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The Preface to the Gospel. Luk_1:1-4
v. 1. Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
v. 2. even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word,
v. 3. it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus,
v. 4. that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
Inasmuch as, since, seeing as is well known: the strong particle implies that the fact which the evangelist is about to state is well known, that it is important, and that it introduces the reason why Luke enters upon his great undertaking. Many persons had taken into their own hand to set forth in a connected narrative the great things that had been fulfilled, brought to their full consummation in their midst in the fullness of time. The Gospel-account had been transmitted in the form of episodes and individual stories, not in a long connected narrative. And there were many that wished a connected story concerning the events which now lay before the Christians as a complete whole. But many of these went ahead on their own initiative, and the word used by Luke implies a slight censure. They acted without authority of the great teachers of the Church, using their own judgment as to the authenticity of the stories that were circulating. Their efforts were on a par with those of the later apocryphal writers, a mixture of truth and falsehood. But the things that form the subject of Christian belief should not be left to scribes that wrote and edited without authority, without the certainty of full and divine truth. The disciples had been the witnesses of Christ's ministry, they had seen and heard the miracles and the sermons from the beginning, they had been ministers with Christ, assisting Him in His great work. They had been servants of the Word. The Gospel-story and its application engrossed their attention, that word summed up and characterized their labors. What they had taught had been the divine truth, since the Holy Spirit had led them into all truth. Their actual report of the Gospel-story and of the Gospel-preaching should be the only one to have validity among Christians. That is the notion which Luke had concerning the matter. Therefore he had made careful inquiries, he had very diligently followed up the matter from the very beginning, he had informed himself in all things with the aid of the responsible, authoritative teachers. He was therefore ready, on the basis of such investigations and studies, to write a continuous story, a connected narrative, of the entire Gospel-history, not only from the beginning of Christ's ministry, but from the beginning of His life. Luke then politely addresses the man for whom his summarized investigations were primarily intended, namely, one Theophilus, probably a Roman, whom he calls honorable, and who may therefore have occupied a high official position. This man had already received catechetical instruction (the first case in which such instruction is implied), but he had not made great advances in religious knowledge outside of the fundamentals, probably for lack of an authoritative textbook. but Luke wants him to know well, to understand exactly and fully, the certainty of the truth which he has learned up to the present time; he should be established in knowledge. It was for that reason that the writing or editing of a chronological and logical history of the life and ministry of Jesus was so desirable. Note: The explanation which Luke here gives does not in any way weaken verbal inspiration. "Though God gives His Holy Spirit to all them who ask Him, yet this gift was never designed to set aside the use of those faculties with which He has already endued the soul, and which are as truly His gifts as the Holy Spirit itself is. The nature of inspiration, in the case of St. Luke, we at once discover: he set himself, by impartial inquiry and diligent investigation, to find the whole truth, and to relate nothing but the truth; and the Spirit of God presided over and directed his inquiries, so that he discovered the whole truth, and was preserved from every particle of error. " Mark also: "This preface gives a lively picture of the intense, universal interest felt by the early Church in the story of the Lord Jesus: Apostles constantly telling what they had seen and heard; many of their hearers taking notes of what they said for the benefit of themselves and others; through these gospelets acquaintance with the evangelic history circulating among believers, creating a thirst for more and yet more; imposing on such a man as Luke the task of preparing a gospel as full, correct, and well-arranged as possible through the use of all available means—previous writing or oral testimony of surviving eyewitnesses. " It may be remarked, finally, that this preface of Luke's gospel is not only a splendid example of Greek writing, but also breathes the spirit of true meekness, such as should characterize not only the minister of the Gospel, but every Christian.