Luke 1:2

2. Delivered them unto us This delivery being previous to writing must have been oral. The us to whom they were delivered must be the Church and people contemporaneous with the apostles, and to whom they preached. The phrase “handed down,” therefore, is not a proper translation of the Greek term; for that would imply that the receiver belonged to a later generation. Luke, though after the apostles in rank, was probably their coeval in time.

From the beginning The beginning of the public ministry of Jesus.

Eyewitnesses To be “witnesses chosen before of God” of the doings and sayings of Jesus was the very essence and object of the apostolic office. Acts 10:41; Acts 1:8; Acts 1:22; Acts 26:16. In accordance with this is the bold declaration of Peter at a later day: “We have not followed cunningly devised fables… but were eye-witnesses.” On equally strong grounds does John, near the close of the first century, later, in fact, than the publication of this gospel, place his own testimony: “That which was from the beginning, which we have HEARD, which we have SEEN with our EYES, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled… declare we unto you.” 1 John 1:1. Such declarations afford no room, no interval of time, no chance for the intervention of fabricators for forming traditions, legends, or myths. Our gospels are the plain records of the statements of actual spectators.

Ministers of the word The terms eyewitnesses and ministers are epithets for the same persons. The apostles were to be eye-witnesses of the facts, in order to be official rehearsers of the history.