Bible Person
Meaning: friend of God · Male · 2 cross references
Theophilus is the named recipient of Luke's Gospel and Acts, likely a person of status for whom the orderly account of Jesus and the early church is prepared. He stands as the addressee through whom Luke frames his two-volume witness. First appears in Luke 1:3.1
AI summary: Theophilus matters because his cross references place him at the literary doorway to both Luke and Acts. Through him, the reader is invited into an account designed to provide confidence, order, and continuity between Jesus' ministry and the church's mission. Taken together, the material presents Theophilus as the personal addressee whose name anchors Luke's historical and theological project.1
Central Figure
Theophilus
Meaning: friend of God
Lover of God, a Christian, probably a Roman, to whom Luke dedicated both his Gospel (Luke 1:3) and the Acts of the Apostles (1:1).
Lover of God, a Christian, probably a Roman, to whom Luke dedicated both his Gospel (Luke 1:3) and the Acts of the Apostles (1:1). Nothing beyond this is known of him. From the fact that Luke applies to him the title “most excellent”, the same title Paul uses in addressing Felix (Acts 23:26; 24:3) and Festus (26:25), it has been concluded that Theophilus was a person of rank, perhaps a Roman officer. 3
AI-assisted summary prepared for ai-BIBLE and stored as page content, based on dictionary material, person metadata, and linked Bible cross references.
Alistair de Blacquiere-Clarkson, “ai-BIBLE Bible Names JSON Factsheet Aggregating Material from Smith’s Bible Dictionary & Hitcocks’s New and Complete Analysis of the Bible.” ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
M.G.Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
Robert Rouse, “Theographic Bible Information,” Theographic-Bible-Metadata, 2020, https://github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata.