Unexpected Legacies: Luke, The Healer ***REPOST***

Greetings, 

This is a throw back to my post on the HHH Blog on December 1st, 2024. You can see the original post here. I am re-posting this here as an introduction to a few posts that will be added to help me build consistency in my posts. May you find encouragement through it. 

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Luke AI Generation

Luke is one of those characters in the scriptures that you don’t think about often unless you’re in his gospel or the Book of Acts. He is often left to his own devices and never really thought of again once you get into Paul’s writings. He has his fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak, and then someone else takes the reins. It is a bit discouraging to think about if I’m honest. 

The reality, though, is that he had a much more prominent role in the early church than most realize. If you break down the amount of literature in the New Testament, the two books that are officially attributed to him produce over 35,000 words of the New Testament. That is around 27%. If you use the charts in this article I found a while back. Paul comes in at around 23% and John comes in at around 20%. On that alone, Luke should be valued. 

There is more to his story though, and while there is some serious speculation that Luke has a hand in writing the book of Hebrews as well, so there is no doubt that Luke was just as foundational to the beginnings of the new church as the apostles. So why does Paul garner most of the attention? Why is Luke pushed aside and left behind like dust in the wind? I believe the answer to this lies in his legacy. In all honesty, I have done so much research into who Luke was, I could probably write a book on his significance. 

For the confines of this short posting, though, I will highlight a few of his more significant roles in the early church. The most obvious role he played in the early church was his close ties to Paul and John Mark. Out of everyone who traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys, I fully believe that Luke was his most trusted companion. While Timothy and Titus have their own letters, it was Luke who was there to minister alongside him in the most trying moments of Paul’s ministry. 

One of the more uncommon aspects Luke attributed to the growth of the early church was his ability to track down and research things like the life and times of Jesus when no one else would. It is a proven fact that Luke has the most complete story to tell in his gospel. The Gospel he wrote is the only one that starts his story at the birth of John the Baptist and finishes it with the ascension of Jesus. It is also the gospel that details the most teachings of Jesus, as well as his healing ministry.

Here is what may be an unexpected realization to those who read this post. Luke wasn’t even in the picture of the New Testament until Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey. Everything that we know from his Gospel had to be researched. So, the beloved physician, as Paul so eloquently put it in Colossians 4:14-15, did his due diligence amid serving at Paul’s side for the better part of 12 years, in my most lenient estimation. It was through all of this research that Luke discovered everything he wrote about.

There is so much we can glean from having all of this information, and there are even those who believe that Luke and Titus were related, which would explain why Luke does not mention his name in the Book of Acts. I do not have a firm conviction on whether this is true, so I will give you the passages and you can determine that for yourself, 2nd Cor. 8:16-20 and 2nd Cor. 12:15-18. If they were brothers, the reason Titus is not mentioned in the Book of Acts is because of the kind of person Luke was. It demonstrates Luke’s great humility. If Luke did not even mention his own name in either his gospel or Acts, then why would he mention the name of his brother? It was not their culture to do so. 

Artistic Depiction

Most of what Church tradition acknowledges as Luke’s place of birth indicates that he was born in Macedonia or Antioch of Syria to a Macedonian family. Several commentators have attributed Paul’s vision of the man in Macedonia to Luke because that is where Luke first enters the picture. There’s also some significant connection with the name Theophilus, as that is who Luke is writing to in both of his books. Whether Luke knew him as a friend, or in some other way, they knew each other well. Often when we think of Luke, we feel like we have to associate him with Paul. However, there’s more to his story than being an associate with Paul.

There’s much more to say about who Luke was and what he accomplished as a fellow missionary in the early church. We can highlight his time teaching in places like Philippi or Caesarea, even the healing ministry he took part in himself. What remains in my eyes, though, is that he was a faithful servant to the ongoing mission of growth in the early church, a mission that required unwavering dedication and boundless enthusiasm. The pain Luke felt was just as profound as the suffering endured by figures like Peter and Paul. Although there’s no proof he was arrested or beaten, he saw many others endure these hardships. Despite all of this, he remained faithful to the mission and to those he was serving with. May our legacy in life be just as faithfully present as he was.

See you in the Pages, 

M.J.E.