For Luke, Christian existence cannot be understood as a matter of the individual’s isolated momentary encounter with God. Rather, for Luke, the community of those who confess the name of Jesus Christ stands within the great unfolding story of God’s redemptive faithfulness. God’s people have come from a past superintended by providence; they are going toward the end securely promised within God’s plan. This temporal locatedness provides the security (asphaleia) that Luke promises his readers in the Gospel’s prologue. Thus, Luke-Acts is to the church as the Aeneid is to Rome.
