The Identity of Luke the Physician

 

Luke was probably from Antioch, Syria.  He was the writer of the Gospel of Luke and was a gentile Christian who never personally met Jesus. He became a Christian after Paul taught him about the gospel. Using his scientific approach learned as a physician, his two scriptural books, Luke [κατὰ Λουκᾶν; According (to) Luke] and The Acts of the Apostles [Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, Acts (of the) Apostles], are the result of his numerous interviews of surviving first-generation Christians. In Luke :1-4, he says that he has carefully investigated everything before recording it. 

He was with Paul on several journeys and was present when Paul met with James and the elders (Acts 21:17-20) in Jerusalem.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:6, mentions “more than 500 brothers” to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection and that most of them were still alive. The mention of 500 witnesses to the risen Jesus was meant as a challenge to people living at the time Paul wrote the passage to check it out if they wanted to. Luke’s careful investigation probably included interviews with many of the elders and many of the 500 brothers. Luke 34:33.

Luke may be the Lucius mentioned in Acts 13:1. Lucius in Romans 16:21 may also be the same man. Because they are named together in 2 Timothy 4:10-11, Titus and Luke may have been brothers. 2 Corinthians 8:18.