The evangelist Luke appears to have been somewhat at a disadvantage as compared with the other three Gospel writers, at least to this extent, that he was not a personal disciple of the Master, and does not seem to have been in intimate contact with one of the original apostles, as was Mark. On the other hand, a careful study of Luke's Gospel and of the book of Acts, shows the writer to have been a historian of marked ability. Thus he had no hesitation in adding his account of the Master's life and work to the "many" which he implies had already been composed, especially in view of the fact that he claims to have had ''perfect understanding of all things from the very first" (Luke 1:1, 3).
There is now general agreement among most scholars that, unlike the other evangelists, Luke was a Gentile, and in all probability a Greek, and this may have helped him to see Christianity in its broader aspects and to break away from the limitations of Hebrew nationalism which can sometimes be noted in the other Gospels, particularly in that of Matthew. Moreover, in view of Luke's background and nationality, and his command of the Greek language, it is not surprising that his biography of the Master is generally known as the Gospel for the Greeks. Various indications support this conclusion.
For example, we find him dedicating both his Gospel and the book of Acts to one bearing the typically Greek name "Theophilus." Who this Theophilus was, is not certainly known, and since the word means literally "friend, or lover, of God," it may constitute simply a general method of address comparable to such phrases as "Dear Reader," or "Christian Reader," though the form of the word still suggests the primarily Gentile or Greek destination of the Gospel. Then when Matthew, with his strongly Jewish trend of thought, takes Jesus' genealogy—or, more strictly, that of his foster-father Joseph—back to Abraham, long revered as founder of the Hebrew nation, Luke, seeing no reason for pausing there, traces his version of the pedigree to Adam, whom he describes as "the son of God" (Luke 3:38).
