Luke 1:2

2 They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message.

Luke 1:2 Meaning and Commentary

Luke 1:2

Even as they delivered them unto us
By whom the evangelist means, as appears from the after description of them, the twelve apostles, and seventy disciples; who handed down to others the accounts of the birth, life, and death of Christ; and according to which the above Christians proposed to write:

which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the
word;
either of the Gospel, or rather of Christ himself, the eternal Word of God; for from the beginning of Christ's preaching the Gospel, or as soon as he entered upon his public ministry, he called his apostles, as Simon, Andrew, James, John and afterwards seventy disciples; who were eyewitnesses of him, of the truth of his incarnation, and of his ministry and miracles; saw, and conversed with him after his resurrection from the dead and beheld his ascension to heaven; and were ministers that were called, qualified, and sent out by him and waited on him, and served him. This shows, as is by some rightly observed, that Luke was not one of the seventy disciples, as some ^F9 have thought, and as the title of this Gospel, to the Arabic version of it, expresses; for then he would have been an eyewitness himself: nor did he take his account from the Apostle Paul; for he was not a minister of the word from the beginning, but was as one born out of due time.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 Epiphan. contra Haeres. l. 2. Haeres. 51. Theophylact. in Argument in Luc.

Luke 1:2 In-Context

1 Dear Theophilus: Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us.

2 They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message.

3 And so, Your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you.

4 I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.

5 During the time when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife's name was Elizabeth; she also belonged to a priestly family.