Messianic Fulfilment in St Luke's Gospel

Extract

St Luke dedicates his gospel to Theophilus, a man of some rank, it would seem, and tells him that his intention is to help him ‘recognize the solid grounds of the instruction he had received’ (1, 4). To appreciate his gospel to the full, then, we need to have some sort of idea about what instruction Theophilus had received. If we assume that he had received much the same sort of instruction as all other first generation converts of the apostles and their followers—and it seems a reasonable enough assumption to go on, until the contrary is proved—then it is possible to form some idea of what it consisted of from the Acts of the Apostles.