As they delivered them - As they narrated them. As they gave an account of them.
From the beginning - From the commencement of these things - that is, from the birth of John, or perhaps from the beginning of the ministry of Jesus.
Eye-witnesses - Who had seen those things themselves, and who were therefore proper witnesses.
Ministers of the word - The term “word” here means the “gospel.” Luke never uses it, as John does, to denote the second Person of the Trinity. These eye-witnesses and ministers refer, doubtless, to the seventy disciples, to the apostles, and perhaps to other preachers who had gone forth to proclaim the same things.