one of them.

Verse 2 tells us where those accounts came from. They were “delivered” by people “which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word”. The verb paradídōmi means to hand over or entrust, and it is used for passing teaching carefully from one person to the next, whether by word of mouth or in writing. The message came down by a chain of trust, from those who saw the events to those who received them, and Luke includes himself among the receivers when he says “unto us”.

The word for eyewitnesses, autóptēs (plural autoptai), means “self-seeing”, someone who saw a thing with their own eyes. Greek and Roman historians appealed to eyewitnesses to show that their accounts could be trusted, and for readers in that world such an appeal carried real weight. The apostles wrote in the same way. John speaks of “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1–3). Peter writes, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).

“From the beginning” most likely means from the start of Jesus’ public ministry, and it may reach back further to take in his whole earthly life. When the apostles chose a man to take the place of Judas, he had to be one of those “which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us”, so that he could be “a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1:21–22). Jesus had told them, “ye shall be witnesses unto me” (Acts 1:8), and they preached as witnesses. On the day of Pentecost Peter told the crowd, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32).

These same people were “ministers of the word”. The word hypērétēs is said to have first meant an under-rower, an oarsman on a lower bench of a ship, and it came to mean an assistant, a servant or an officer. The witnesses served the word by proclaiming it, as Jesus sent them to do when he told them to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). Hebrews describes the same chain when it speaks of “so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (Hebrews 2:3–4).

“The word” (lógos) is the message about Jesus, his teaching and his works. John uses the same word for Jesus himself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The message the witnesses served was the message of the One John calls the Word, so handing it on faithfully was a sacred trust.

“It seemed good to me also” is Luke’s statement of a settled decision. The verb dokéō means to think or to judge, and here it describes the judgment he reached after his research, that this was a good thing to do. The word “also” (kagṓ, “I too”) sets his work alongside the accounts of verse 1. Luke speaks of his own resolve, and we receive what he wrote as God’s word, so his diligence and God’s prompting went together in it.

“Having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first” is the heart of his claim. The verb parakolouthéō means to follow closely beside, and so to trace something out and know it fully. Luke had followed the events closely and traced them from their origin, most likely by speaking with eyewitnesses and consulting existing records. He covered “all things” (pâs), and he went back “from the very first” (ánōthen), to the earliest beginnings of the story. His Gospel accordingly opens with the angels’ announcements.

He then set out “to write unto thee in order”. The verb gráphō is the ordinary word for writing, and kathexēs means “consecutively”, one thing after another. It describes an account arranged in a sequence that makes sense to the reader, and it may also mean the order in which things happened. That order reflects the order of God’s own plan, which unfolds with purpose from the prophecies of the Old Testament, through the life of Jesus, to the spread of the gospel in Acts. Luke arranges his account so that a reader like Theophilus can see how God’s saving work holds together.

The name Theóphilos means “friend of God” or “loved by God”. The title “most excellent”, krátistos, was a formal address for people of high rank. A Roman commander writes to “the most excellent governor Felix” (Acts 23:26), and Paul gives Festus the same title when he answers him (Acts 26:25). Theophilus was therefore most likely a man of social or political standing, perhaps a Roman official or a wealthy patron, and men of that rank often sponsored literary works. He may have been a new believer or someone still enquiring, and verse 4 tells us he had already received some teaching.

Luke wrote both of his books to him, and Theophilus stands at the head of the whole account. Yet the care with which Luke wrote shows that he meant it for many more readers, and through it God gives every believer the same firm ground he gave Theophilus. Luke’s Gospel shows God’s salvation reaching all people, the Gentiles included, in the words “A light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32).

Verse 4 gives Luke’s purpose. “That” translates hina, the Greek word that introduces a purpose. The verb for “know”, epiginṓskō, means to know by a mark, to recognise, and so to become fully acquainted with something. Luke wants Theophilus to have full and accurate knowledge, a settled grasp of the truth that goes beyond his first instruction.

The word for “certainty”, aspháleia, means security or safety. It describes ground that is firm and safe to stand on. “Those things” translates lógos, here in the sense of matters or accounts, the events and teachings that Luke is about to set out.

Theophilus had already “been instructed”. The verb katēchéō means to sound down into the ears, and so to teach by word of mouth, and it is the root of our word “catechize”. New converts and enquirers in the early church commonly received this kind of oral teaching in the faith. Luke’s written account confirms what Theophilus had heard and deepens it, giving him a lasting record of the truths he had been taught.

Certainty mattered greatly in Luke’s day. The early church faced persecution, disagreements within, and doubt from both Jews and Gentiles, and its teaching was often misrepresented or challenged. A believer who knew that his faith rested on events carefully traced back to those who saw them could stand firm and answer those who opposed it. John states a purpose very close to Luke’s near the end of his Gospel. He tells us that Jesus did “many other signs” beyond those in his book (John 20:30), “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31).

The “things most surely believed” are all about Jesus Christ. Luke’s careful history shows who he is, the promised Messiah, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. His account runs from the promises of the Old Testament to their fulfilment in Jesus, and it shows how “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). After his resurrection Jesus himself told the disciples that “all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44).

The eyewitnesses of verse 2 saw the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and the word they served was the message that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Luke’s two books carry the story on to Christ’s ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who empowered his followers to carry on his mission as his witnesses (Acts 1:8).

So the certainty Luke offers is finally certainty about a person. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Luke’s careful history is the means to that end, and through faith in the Christ he describes “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

Our faith stands on the same ground Luke gave Theophilus. The events of the gospel happened, they were seen by people who were there from the beginning, and they were handed down with care until they reached us in Scripture. Trusting Christ is a reasoned trust in what God has done in history, and it can stand up to hard questions. When doubts come, you can return to Luke’s account, as Theophilus could, and find firm ground there.

The chain of verse 2 also reaches to us. The eyewitnesses served the word and passed it on, Luke searched it out and wrote it down, and many faithful people since have preserved it. Now it has been delivered to you, and God calls each of us to receive it carefully, to know it well, and to hand it on clearly to those who come after.