Colossians 4:14

14. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas salute you.

Translation and Paraphrase

14. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, and (also) Demas.

Notes

1.

We learn from Colossians 4:14 a fact stated nowhere else in Scripture; that Luke was a physician. When we read the gospel of Luke with this knowledge, we notice occasional medicinal comments that seem particularly appropriate for a doctor to make. Luke 4:38-39; Luke 8:43.

2.

Luke was the author of the third gospel story containing a life of Christ. He also was author of the book of Acts. Note that the books of Luke and Acts were both sent to the same man. Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2. It is interesting to notice that the authors of the second and third gospels were both with Paul at this time.

3.

Luke was apparently a Gentile. He travelled with Paul, joining him at Troas during Paul's second missionary trip. (Acts 16:8-10). He seems to have stopped off and remained at Philippi until the returning portion of Paul's third missionary trip. (Acts 20:5-6). At that time he rejoined Paul, returning with him to Jerusalem, and apparently was with Paul during his trials and imprisonments in Judea, and during his trip to Rome, and was with Paul in Rome when Paul wrote Colossians and Philemon. (Philemon 1:24). He was still with Paul during Paul's later second imprisonment in Rome. (2 Timothy 4:11). Paul refers to Luke as beloved and as a fellow-worker.

4.

Some Christians have felt that they should not go to doctors, but only pray for healing. The fact that Luke was a doctor, even so long after his first travels with Paul, and that his occupation was not condemned, nor described as being past, no-longer-practiced, profession, argues rather strongly that physicians are approved by God for Christians in these times. We are indeed taught to pray for the sick, but we are not taught to avoid physicians.

5.

Demas the disappointment! Here is Colossians and in Philemon 1:24, Demas is listed as one of Paul's companions. In Philemon he is grouped with others who are called Paul's fellow-workers. Nothing further is said of him, either in praise or blame.

However in 2 Timothy 4:10 a sad sentence reads: Demas forsook me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica. Demas could have been another Barnabas, a Timothy, a Titus, or Tychicus, It is as the poet said,

Of all sad words in tongue or pen,
The saddest these: -It might have been-'.

Study and Review

22.

How is Luke described? (Colossians 4:14)

23.

What else do we know about Demas? (Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:10)