It seems there are many scholarly opinions on what Luke’s
purpose was in writing Luke-Acts.
When searching for information about Luke and Acts,
I came across what Wikipedia says of Richard Cassidy (presumably a Bible
scholar - quoted with authority):
He believes that Luke’s
purpose was to share his faith in Jesus, to provide guidance for living under
Roman rule and to inform believers of how to act if put on trial.[15] Furthermore, Cassidy
believes that Luke’s work serves to “equip his readers to handle such trials”
by providing examples of the disciples’ suffering and to encourage them to
“show the same faithfulness of testimony when under trial as Jesus and the
leading disciples.”[15]
And so on to Chapter 6 – the difficulties of administration
of charity, and Stephen. The Greek-speaking widows were receiving less
food than the Hebrew-speaking ones. The apostles had enough to do without
having to worry about such things. It seems we are still talking about a
communal society. A committee of seven was chosen to attend to matters of
business. Stephen was one of those chosen. He was no ordinary
accountant! We are told that he was full of faith and “did great wonders
and miracles among the people.”
Joyce Voysey
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