the third gospel

The Gospel of Luke is my favorite.  He is comprehensive, detailed and organized.  He's a second generation writer which means he writes based on interviews with eyewitnesses.  The cool thing about this is he tells us so in the first four verses.  He writes to a person with a Graeco-Roman name, Theophilus.  This alone helps us to understand how quickly the gospel took hold in the Gentile areas in the first 100 years.   It's Luke's own description in the first 4 verses that clue us in on why the details of his gospel matter:
Luke 1:1       Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
There is the point.  He carefully investigated everything from the beginning.  He interviewed eyewitnesses. His goal was that Theophilus would know the certainty of the things he had been taught.  The certainty of Theophilus then becomes OUR certainty. Praise God! 

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