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Luke the Author

On page 520 of her historical novel Dear and Glorious Physician, Taylor Caldwell writes the following about Luke and his Gospel, “He put nothing in it of his own opinions, but only the information which had been imparted to him.” On one level that opinion is true.

On another level, however, I believe that God works through the personality of each writer of a Bible book. God of course is the co-author of each book, with the Holy Spirit inspiring the Bible as God’s holy written Word.

In his Gospel and in the Book of Acts, Luke brings to bear his Gentile faith- perspective; his keen intellect; and his powerful observation skills, honed as a physician.

He combines these three attributes as a kind of investigative reporter. Here is how Eugene Peterson renders the first part of Luke 1 in The Message Bible: “So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.”

In this article I am going to share with you what others have written concerning Luke the author. I will draw from commentators, authors, and translators.

I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian. “For Luke the chief historical event in which salvation was revealed was the ministry and person of Jesus. We examined his presentation of Jesus in the Gospel and concluded that the message and work of Jesus were presented in terms of salvation. The salvation associated with the messianic age in the Old Testament had become a reality in the ministry of Jesus. In Him the new era had arrived. We then saw that after His passion and exaltation the message of salvation bestowed by Him was the theme of the preaching of the early church. Those who accepted the message and believed in Christ experienced the forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to St. Luke (Tyndale New Testament Commentary). “The great thought Luke is expressing [by writing a sequel to his Gospel] is surely that God is working out His purpose. This purpose is seen clearly in the life and work of Jesus, but it did not finish with the earthly ministry of Jesus. It carried right on into the life and witness of the church. The church does not represent a new, completely unrelated act of God. Luke seems to be saying that the work of Jesus led, and in the plan of God was meant to lead, to the life of the church. Some writers like to bring this out by speaking of Luke’s theme as ‘salvation history,’ or by drawing attention to the promise and fulfillment motif.”

John Nolland, Luke 1-9:20 (Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 35a). “The Gospel account may have its own completeness, but Luke did not write it without having Acts already in mind. He is preparing for volume two already in 2:32 where Simeon’s words provide what will be the under girding structure for his later work. Only the reader who already has Acts in hand will do full justice to the subtle literary foreshadowings which Luke from time to time employs. At least in broad outline, Luke already knew as he completed the Gospel what he planned to do in the subsequent volume. In another way also Acts provides us with an invaluable aid to working out how Luke would have us read his Gospel text.”

William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (The Daily Study Bible Series). “The Gospel according to St. Luke has been called the loveliest book in the world…. There is a legend [followed by Taylor Caldwell] that Luke was a skilled painter…. Certainly he had an eye for vivid things…. First and foremost, Luke’s gospel is an exceedingly careful bit of work. His Greek is notably good. The first four verses are well-nigh the best Greek in the New Testament. In these verses he claims that his work is the product of the most careful research. His opportunities were ample and his sources must have been good. As the trusted companion of Paul he must have known all the great figures of the Church, and we may be sure that he made them tell their story to him. For two years he was Paul’s companion in imprisonment in Caesarea. In the long days Luke had every opportunity for study and research and he must have used them well.”

Ray Ortlund, Inter-Sections: Crossroads in Luke’s Gospel. This book is about Jesus Christ and it’s “mostly taken from the Gospel of Luke, described by Renan as ‘the most beautiful book ever written.’ Tradition says that Luke was also a painter. Whether he really was or not, here he paints with words a master’s portrait of Jesus as the Son of Man. Getting close to those who’d spent their time with Him, and then traveling extensively with the apostle Paul to absorb Him through spiritual eyes, and then being inspired by they power of the Holy Spirit, Luke recorded his material with accuracy and exquisite beauty under the authority of God Himself.”

E. M. Blaiklock, The Acts of the Apostles. (Tyndale New Testament Commentary). “Evidence which may be regarded as conclusive supports the view held commonly by the Church since the middle of the second century, that the Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, the physician-friend and fellow traveller of Paul. External evidence is far from negligible…. Internal evidence coincides. First, it is clear, and generally admitted, that whoever wrote the third Gospel also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Analysis of style and language places this matter beyond dispute. Secondly, the evidence of archaeology and epigraphy also points with increasing cogency to an author personally familiar with the world of the first century. Thirdly, that person was also a physician. His language has been exhaustively examined, and there is on doubt that there is a colouring of expression and a habit of vocabulary consistent only with a close acquaintance with Greek medical terminology.”

William Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles (The Daily Study Bible Series). “Although the book never says so, form the earliest times Luke has been held to be its writer. About Luke we really know very little: there are only three references to him in the New Testament–Colossians 4:14, Philemon 24, 2 Timothy 4:11. From these three references we can say two things for sure. First, Luke was a doctor; second, he was one of Paul’s most valued helpers and most loyal friends, for he was a companion of Paul in his last imprisonment. One thing we can deduce, the fact that Luke was a Gentile. Colossians 4:11 concludes a list of mentions and greetings from those who are of the circumcision; that is, from Jews; verse 12 begins a new list, and we naturally conclude that the new list are Gentiles. So then we have the very interesting fact that Luke is the only Gentile author in the New Testament.” [PC note: unless someone like Apollos wrote Hebrews.]

F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (The New International Commentary on the New Testament). “Luke, then, announces that his purpose in writing his History was to give a certain Theophilus an accurate and orderly account of the origins of Christianity, about which Theophilus had some information already. For the later part of his narrative he could draw largely on his own experiences; for the earlier part he could depend on reliable first-hand informants. His first volume is in essence a record of the apostolic witness to Jesus’ ministry of word, deed, suffering and triumph. His second volume takes up the tale after the resurrection of Jesus and carries it on for some thirty years; he traces the progress of Christianity from Judaea to Rome, and ends with the chief herald of the gospel proclaiming it at the heart of the empire with the full acquiescence of the imperial authorities.”

F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. “Whatever the truth there may be in the late tradition that Luke was a painter, he certainly was an artist in words. Many will endorse the verdict of Renan, that his Gospel ‘is the most beautiful book there is.’ How immensely poorer we should be without his description of the herald angels with their Gloria in excelsis, the Parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the story of the Emmaus road! It is the same artist who in his second book depicts for us in vivid and unforgettable words the scene where Peter stands and knocks at Mary’s door, the earthquake at Philippi, the uproar in the Ephesian theatre, the riot in Jerusalm when Paul was arrested, the appearance of Paul before Agrippa,.the storm and shipwreck on the voyage to Rome, the fire of sticks and the viper at Malta. Renan also said that it was ‘the most literary of the Gospels.’ We may extend this judgment to Acts and call the combined work the most literary part of the New Testament…. We find more really classical Greek in Luke’s writings than anywhere else in the New Testament, or in the Greek Bible, for that matter, although even in Luke’s writings there is also a great deal of Greek that is not classical.”

J. B. Phillips, The Young Church in Action: A Translation of the Acts of the Apostles. “The secular history of the period covered by this book of the New Testament… is of little importance compared with the spiritual history which is recorded, although of course at the time exactly the reverse must have appeared to be the case…. Yet the history told by Luke, fragmentary though it is, is the real history. The work done by the Holy Spirit through men and women is not only more important in the yes of Heaven, but actually has a far more lasting influence on human affairs than that of any secular authority. It is perfectly possible that the unpublicized and almost unknown activities of the Spirit through His human agents today are of more permanent importance than all the news recorded in the whole of the popular press.”

Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible. From the introductory essay to the Gospel of Luke. “Luke is a most vigorous champion of the outsider. An outsider himself, the only Gentile in an all-Jewish cast of New Testament writers, he shows how Jesus includes those who typically were treated as outsiders by the religious establishment of the day: women, common laborers (sheepherders), the racially different (Samaritans), the poor. He will not countenance religion as a club. As Luke tells the story, all of us who have found ourselves on the outside looking in on life with no hope of gaining entrance (and who of us hasn’t felt it?) now find the doors wide open, found and welcomed by God in Jesus.”

Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible. From the introductory essay to the Book of Acts. “Because the story of Jesus is so impressive… there is a danger that we will be impressed, but only be impressed…. It is Luke’s task to prevent that, to prevent us from becoming mere spectators to Jesus, fans of the Message. Of the original quartet of writers on Jesus, Luke alone continues to tell the story as the apostles and disciples live it into the next generation. The remarkable thing is that it continues to be essentially the same story. Luke continues his narration with hardly a break, a pause perhaps to dip his pen in the inkwell, writing in the same style, using the same vocabulary.”