New Testament for Schools – St Luke – A.R. Witham

The New Testament for Schools, St Luke, provides a very basic introduction and commentary on the text of the Revised Version.

My thanks to Book Aid for making a copy of this public domain title available for digitisation. I hope make more of this series available in due course.

Arthur Richard Witham [1863-1930], The Gospel According to Luke. The New Testament For Schools. London: Rivingtons, 1922. Hbk. pp.248. [Click to visit the download page for this title]

Table of Contents

• Prefatory note
• St Luke and His Gospel
• Palestine and its People
• Messianic Prophecies
• Synopsis of St Luke’s Gospel
• Text of St. Luke in the Revised Version, With Notes
• Index

St Luke and His Gospel

The Third of the Synoptic Gospels is universally ascribed to St. Luke, the auto.or also of the Acts of the Apostles, and possibly (according to one early conjecture) of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Greek form of his name, Lucas, is perhaps a diminutive of the Roman name Lucanus. Our knowledge of him is derived almost entirely from a few allusions in the N.T. and from deductions drawn from these.

St. Paul in Colossians iv. 14 (written at Rome during his first imprisonment about A.D. 59 or 60) speaks of Luke as one of those with him who send greetings. His name comes after those who are described as being “of the circumcision,” i.e. Jews by birth, from which we gather that Luke was a Gentile. St. Paul calls him “the beloved physician,” and there are frequent traces in the Gospel and the Acts of Luke’s medical interest and knowledge, and his use of correct medical terminology. In the companion epistle, to Philemon, Luke is again mentioned as “a fellow-worker.” And in St. Paul’s last Epistle, 2 Timothy (iv. 11), Luke appears as the only one of his friends who had remained faithful during the great apostle’s second imprisonment: “only Luke is with me.” From St. Luke’s introduction to the Gospel (see notes, i. 1-4) it is gathered that he had not personally been a follower of Jesus Christ, but had received the faith from others, who had been eyewitnesses. Possibly St. Paul him- self had been the instrument of St. Luke’s conversion, but this is not very probable. But both Scriptures and tradition shew him as the close friend and fellow-worker of St. Paul for many years.

In the record of St. Paul’s travels in the Acts, it is gathered from certain passages where “we” is used instead of “they “; that he joined the apostle at Troas in the course of the second missionary journey (Acts xvi. 10); and again accompanied him to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 6-xxi. 18) and also to Rome, in his voyage and shipwreck and his final arrival (Acts xxvii.xxviii. 16). The use of “we” on the second journey stops at Philippi, and is resumed from that place, on the journey to Jerusalem, from which it seems probable that St. Luke had been left in charge of the newly-founded Church of the Philippians, where he remained for some six years. He has been by many identified with the unnamed “brother whose praise in the Gospel is spread through all the churches” (2 Cor. viii. 18). Possibly also it is he whom St. Paul addresses as “true yokefellow” in writing to the Philippian Church (Phil. iv. 3)…

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