St. Luke the Evangelist was a Gentile, born to pagan Greek parents and educated as a physician in Antioch and Tarsus. He was not one of the 12 disciples, nor of the 72, but rather he became a believer sometime after the resurrection of Christ. Luke accompanied St. Paul on his evangelistic journeys, continued to ply his trade as a physician, and stayed with St. Paul through his imprisonment, possibly acting as Paul’s scribe and writing down a few of the epistles. On his journeys, Luke interviewed eyewitnesses to the life of Christ, then wrote his Gospel as well as the Book of Acts. He wrote as a Gentile for a Gentile audience with great warmth and precision, and his two books make up about 25% of the New Testament.
CHALLENGE
Among the other eyewitnesses, St. Luke the Evangelist would have had to interview the Mother of Christ, since she was the only eyewitness for much of the first two chapters of what he wrote in his Gospel. Sometimes we are only tasked with being an intermediary that carries God’s message of salvation. What message is God giving you today? With whom do you need to share it?
