Luke is the longest of the four Gospels, and the only one with a sequel-the book of Acts. Luke, a physician, was not an eyewitness to the events surrounding Jesus but gathered reports from others to provide "an orderly account" of the events to someone named Theophilus.
Little is known about Theophilus. We don't know if this Theophilus, which means friend of God or lover of God, was a given name or a name taken after conversion (which was a common practice). The title given to him by Luke "most excellent" indicates he held prominence and may have been a high ranking official in Roman society. One thing that we do know about him is that he was apparently a Gentile. In fact, Luke himself is identified in one of Paul's letters as not circumscribed which was code for 'not Jewish.' If so, then Luke is the only Gentile writer of a New Testament book. He was present during some of the events in Acts, so Luke may have been a later convert to Christianity who knew Paul and sometimes traveled with him.
Luke wrote this Gospel to reassure Theophilus that God was still at work in the Christian community founded by Jesus.
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