St. Paul is continuing to educate and guide the Corinthian Church community. Corinth is in Greece on the isthmus, and the Christian community was founded by Paul between 49-50 AD.  At the time, Corinth composed of a majority Greek population with sizable Roman and Jewish minority groups there.

St Paul is continuing his teaching on Spiritual Gifts, encouraging every one to use their diverse gifts and talents to become one body in Christ.  He is using the image of a body to demonstrate how the community can come together as a unit, rather than being competitive with each other.

The Gospel of Luke

St. Luke was a companion of St. Paul.  He was Greek, a highly educated physician, and he may have received his education at Tarsus.  He was a native of Antioch.  The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were originally a two-volume set.  

St. Luke wrote his new Gospel after “investigating everything accurately anew” (Luke 1:4) to create a comprehensive account of Jesus and the early Christian Church.  After traveling much with Paul, and converting many believers, these Gospels were needed as an authoritative source for the growing Church.

This Gospel reading then jumps to Chapter 4, where we see Jesus telling the the assembly in the synagogue that “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)

Theophilus, which in Greek meant “Beloved of God”, is a person of whom we know very little about.  He is not Theophilus of Antioch, because he lived much later (he was Patriarch of Antioch from 169 until 182).  We know from the Gospel itself that Theophilus was a convert to Christianity (Luke 1:4).  There are some who theorize that he was a literary device and not a real person, however, this style of writing was not common and it seems unlikely.