Document: Frans van Deursen, Opening the Scriptures: Acts I, trans. by Nelson D. Kloosterman (Jordan Station, ON.: Reformational Digital Library, 2019).

Excerpt: “Luke the beloved physician greets you.” That is what the apostle Paul calls his faithful coworker in Colossians 4:14. He mentions him along with the non-Jewish believers. From this we infer that originally Luke was a Gentile who had been converted from idols to the living and true God, and was expecting his Son Jesus Christ from heaven. Luke discloses very little about himself. In fact, he does not even mention his own name anywhere in his books. Eusebius reports in his Church History (c. 325) that the evangelist came from Antioch in Syria, the earliest center of the Gentile-Christian church, and that he not only accompanied Paul frequently, but enjoyed contact with the other apostles as well. As a physician he belonged to the upper class. We find evidence of that in his enormous command of language. According to an ancient report, he was unmarried and came to live eighty-four years. But the tradition is not unanimous on this point.

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