St. Luke

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Hi, I'm James Prothrow, Associate Professor at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. We hope you've enjoyed listening to and learning from our professors on this and all our podcasts. The Augustine Institute Graduate School exists to make Christ and his church better known and loved through the exercise of academic study. With St. Augustine as our guide, we focus on the narrative of scripture and the evangelization of the culture. Faculty and students alike immerse themselves in the rich sources of the Catholic faith, drawing upon sacred scripture, the catechism of the Catholic Church, and the writings of the fathers and doctors of the Church.

We have 550 students and over a thousand alumni serving the Church in parishes, dioceses, schools, the academy, apostolates, the domestic church, and even the secular world. With master's degrees in theology, pastoral theology, Catholic education and biblical studies, our programs are for anyone looking to go deeper in their faith. Are you interested in studying theology with the professors of this podcast? Earn your degree online or on campus in St. Louis, Missouri.

Apply now for the coming term of study. Learn more at augustine.edu.

SPEAKER_2 (1:15)

You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.

Taylor Kemp (1:32)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Taylor Kemp. I'm the director of Formed, and with me is our illustrious chief content officer, Dr. Ben Akers.

Ben Akers (1:38)

That's kind. Good to see you. Yeah, good to have you. Thanks for being here. Good to be saying. Thank you.

Taylor Kemp (1:42)

Today we are talking about the saint, or on this show, we talk about the saints. Today we are talking about St. Luke. So let us begin with the most obvious of questions. Who is St. Luke?

Ben Akers (1:52)

Who is St. Luke?

He is the third gospel writer, so the writer of the third gospel, I should say. So he is an evangelist. He writes the gospel that we call the gospel of St. Luke. And he also is the writer of Acts of the Apostles. So two major books in the New Testament were written by St. Luke. He is also the only non-Israelite, non-Jewish writer in the New Testament as well.

Taylor Kemp (2:14)

That's interesting.

Ben Akers (2:15)

Yeah.

Taylor Kemp (2:16)

So what do we know about him?

Ben Akers (2:18)

Yeah, so if we are looking at the scriptures, we are going to go through different passages of scripture. We can gather the data and looking at the data, what we discover is that he is from Antioch in Syria. He is, it's unclear if he was a pagan maybe who converted to Judaism and then to Christianity or if he was a pagan who directly converted to Christianity.

He is trained in the art of medicine. Paul in Colossians chapter 4 verse 14 calls him the beloved physician. It's a really beautiful title, the beloved physician. It's great to travel with the doctor.

Taylor Kemp (2:51)

It is.

Ben Akers (2:54)

Which I think is actually why we see mercy, why we see healings in his gospel in a particular way.

Taylor Kemp (2:59)

Yeah, with some detail.

Ben Akers (3:00)

Yes. And he also is not a disciple of Jesus. So we don't have any evidence that he met Jesus in his lifetime.

Taylor Kemp (3:06)

Which I actually think that's a point that's worth hanging on a little bit. There's been times where I remember telling people that not all of the people who wrote the gospels knew Christ and they're like, what?

Ben Akers (3:17)

Right?

Taylor Kemp (3:17)

So yeah, St. Luke didn't, he was not a disciple of Jesus in his earthly ministry.

Ben Akers (3:22)

That's right. So same with Mark. So we look at Mark, there's a chance that Mark could have been part of the Seventy-Two, and some I've even heard argued that Luke might have been part of the Seventy-Two. But really, Matthew and John are the two disciples of Jesus. We see them listed as apostles of Jesus as well. Mark bases his gospel on the preaching of St. Peter.

Luke bases his preaching on the gospel of St. Paul.

Taylor Kemp (3:44)

And how do we know that?

Ben Akers (3:47)

Yes, so there are a couple of things we can look at. So not only gospel, his gospel is not only based on Paul's account, because we have scenes in Luke's gospel that we don't have in other gospels. And Luke has this beautiful beginning to his gospel, if you have your translation in front of you. But just the very beginning of Luke, where he tells, you know, he writes his gospel. And he's writing to a person named Theophilus.