“Only Luke is with me.”

Kenny Embry

WHEN WE THINK of the New Testament it’s difficult to imagine not having the book of Acts. Think for a moment of all the things we know only because we have the book of Acts.  Acts tells us about Christ’s ascension.  Acts records for us the first Gentile conversion.  Acts recounts for us Peter’s sermon on Pentecost.  Acts introduces us to a persecutor of the church named Saul who would turn out to be one of the major forces in support of the church later when we know him by the Hellenized version of his name, Paul.  Acts tells us about all of Paul’s missionary journeys and about his confrontation with the Jews. It also alludes to Paul’s presumed final journey to Rome where he appeared before Caesar.  Through Acts we are introduced to the church at Ephesus, the inquisitive Athenians on Mars Hill, to Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla, and a series of godly men and women who we know by name today, despite the fact that they have been dead and buried for close to 2,000 years.  It is a book of great faith and consequence.  Yet, the man who wrote this book and the gospel that bears his name is mentioned only three times in the New Testament.  He is a man of obscurity, and yet we owe him so much.

Luke is one of those characters in the Bible that simply fades into the woodwork.  He is a major contributor to our understanding of what the gospel means. But unlike Paul, Peter or John, who also penned books of our New Testament canon, Luke doesn’t talk about himself, despite the fact that he, too, was a witness of great things.  It is almost incomprehensible that in the two books that have so little controversy surrounding his authorship, he doesn’t even mention his own name.  He was a constant companion of Paul, and yet the only reason we know that is because of a pronoun change.  For the first 19 chapters of Acts, Luke says that “they” went to this city, and “they” taught at this synagogue.  But in Acts 20:6, he simply says, “we sailed from Philippi.”  And this is how we know that Luke was with Paul.

The three mentions of Luke’s name tell us something a little more about him each time.  These three occurrences are in Colossians 4:14, Philemon 24, and II Timothy 4:11.

The beloved physician.  In Colossians 4:14, Paul writes as part of his closing, “Luke, the beloved physician sends you his greetings, and also Demas.”  This is how we know Luke was a physician.  We often think of physicians as people who come from wealth, or become wealthy. However, W. T. Dayton, in his article on Luke in Tenney's Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible offers another possibility.  Luke's transliterated Greek name is Lucas.  According to Dayton, names that ended in “-as” usually meant the person was a slave.  So, there's a real possibility that Luke was a freedman. His life could have been very different from the affluence we sometimes associate with physicians.  However, Paul doesn't just call him a physician, but a beloved physician.  We've all probably experienced doctors whose intelligence was unquestioned, but whose compassion was lacking.  Luke was undoubtedly very intelligent.  To be a physician even in that time meant a great deal of study.  But he was someone who could show compassion through his discipline.  He was a doctor that aided both body and soul.

Luke, my fellow worker.  Not only was Luke a physician who could aid in Paul’s infirmities, but in Philemon 24 he is called a fellow worker.  Paul was driven by the Lord to do great things.  By calling Luke a “fellow worker,” Paul essentially gives Luke equal billing. Here was a man whose talents were being put to use and whose potentials were not wasted.  He did the work of a Christian.  I often wonder if Paul could say the same of us in those situations.  Would he call us “fellow workers?”  We only have to read some of Paul’s epistles to understand what it meant for him to praise someone.  Paul didn’t give honors where honors were not due.  Luke was someone deserving of equal billing, even if he wasn’t an apostle.  He was someone who understood his talents and employed them the best he could.

Only Luke is with me.  II Timothy represents the last words we think that Paul wrote.  They are addressed to a young man who Paul called his spiritual child.  But to his spiritual child, he tells the story of a devoted friend.  “Only Luke is with me,” Paul writes in 4:11.  Both in Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 24, Paul mentions another fellow worker, Demas.  In II Timothy we learn disturbing news about Demas-he has forsaken Paul, having loved this present world.  Now only Paul’s closest friend is with him. I know that Luke was eloquent by his writings, that he was intelligent from his studies, and that he was ambitious by his diligence as a fellow worker in the field of God’s harvest.  But in this last book of Paul’s, we see a side of Luke that speaks volumes about those first three observations.  “Only Luke is with me.”

Luke is mentioned three times in the Bible, despite the fact that he wrote 52 chapters of our New Testament. We know so very little about him, and yet what we do know is a legacy.  He was noted as someone who was beloved, a worker, and someone who, in the end, was a devoted friend that refused to leave when others had.  If someone were to sum up our lives in one or two phrases, would they remember us as Paul remembered Luke? For someone mentioned only 3 times in Scripture, it’s amazing what we can learn from such a private life.

DIRECT BIBLE QUESTIONS TO:  Mitchell Stevens,   acts2216@midsouth.rr.com

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