<p>1:4 <i>That you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught</i>- The history of Jesus was something in which a new convert was &ldquo;instructed&rdquo; or Gk. catechized, as if the Gospel record was learnt by repetition. This is understandable given the largely illiterate nature of society at the time. Luke as a serious historian mentions his sources, describing them as &quot;eyewitnesses and ministers of the word&quot;. The Greek <i>hyperetes</i> which translates &quot;ministers&quot; is the Greek form of the Hebrew <i>hazzan</i>. The word recurs in Lk. 4:20, about the &quot;minister of the synagogue&quot;. The task of the minister was to look after the scrolls- &quot;the chest with the books was brought in to the synagogue when required from an adjoining room and brought back there afterwards&quot;. Luke's idea is that instead of humping a bunch of scrolls around, the 'ministers' were the eyewitnesses who recited what they had heard of Jesus. But because they would die out, there was a need for people like Luke to compose documents which recorded their testimony.</p>