Most everyone who knows me knows that Paul is my favorite writer.  He is thoughtful, smart, knows Jewish history and law, and is straightforward and says tells the truth.  He doesn't water it down to keep from offending you.

He loves the people he is writing to.  He scolds them, praises them, encourages them and blesses them.  He challenges them to be better.  To grow. To change the way they are living.  To follow Christ's example.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think he would be one of my best friends.  I couldn't stay focused enough for him.  My mind wanders.  Paul's mind didn't.  He was always on point.  Always sharing the Gospel.

The person I wish I could know more about is Luke.  He didn't know Jesus personally.  But he was someone who helped the ones who did.  We know when he wrote the Gospel of Luke that he went to the people involved.  Like Mary the mother of Jesus--Luke gives us her personal story of the birth of Jesus. 

We know he was a physician, and he tried to make what he wrote "first hand" if possible.  In Luke 1:1-4 he starts his Gospel by saying, "For...many have taken in hand to set forth...a declaration...even as they delivered them unto us, which...(those who) were eyewitnesses...It seemed good to me also...to write unto you in order...that you might know the certainty of those things..."

He wanted everyone to hear what the eyewitnesses had to say.  That's what he documented.  He was the only Gospel writer who added one exact word to a quote from Jesus.  Being a physician, he wanted to get the prescription exact. In Luke 9:23 he tells us, "...if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."  He is the only writer that includes the word "daily."  He is saying that every day, every single day without exception we have to keep on keeping on.