even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us,
Parallel Translations
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even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us,
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even as they declared them vnto vs which from the beginnynge sawe them their selves and were ministers at the doyng:
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As they haue deliuered them vnto vs, which from the beginning saw them their selues, and were ministers of ye word,
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Luke 1:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 15:27 You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
- Acts 26:16 But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will reveal to you;
- Hebrews 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation—which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard,
- 2 Peter 1:16 For we didn’t follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
- 1 John 1:1-3 That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life (and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
- Acts 1:3 To these he also showed himself alive after he suffered, by many proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking about God’s Kingdom.
- Acts 1:21-22 “Of the men therefore who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, to the day that he was received up from us, of these one must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”
- Mark 1:1 The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
- Acts 10:39-41 We are witnesses of everything he did both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they also killed, hanging him on a tree. God raised him up the third day, and gave him to be revealed, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen before by God, to us, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
- Colossians 1:23-25 if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a servant. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly, of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God,
- 1 Peter 5:1 Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed.
- Luke 24:48 You are witnesses of these things.
- Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
- Acts 4:20 for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.”
- 1 Corinthians 4:1 So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries.
- Ephesians 4:11-12 He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ,
- Mark 4:14 The farmer sows the word.
- Ephesians 3:7-8 of which I was made a servant according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (10 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Luke was not an eyewitness, and therefore it was…
Luke was not an eyewitness, and therefore it was not he to whom the Lord appeared when Cleopas saw him: and he was taught not only by Paul, but by others of the Apostles also.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which…
2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
Ver. 2. Which from the beginning were eyewitnesses] Therefore it may seem his Gospel was not dictated to him by Paul (who was no eyewitness), as some ancients have affirmed. But if we can believe Tacitus or Suetonius in things that happened long before they were born, because we are confident of their diligence in inquiring, how much more should we believe St Luke upon such doubted assurance? &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Even as they delivered them unto us,.... By whom…
Even as they delivered them unto us,.... By whom the evangelist means, as appears from the after description of them, the twelve apostles, and seventy disciples; who handed down to others the accounts of the birth, life, and death of Christ; and according to which the above Christians proposed to write:
which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; either of the Gospel, or rather of Christ himself, the eternal Word of God; for from the beginning of Christ's preaching the Gospel, or as soon as he entered upon his public ministry, he called his apostles, as Simon, Andrew, James, John, &c. and afterwards seventy disciples; who were eyewitnesses of him, of the truth of his incarnation, and of his ministry and miracles; saw, and conversed with him after his resurrection from the dead and beheld his ascension to heaven; and were ministers that were called, qualified, and sent out by him and waited on him, and served him. This shows, as is by some rightly observed, that Luke was not one of the seventy disciples, as some (i) have thought, and as the title of this Gospel, to the Arabic version of it, expresses; for then he would have been an eyewitness himself: nor did he take his account from the Apostle Paul; for he was not a minister of the word from the beginning, but was as one born out of due time,
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(i) Epiphan. contra Haeres. l. 2. Haeres. 51. Theophylact. in Argument in Luc.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 2. Even as they delivered them unto us,…
Verse 2. Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses] Probably this alludes to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, which it is likely were written before St. Luke wrote his, and on the models of which he professes to write his own; and απ αρχης, from the beginning, must mean, from the time that Christ first began to proclaim the glad tidings of the kingdom; and αυτοπται, eye-witnesses, must necessarily signify, those who had been with him from the beginning, and consequently had the best opportunities of knowing the truth of every fact.
Ministers of the word] του λογου. Some suppose that our blessed Lord is meant by this phrase; as ὁ Λογος, the Word or Logos, is his essential character in Joh 1:1, c. but it does not appear that any of the inspired penmen ever use the word in this sense except John himself; for here it certainly means the doctrine of Christ; and in this sense λογος is frequently used both by the evangelists and apostles.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain As they delivered them - As they narrated them.…
As they delivered them - As they narrated them. As they gave an account of them.
From the beginning - From the commencement of these things - that is, from the birth of John, or perhaps from the beginning of the ministry of Jesus.
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Eye-witnesses - Who had seen those things themselves, and who were therefore proper witnesses.
