The Gospel of Luke: Introduction

Today, I start with my introductory lesson to Luke. Multiple Bibles, books, and websites are being used by myself to lead this story, including but not limited to Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Anselm Academic Study Bible, The Eastern - Greek Orthodox Bible: New Testament, Jesus in the Gospel and Acts, Bringing the Gospel of Luke to Life, Agape Bible Study, and The Gospel of Luke: Good News for the Poor. With that out of the way, let's get started.

Who was St. Luke?

• Born in Hellenistic city of Antioch
• Studies included Greek philosophy, medicine, and art
• Became a professional physician
• Preached with St. Paul in Rome
• After St. Paul's martyrdom, he preached throughout Italy, Dalmatia, Macedonia, and other regions.
• He wrote both a Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
• His patron was probably Theophilus, the governor of Achaia
• Some give him credit for contributing to the Epistles to the Hebrews.
• Is credited with being the first Christian iconographer. His first icon was of the Mary the Directress. (See below for what a 16th Century icon looks modeled after the original)
• In his old age, he visited Libya, Egypt, and then returned to Greece.
• He was hanged at age 84 from an olive tree in the town of Thebes.
• His relics are divided into three places
• His tomb is located next to the tree and it has the rib closest to his heart there.
• The tomb still works miracles, with myrrh appearing on tomb on 12/22/97.
• His body is in the Abbey of Santa Giustina in Padua
• His head is in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague
• His feast day is October 18th.

If you found this interesting, and would like to read more of the notes from my introductory lesson, send me an email by clicking the button below, and I'll be glad to forward you my notes. I won't make you do this for every lesson. It's just that the rest of my lesson involves tables and charts that I couldn't copy over prettily into Blogger.