Deeper Reflection
What do you notice about Luke’s opening statements to his Gospel account? First, Luke recognises that he was not the first one (“many”, v.1a) to attempt to document the recent happenings concerning Jesus. This would probably include the other Gospel writers. Second, Luke recognises that what happened in recent history were “fulfilments” (“accomplished”, v.1b). In other words, the life of Jesus was the culmination of the promises of God in the Old Testament! Third, Luke reveals that his sources are reliable because they were eyewitnesses of the actual events (v.2b). Fourth, Luke places his own reputation at stake when he claims that he himself carefully verified the data (v.3a). Fifth, Luke’s account was logically arranged (“to write an orderly account”, v.3b), in that it began with the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth, followed by His childhood, ministry, death, resurrection and finally ascension.All of the above gives us much confidence regarding the historical reliability of the Gospel according to Luke. As disciples of Jesus, we need to equip ourselves to better respond to people who are genuinely seeking to know the truth but are skeptical about the reliability of the biblical record of Jesus’ life and ministry.¹⁵

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¹³ John 14:6 ¹⁴ John 14:7 ¹⁵ A good starting point are these two articles on the historical reliability of the Four Gospels and the New Testament: https://probe.org/the-historical-reliability-of-the-gospels/; https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/reliability-newtestament/