Sunday School Lesson on Luke

Introduction

Goal: My goal today is to discuss the authorship and credibility of the Gospel of Luke. This is a modification of a paper that I wrote for one of my classes this last semester. The topics that we will be covering will be How Acts and Luke relate, Modern Theories and Ancient theories on who wrote Luke, and then discussing the internal and external evidence pointing to Luke as the author.

Who is this Luke

Accompanied Paul (Carroll)

Philemon 24, Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11

Not a direct eyewitness

Prologue of Luke

Luke and Acts

Luke and Acts were for the same audience

Luke 1:1-4

Acts 1:1-3

Who was Theophilus?

Modern Theories vs Ancient

Ignacius and the early church

Poor Theories

Redaction and Form criticism

That the Gospel is actually from the early church gathering writings and naming the collection after Luke

The Female Luke

Authorship of Luke

Internal

We statements in Acts

External

Ignacius and Early Church

Poor Theories

Collectively the Church

A woman (Helm)

How When Why and Where

The gathering of documents

Some say using Mark

Cesearea being a key place while Paul was imprisoned there

When

If he gathered documents at Cesearea than AD 60 would be earliest

Why

to provide assurance and information about the Gospel that theophilus and others had heard

Conclusion