The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are sent by an individual, not a formal institution, namely Luke. In his opening first-person preface to his Gospel, Luke identifies himself through the method of his investigation, lists his sources, and speaks to his work directly to a named recipient, Theophilus. He is not a council, a church body, or an official representative of any organisation; his name is found in the first verses of Luke and Acts, and as anyone who reads his book knows, a dedication is a writer’s way of paying tribute to the person who had a significant influence in his life.
The larger community of which Luke’s message is a part is the early Christian church, the network of communities and missionary groups and eyewitnesses and apostles to whom Luke’s message was addressed. The content was not created by Luke. He collected, authenticated, catalogued and displayed it. The power of the message is in the chain of tradition that underlies it; the means by which the message was conveyed was one individual using the care and method of a first century historian.
Key Takeaways
- Luke, a physician, a historian and Paul’s companion, is the individual author of the message in the Gospel of Luke and in the Acts of the Apostles.
- Luke refers to himself indirectly in the first-person preface to his book in Luke 1:1-4, explaining his research process, his sources, and his goal of writing an orderly account for Theophilus.
- Luke’s writing is individual, but his message is that of the early Christian community, the apostolic eyewitness tradition, and what he says is the “carefully verified historical research.
- Luke-Acts is the longest single work of any single author in the New Testament, and was written as a single unit to the same audience, Theophilus.
- The institution that gave birth to the message is the early church, of which Luke studied the teachings, remembered the events, and wrote the accounts in literary form.
- The authorial method in Luke’s preface (Luke 1:1-4) is one of the most formalized in the entire New Testament, and is in the style of Hellenistic historical writing from the first century.
The Preface: Luke’s Own Statement About Who Is Sending the Message
The most obvious clues to the sender of the message can be found in the preface to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:1-4). This is an unusual text in the NT with respect to the clarity of the author’s method and intention.
Many have made an effort to compile an account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, which from the beginning they were handed on by those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and servants of the word; I, too, after investigating everything thoroughly, have decided to write an orderly account to you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth.
The following aspects of this preface are particularly noteworthy, as they set out who is sending the message, and on what grounds he/she claims authority.
I too decided the sender is a person who has made a personal decision. The first-person singular is intentional and explicit. This is not a committee document, council decree or institutional statement. A person is typing.
The authority of the sender is based on investigation, not on the authority of the apostle or institutional position. Luke attributes to himself the qualities of a historian: thoroughness, care, attention to sources, and an orderly method of organisation.
The sender was not an eyewitness, but was handed over to us by those who were first witnesses. He was informed by those that were. It is an honest acknowledgement of the transmission of the gospel and a declaration of the source of the authority of the content, not Luke, but the apostolic eyewitness tradition.
The author’s audience is a named person of high social standing, “most excellent Theophilus“. It is a personal communication to a public literary genre, as Hellenistic historians did when dedicating their works to patrons or prominent recipients.
Who was the sender, Luke?
The sender must be understood to comprehend what is known about him, since this influences the authority of the message.
Taken together, in the two books by Luke, the author comes through as a missionary and a skilled historian, who is indebted to Theophilus. Christian tradition and most mainstream New Testament scholarship identify the author of both Luke and Acts as Luke the physician, a companion of Paul mentioned in Colossians 4:14, Philemon 1:24, and 2 Timothy 4:11.
Luke as Physician
Paul uses the term physician when he refers to Luke in Colossians 4:14: “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you. This is a professional identity that applies to the question of who is sending the message, as it affects the nature of the authorship. A physician who has developed the mind of careful observation, of differential diagnosis, and of collecting reliable testimony applies those qualities to historical writing. Luke’s narrative style, which is so detailed and methodical, his attention to timing, geography, named officials, and precise circumstance, is an exact match to the professional habits.
Paul’s Companion Luke
The first person plural “we passages” in Acts (16:10-17, 20:5-21:18, 27:1-28:16) suggest that Luke was with Paul during some of the missionary journeys described in Acts. In these passages, the story is told in third person (“they”) and then changes to first person (“we”), which means that the author was there to experience the events. This is one of the best reasons to believe that the author is a historical person who had first-hand knowledge of some of the events, and not a later compiler who was only using secondhand sources.
Luke as Historian
He was perhaps Luke’s patron, in charge of copying and distributing Luke’s writings. In addition to being Theophilus’s informant, Luke places himself clearly in the tradition of Hellenistic historical writing. The technical Greek vocabulary of his preface (Luke 1:1-4) is that of historical method, as the word translated “investigated carefully” (parekolouthekoti) would have been used by ancient historians to describe careful, systematic inquiry; it also follows the convention of ancient historical prefaces by acknowledging predecessors, explaining method, and dedicating the work to a named recipient.
In form, however, Luke is in the company of other contemporary Hellenistic historians (Josephus, Thucydides, etc.), although his literary content and intent differ from theirs.
The Early Christian Community: The Institution Behind the Message
The person sending the message is Luke, but the message he sends is not his own. He is clear about this, for the content is from the eye-witness and apostolic tradition that preceded his writing. When you appreciate the institution behind that tradition, then you get the whole story on who or what is sending this message.
The Apostolic Eyewitness Tradition
Luke says that the things he is writing about were, “handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Servants of the word: the apostles and early missionaries who had been with Jesus and who were responsible for keeping, passing on and preaching the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
This tradition was not recorded when it was first established. It was passed down orally in the communities that developed around the preaching of the apostles, was shaped by repeated use in worship and instruction, and started to be written down. There were a number of people who had already tried to write an account before Luke.
The Early Church as an Institutional Context
If we can use the term institution for the first Christian community, it was a fluid network of communities that were scattered throughout the eastern Mediterranean, bound together by their shared faith, their shared teaching from the apostles, and their sharing of narratives about Jesus. There was no central headquarters, no formal creed (in the later sense), nor any institutional hierarchy like that which would emerge over the following centuries in this network.
Luke was a member of and a contributor to this community. His purpose was to provide Theophilus and by extension to a wider educated audience with a dependable, systematic report on the beliefs and motivations of the community. That is, the community itself provides the content, and Luke is the crafty man who provides it in literary form.
If Theophilus had not been there, we should have had three gospels, rather than four. We would have Paul’s letters, but not his conversion story. We know that the church grew beyond the Jews, but we don’t know how. Theophilus would have never had known many of the best stories in the Bible.
Why This Question Is Asked: The Academic Context
The question “who or what institution is sending this message” is most often used in religious studies, theology, and ancient history classrooms when analysing a source or studying a document. This is a type of question which requires the student to differentiate between the sender of the message, the tradition or institution that created it, and the recipient who is targeted by it.
When applied to Luke-Acts, the answer is multi-layered:
| Level | Answer |
| Immediate sender | Luke, an individual author — physician, historian, companion of Paul |
| Institutional tradition | The early Christian community and its apostolic eyewitness tradition |
| The chain of transmission | Eyewitnesses to Jesus’s ministry handed accounts to Luke’s community; Luke researched and organised them |
| Intended recipient | Theophilus — a specific individual of high social standing who had already received some Christian instruction |
| Broader intended audience | The educated Gentile reading public of the first-century Roman world |
The distinction between a comprehensive and a simple answer to the source analysis question is to understand each level of this answer. The message sent by Luke is true, but not complete. That is the full answer: Luke, as a transmitter of the organised testimony of the early Christian community, on behalf of the apostolic tradition, to a named patron and for him to a wider audience.
How to Analyse Luke-Acts as a Historical Source
The questions for students approaching Luke-Acts as a historical text rather than as a religious text are generally similar to those used in the source analysis.
Authorship
Who wrote it? Pauline letters, Acts (first-person preface, “we passages”), early Christian tradition (late 2nd century onwards) – all of these identify Luke.
Date of Composition
Those who date it earlier (early 60s CE) suggest that Paul’s death was not mentioned in Acts because it had not happened yet when Luke completed his work.
Purpose and Audience
Luke’s purpose is clearly stated: to provide certainty to Theophilus about what he has been taught. Luke was written for an educated Roman reader of high status, who would have judged the work according to the criteria of Hellenistic historical writing, and whose expectations Luke would have responded to.
Sources
Luke breaks the sources into three groups: eyewitnesses who passed on their testimony orally, previous written accounts that were compiled by others, and his own careful investigation. These source layers have been intensely studied in the context of their relationship. Most scholars believe that Luke used Mark’s Gospel, a collection of Jesus’s sayings that was used by Matthew (known by scholars as Q), and material unique to his tradition (known by scholars as L).
Reliability and Bias
But the influence of the gospel of Luke, which is part of the Bible, and of his book Acts of the Apostles, which has been a major source for the teaching and shaping of Church congregations for 2000 years, makes source analysis of Luke-Acts important: the question of the reliability of the gospel of Luke as a historical source has significant implications for the understanding of the history of early Christianity.
Luke is a writer who is an advocate for the Christian movement. He is not a neutral historian. His references to named officials, governors and emperors, such as Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, Felix, Festus, Claudius, Augustus are verifiable with other historical sources, and generally consistent with what is known from non-Christian sources. Luke-Acts is a more complicated source to assess than pure hagiography or pure secular history because of the advocacy purpose and verifiable historical detail.
The Recipient: Who is the Message Sent To?
The question to “who is sending this message” is followed by “who is it being sent to. The recipient of the book in Luke-Acts is Theophilus, whose identity has been hotly debated for centuries, but never resolved.
The name Theophilus means “friend of God” or “lover of God” in Greek. Theophilus’ identity as a Greek convert or a Jewish Christian is unknown. His name has led some to question if Theophilus was more of a nickname or a pseudonym than an actual birth name.
The context of Luke and Acts makes it evident that Luke is addressing a particular person, but his message is for all Christians in all times. Both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts have applications for all Christians, but were likely written to a particular person, to whom Luke refers as “most excellent Theophilus.
The companion article to this on the question of who is Theophilus in the Bible discusses this question in detail, including the Roman official theory, the wealthy patron theory, the Jewish high priest theory, and the symbolic reading that views the name as “all lovers of God.
Luke-Acts as an Unified Communication
In analysing the message in the classroom, one aspect of the question “who is sending this message” that is sometimes overlooked is the unity of Luke-Acts as a two-volume message. This message isn’t just the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, as a single literary enterprise, written for a single audience, and aiming for a single story, from the birth of Jesus to the coming of the Christian mission to Rome.
There are two letters from Luke to Theophilus in the Bible. The first one he wrote is the Gospel of Luke, which we use today. By the time he wrote Luke’s second letter to Theophilus (which we know as the Acts of the Apostles), Luke and Theophilus may have become more familiar, for in Acts 1:1, Luke calls him “O Theophilus” while in his first letter he calls him “most excellent Theophilus”.
The change from “most excellent Theophilus” in Luke 1:3 to the simpler “O Theophilus” in Acts 1:1 is significant for interpretation. It implies that the sender and recipient had become closer between the two volumes or that the convention of formal dedication was only used at the start of the first volume. Both readings fit into the overall context of Luke as an individual sender to a named recipient in two related writings.
The Complete Answer: Summary
A source analysis question that asks “who or what institution is sending this message” in the context of Luke-Acts will have the following components in a complete answer.
The person speaking is Luke, a physician and companion of Paul who compiled and wrote the two-volume book, the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
The institutional heritage of the message is the early Christian community, through whose eyewitness accounts Luke collected, verified and expressed in his literary work.
The chain of transmission is from the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry to the early missionary communities, through Luke’s careful research to the written text.
The authority claim is built upon two bases: the reliability of the apostolic eyewitness tradition, and the carefulness of Luke’s own investigation as he explains in Luke 1:1-4.
The name Theophilus is a particular one, that of a high-born person who had received some instruction in Christianity and for whom Luke had written to give more certainty and a complete orderly account.
Conclusion
The question of “who or what institution is sending this message” is easy and complex in the context of Luke-Acts. The immediate sender is Luke, an individual writer with the writing style of a physician and the method of a Hellenistic historian. The message’s originator is the early Christian community, the research and organization of which is the most comprehensive of any single author in the New Testament.
The authorial method in Luke’s preface (1:1-4) is one of the most clear and concise in all of ancient religious literature. He introduces himself to us, how he worked, the sources he used and why he is writing. The question of who is sending this message is also answered in those four verses by Luke himself, and that forthrightness is one of the reasons that his work has been an essential source for historians and theologians for two hundred years.
Explore more on biblical history, authorship, and the questions that drive the interpretation of ancient documents in the full library at Shani Levni.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is sending the message in Luke 1:1-4?
The message is being sent by Luke, an individual author whose name is prefaced by “in the beginning,” who outlines his investigative approach, and who writes to a specific recipient, Theophilus. He is not writing as an official historian of a formal institution, but as a private historian, using the apostolic eyewitness tradition of the early Christian community.
Who is the author of the message in Luke and Acts?
The sender of the message is the early Christian community, the network of eyewitnesses and missionary communities and the apostles who were the sources for Luke’s oral and written accounts of the life of the early church and Jesus Christ. Luke’s role as a transmitter is not a formal institutional voice, but his as an individual writer.
Did Luke write to represent the Church?
Not formally or institutionally. The Christian movement did not have a single headquarters, a formal council, or a hierarchy similar to what would emerge in the first century. Luke wrote in and for the early Christian community, to whom he was passing on his tradition. His message is not institutionally authorized, but is based on the apostolic eyewitness tradition and his own research.
Why is Luke writing to Theophilus?
Theophilus was already instructed in Christian doctrine, and Luke was writing to him to provide him with more certainty and a fuller and orderly presentation. The dedication is also typical of that of ancient historical writing, where authors would dedicate themselves to named recipients or prominent patrons to indicate respect and to assert the credibility of the work.
One message or two in Luke-Acts?
It’s a single, continuous, two-volume message. Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as a single work and to the same audience, with the same goal of telling the story from the birth of Jesus to the missionary spread of the early church to Rome. Books were later divided as the Gospels were gathered together, but were originally composed and written as a single entity.
For what reason does Luke give his message the authority it has?
Luke asserts two forms of authority: the authority of the apostolic eyewitness tradition that preceded him, on which he drew to get the content of his account; and the authority of his own careful investigation, the research he did “from the very first” before he wrote his orderly account. He does not claim to be an apostle, to be in an institutional position, or to have witnessed personally the vast majority of the material he presents.