Luke wrote his gospel to a man we know only by name. He addresses him as "most excellent Theophilus." The gospel of Luke, unlike other gospels, was written for a person who was high in the Roman government — written during a time of religious persecution; and it was the hope of Luke that this would be read by those outside the faith so that they might learn that they had nothing to fear from the Christians.

So Luke, a Gentile himself, wrote his gospel to be read mainly by other Gentiles. If that is so, on reading this enchanting little passage about Jesus' first trip to the temple in Jerusalem with his parents, we have to wonder why Luke is so possessed with notions of the ritual law of the Jews. As a Gentile, Luke had no big stake in the Jewish law. Yet from these verses we hear Luke men…