The education of Luke  

EDUCATION

By THOMAS HUKAHU
LAST week, we studied the life of Stephen, the Christian Church’s first martyr.
This week we will study a character who is an important figure in the Early Church.
Interestingly, he is one of those characters who is there and yet remains almost unknown because there is nothing said about where he is from and what he actually did, apart from accompanying other believers.

Luke, a medical doctor
The character we will study this week is Luke, or Lucanus, the Greek form of the name (as I was informed in a book I read about 20 years ago).
Luke is a very important figure in the Early Church and Christian history because he is the writer of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts (or Acts of the Apostles).
Interestingly, when Luke starts the gospel attributed to him (as well as Acts) by addressing a person by the name Theophilus (friend or lover of God).
Scholars have said that the person may have been an eminent Jewish scholar and may have been based in Alexandria, down in Egypt.
Luke was a medical doctor (beloved physician), as Paul states that in Colossians 4.14. It is likely that Luke was someone who cared for Paul in his old age and as he travelled to Rome to present his case before Caesar.
It is also worth noting that in all the 28 chapters of the book of Acts, Luke states his presence starting in Acts 20, as in saying in verses 5 and 6: “These going before tarried for us at Troas.
“And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.”
Before that chapter, he was just detailing what happened to the other apostles and believers.

A historian of the first order
Luke was highly educated, particularly in medical science, and therefore his accounts of the events in those early days were second to none.
The book of Acts was the like the historical book of the Early Church and Luke’s input in documenting the important events in the life of the apostles and other disciples and how they dealt with issues was vital.
One scholar said Luke was a historian of the first class. Scholars have said that Luke has contributed 27.5 per cent of the New Testament, the largest by any single contributor.
Interestingly, Luke may be the only gentile who has written a gospel and contributed to the New Testament collection of books. So, who really is Luke?

Luke, an educated Greek
The answer I will give to this question does not come from the Bible but from a book that I read 17 years ago.
The book is titled Dear and Glorious Physician, which was written by Taylor Caldwell, a British-born American novelist (1900-1985).
I happened to stumble over the book in a school library.
The book tells the story of young Luke growing up in the home of Greek parents who were slaves of the Roman Tribune Diodorus, the Governor of Antioch, who eventually offered them freedom.
As Luke was growing up, he was very close to the daughter of Diodorus. Apart from observing the great company the boy provided for his daughter, the Governor also noticed that the boy was naturally intelligent, and so sponsored him to attend the famous university in Alexandria, down in Egypt.
(Alexandria was a city founded by Alexander, the leader in the Greek Empire, the empire that preceded the one set up by the Romans. Alexandria was the chief seat of learning in that period of time, like the Cambridge or Harvard of those days.)
Though an excellent scholar in all subjects and could have done any field of studies from mathematics to astronomy, he decided to pursue medicine probably because of him associating with his sick friend, Diodorus’ daughter, and having that desire to hopefully find a way to cure those like her who possessed ailments which had no known remedy.
(Diodorus would later become the step-father of Luke. In that sense, Luke came from a privileged family.)
Caldwell’s book goes on to tell of Luke travelling far and wide, helping and healing people.
He was brought up as a Greek and therefore he acknowledged the numerous gods that his ancestors worshipped. However, he was still unsatisfied with his spiritual quest and sought for the Unknown God – the one who was different from the 12 main gods that his people honoured.
(This was the same Unknown God that Paul preached about to the residents of Athens in Acts 17.23. Paul told the Athenians that Unknown God was Jesus Christ.)
Through Luke’s own experiences and study of the scriptures of the existing religions, as those of Greeks, Judaism and Romans, he realised that the Unknown God was the God of the Christians, a new sect that seem to have emerged from a group of Jews based in Jerusalem and later other major cities in the region.
That led him to later associate with Christians and eventually meeting the apostles in Jerusalem.

Luke writing the gospel
Luke did not get to meet Jesus.
He came to know the truth after Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1.8).
It is believed that Luke’s insatiable desire to know about the Lord Jesus had him asking everyone in Judaea about the Lord when he got there.
He spent time with Peter and other apostles as well as Mary, the mother of Jesus.
You will notice in the gospel of Luke that he makes detailed notes on the conception of John the Baptist and Jesus, as in telling about how Elizabeth and Mary went about even before the birth of their children (as in chapter 1).
Luke also details the birth of Jesus in a manger, of how a holy man named Simeon and a prophetess named Anna made prophecies about how the child will bring redemption to mankind.
It is Luke also who details in chapter 2 how the 13-year-old Jesus disappeared from his parents when they went up to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast.
They later found the child in the temple, discussing and learning from the doctors of law.
This story would have been told Luke by Mary, the mother of Jesus.
It is my theory that Luke spent a great deal of time discussing the details of the conception and grooming of a child because he was a highly-educated man who was brought up by parents who respected and valued education, both academic and spiritual, though they worshipped Greek gods.
I reached that conclusion after reading the book by Caldwell, Dear and Glorious Physician.
People who have careers in education know the importance of that: that is, how a child groomed to value education is one of the key factors that would influence their success in continuing on to higher education.
No-one could have presented the grooming of the child Jesus better than the graduate from Alexandria, a trained medical doctor and someone who was known far and wide for his skills.
Of course, I must make the point that what was written by Caldwell was gathered from legends of Luke by early believers and therefore we can take that with a grain of salt.

A few more things
In Acts 28, the last chapter of the book, we are told that Luke had sailed with Paul (and possibly a few others) to Rome where Paul was to present his case before Caesar.
It is interesting to note that Antioch, the city that Luke may have grown up in (in present-day Turkey) was an important city in the Roman Empire where it was the headquarters of the region.
Furthermore, it was a main centre for Hellenistic Jews, Jews who mixed Jewish religious traditions with elements of Greek culture. (Stephen was one of those Jews.)
Also, it is stated in Acts 11.26 that it was in Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. In that chapter, we are told that Paul and Barnabas spent a whole year with the new believers there, in ministering to them and teaching them about Jesus.
I am of the view that Luke must have studied the early Christians in his hometown and that kindled the work of grace in his life to get to know the Unknown God.
Luke’s life should teach us that the work of the Lord also needs skilled people, like doctors, to support other ministers of the gospel in evangelising the world.
The work of the Lord needs fishermen, Jewish law students, theologians as well as professionals from other fields.
Next week: So, what is the gospel?

• Thomas Hukahu is a freelance writer.