Colossians 4:14 Commentary and Bible Study

We could call Luke the apostle Paul’s armour bearer. So often he was there, tending to his problems, his very serious health problem. We don’t know exactly what it was but we know it was painful and a handicap, and Luke, who was a physician, was there with Paul. He was a preacher too; he was a Gentile who came from Antioch of Syria. Some say he was not only a doctor but he’d been a ship’s doctor. Where does that come from? Well, in Acts 27 he has such a command of nautical terms and information, he is a very experienced seaman, Luke. He knows exactly how to describe everything in the correct terms. Had he been physician to a fleet of ships or something of that kind? Maybe. I think there is little doubt that he was unmarried because he seems to have had no connection, no responsibility in that way and he pledged himself to Paul. Intriguingly, three early church writers – and this is only tradition and late tradition at that – call him an artist. There is a theory that he and Paul went to school together, that is to say, Saul of Tarsus and Luke here were at the same university in Tarsus. Tradition says he lived a very long life; Aristarchus, tradition says, was executed under Nero, but Luke seems to have lived a much longer life. He was always there, ready to preach, serve, tend to the apostle and, of course, he was mightily used by God as an historian, the writer of Luke’s Gospel and Acts under inspiration. Obviously, he was a clever man and from Luke’s Gospel and Acts a highly educated man in his use of Greek and yet pledged to serve the mission and to serve the apostle Paul – an armour bearer.There is a sadder note struck in verse 14 because alongside Luke is mentioned Demas. What about Demas, Paul? Can’t you say something about him? He is just Demas, there is nothing attached to him. In fairness, he is called a fellow soldier elsewhere but here you almost begin to wonder whether Paul senses and knows that Demas is unstable, and that he could suffer a fall and a difficulty because that is what happened. ‘Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica’ (2 Timothy 4:10-11). What a tragedy! Was he a false convert? Was he not converted? There is no mention of that. The discernment of Paul would surely have seen that. No, he was in the work; he was a companion of Paul. He did good work, he could at one point be called a fellow soldier for Jesus Christ. He was a believer alright and he loved Christ, but there was an instability in him and he too abandoned the mission because he ‘loved this present world.’ Probably a very able man, he realised he could earn a lot of money, realised he could have a beautiful house, he could be in very interesting surroundings. I don’t know that he went headlong into the world but he abandoned the mission and that is very sad.