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THE RECORDER AND RECEIVER
FRIDAY, JULY 3
Acts 1:1

2 Timothy 4:10-11

 

“…Demas hath forsaken me,

…only Luke is with me…”

 

THE RECORDER AND RECEIVER
 
No finding of modern New Testament study is more sure and assuring than that the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are not two books, written at different times, but two volumes of a single work, conceived and executed as a unit. Luke, the author of the third Gospel, wrote a continuation of that narrative, i.e. the book of Acts.
 
The recorder: Luke was the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. He was a gentile and the only one among the writers of the Bible. The church father Irenaeus in quoting passages from Acts repeatedly used the following formula: “Luke the disciple and follower of Paul says thus...” He added, “Luke also, the companion of Paul recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.” Luke was not only a writer but a physician by profession (Col 4:14). He was also a recognised great historian, the writer of the greatest life story of all time which is an excellent account of the key events of the life of Christ. He recorded the most important era in church history, undoubtedly proving the authenticity of the beginning of Christianity. He is considered by many as a Christian apologist who zealously defended and established the absolute truth of the gospel.
 
The receiver: Theophilus could either be a person or an appellative name for those who had a “love of God.” Barnes suggested that “significant names were very common, and there is no good reason to doubt that this was some individual known to Luke.” The Greek title for “most excellent” in Luke 1:3 occurs only in three other places in the New Testament and is given to men in office such as to Felix and Festus, Acts 23:26; 24:3; 26:25. It expresses not the quality of the men, but to the office which suggests that he was an individual person, who was supposed to be a follower of Christ and who desired to know the certainty of the things he had been taught.
 
Do you believe the book of Acts is recorded for us? Do you acknowledge that the whole Bible is not the word of man but the very Word of God? May you receive this book as a personal letter to you. Read it regularly and conscientiously.
 
THOUGHT: Do I receive the Bible as God’s truth?
PRAYER: Father, may I receive Thy Word which we read and hear not as the word of man but as it is in the truth, the Word of God.

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