Ministers of the word - The term “word” here means the “gospel.” Luke never uses it, as John does, to denote the second Person of the Trinity. These eye-witnesses and ministers refer, doubtless, to the seventy disciples, to the apostles, and perhaps to other preachers who had gone forth to proclaim the same things.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain from the beginning--that is, of His public ministry, as…
from the beginning--that is, of His public ministry, as is plain from what follows.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 2. Delivered them unto us—This delivery being previous to…
2. Delivered them unto us—This delivery being previous to writing must have been oral. The us to whom they were delivered must be the Church and people contemporaneous with the apostles, and to whom they preached. The phrase “handed down,” therefore, is not a proper translation of the Greek term; for that would imply that the receiver belonged to a later generation. Luke, though after the apostles in rank, was probably their coeval in time.
From the beginning—The beginning of the public ministry of Jesus.
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Eyewitnesses—To be “witnesses chosen before of God” of the doings and sayings of Jesus was the very essence and object of the apostolic office. Act_10:41; Act_1:8; Act_1:22; Act_26:16. In accordance with this is the bold declaration of Peter at a later day: “We have not followed cunningly devised fables… but were eye-witnesses.” On equally strong grounds does John, near the close of the first century, later, in fact, than the publication of this gospel, place his own testimony: “That which was from the beginning, which we have HEARD, which we have SEEN with our EYES, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled… declare we unto you.” 1Jn_1:1. Such declarations afford no room, no interval of time, no chance for the intervention of fabricators for forming traditions, legends, or myths. Our gospels are the plain records of the statements of actual spectators.
Ministers of the word—The terms eyewitnesses and ministers are epithets for the same persons. The apostles were to be eye-witnesses of the facts, in order to be official rehearsers of the history.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. even as they delivered them unto us, which]…
2. even as they delivered them unto us, which] The English version is here ambiguous; and the way in which it is often read shews how completely it is misunderstood. It does not mean ‘that the writers of these narratives delivered them to St Luke and others who were eyewitnesses, &c.,’ but that ‘since many undertook to rearrange the facts which have been delivered (1Co_11:23; 1Co_15:3; 2Th_2:15) as a sacred treasure or tradition (1Ti_6:20; 2Ti_1:14) to us Christians by those who became eyewitnesses’ (which St Luke does not claim to be) ‘and ministers of the word, I too determined, &c.’ The words imply that the narratives to which St Luke alludes were secondhand—that they were rearrangements of an oral tradition received from apostles and original disciples. Clearly therefore there can be no allusion to the Gospel of St Matthew, who wrote his own narrative and would have had no need to use one which had been ‘delivered’ and ‘handed down’ to him.
eyewitnesses, and ministers] Those who delivered to the Church the facts of the Saviour’s life had ‘personal knowledge and practical experience,’ which these narrators had not. (See Act_1:21-22.)
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2) Even as they delivered them unto us.—There is…
(2) Even as they delivered them unto us.—There is something noticeable in the candour with which the writer disclaims the character of an eyewitness. The word “delivered” is the same as that used by St. Paul when he speaks of the history of the Lord’s Supper (1Co_11:23-25) and of the Resurrection (1Co_15:3-7), and, with its cognate noun “tradition” (2Th_2:15), would seem to have been almost a technical term for the oral teaching which at least included an outline of our Lord’s life and teaching.
Ministers of the word.—The word used is that which describes the work of an attendant, something between a “slave” and a “minister,” in the later ecclesiastical use of the term as equivalent to “deacon” or “preacher.” It is used of St. Mark in Act_13:5. On the opportunities St. Luke enjoyed for converse with such as these, see Introduction. The “word” is used in its more general Pauline sense (as e.g., 1Co_1:18; 1Co_2:4), as equivalent to the “gospel,” not in the higher personal meaning which it acquired afterwards in St. John (1Jn_2:14).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Even as they delivered them unto us, which from…
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the Word. The general accuracy of the recitals contained in those early Gospels is here conceded, as the source of these primitive writings was the tradition delivered by the eye-witnesses of the acts of Jesus; among these eye-witnesses the apostles would, of course, hold the foremost place. The whole statement may be roughly paraphrased thus: "The narrative of the memorable events which have been accomplished in our midst many have undertaken to compose. These different narratives are in strict conformity with the apostles" tradition, which men who were themselves eye-witnesses of the great events, and subsequently ministers of the Word, handed down to us. Now, I have traced up all these traditions anew to their very sources, and propose rewriting them in consecutive order, that you, my lord Theophilus, may be fully convinced of the positive certainty of those great truths in which you have been instructed." Eye-witnesses, anal ministers of the Word; witnesses of the events of the public ministry of Jesus, from the baptism to the Ascension. These men, in great numbers, after Pentecost, became ministers and preachers of the Word.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.