SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/12/2025 9:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Luke, The Faithful Companion”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Tim. 4:11a
Message of the verses: “Only Luke is with me.”
In today’s SD we want to write about Luke, Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke, and also the book of Acts. I am kind of surprised to look at the first sentence from John MacArthur’s commentary: “Some interpreters take Paul’s mention of only to indicate a disappointment with Luke, as if the apostle were saying with regret, ‘I have no real friend or helper lift.’ But that view is unfair to this man and flies in the face of everything else we know of him from the New Testament. It was rather that this devoted friend could not alone carry the burden of ministry in Rome while the apostle languished in a dungeon with no prospect of release. Because of Nero’s brutal persecution, many believers had fled the capital. Those who remained were in constant danger and needed spiritual guidance and encouragement more than ever.”
It is understandable that many believers had left Rome because of the great persecution that Nero had used against the true believers of that day. Nero was a very evil man, and if I am not mistaken he was the one who set fire to Rome and then blamed the true Christians, and that was one of the reasons they were being persecuted.
One may find this surprising, but Luke’s name is only found three times in the New Testament, of which he is the only Gentile author. Now I think that it is fitting that because of what happened to the Jewish people after putting Jesus to death that there would not be many Jewish people who became born-again believers. Yes I know that the early church was only made up of Jewish, but then in the middle of the book of Acts the first Gentile was saved, and so the last half of the book is all about Gentiles and how they were brought to the Lord, mostly through the preaching of the Apostle Paul who God saved in the 9th chapter of Acts where he is called Saul.
Now Luke wrote the longest of the four gospels as well as the lengthy book of Acts. Paul himself refers to this man as ‘Luke, the beloved physician’ (Col. 4:14) and as one of his ‘fellow workers’ (Philem. 24). Now because of his literary skills, it seems probable that he acted sometimes as Paul’s amanuensis, (a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.)
John MacArthur concludes this section by writing: “Although Luke was a physician by profession, we are told nothing of any medical work he may have done after his conversion, though he doubtless treated Paul and his other companions as their ‘beloved physician.’ From his gospel we know him as an evangelist, and from the book of Acts as a capable historian. He was used uniquely by the Holy Spirit to chronicle both the life of Christ and the early life of the body of Christ. Yet, as a humble servant of the Lord and of his fellow saints, he carefully kept himself in the background.
“Luke had been a longtime companion of Paul, accompanying the apostle for many years and over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles. It is easy to trace his direct association with the apostle through his use of plural first-person pronouns in Acts (we, us, our, etc.) He was with Paul at Troas and Philippi during the second missionary journey, joined him again at the end of the third, and went with him to Jerusalem to face arrest and imprisonment. He accompanied Paul on the trip to Rome, was shipwrecked with him off the shores of Malta, ministered in Rome with him during the first imprisonment, and comforted him during the second and last. At the writing of this letter, the apostle is not sad but glad that Luke still is with me.”
Spiritual Meaning for my Life Today: It is good to have close friends, especially my wife whom I love and greatly respect. My prayers go up to her as she is still having some things going on in her body after the removal of cancer on the 29th of April.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will give my wife better health, as I look to Him daily in prayer for her.
8/12/2025 10:01 AM
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