doctor's life support

16th July: Luke (1) -- Physician

Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you. Colossians 4:14

So wrote the apostle Paul from his Roman prison, to one of his closest friends and, so it would seem, his personal physician. It was a strange and wonderful adventure that the Greek doctor, Luke, had got caught up in -- travelling the then-known world with one of history's most dynamic men 'to testify to the gospel of the grace of God' (Acts 20:24).

It would have been no easy assignment. Paul would have been no easy patient. What Paul's physical ailments were is a matter only of speculation. Many people have opted for some serious eye trouble. Some sceptics have suggested that he was epileptic because of what happened on the Damascus Road. Others suggest that he had malaria, and so on.

However that may be, Paul undoubtedly drove himself hard. Luke may well have had the doubly difficult task of keeping up with Paul and, at the same time, of trying to get him to put the brakes on. What we do know, however, is that to Paul Luke was 'the beloved physician'.

How good a physician might Luke have been? By this day much of the glory had faded from the Greek medicine identified with Hippocrates and his school -- beyond question the finest medicine of all the ancient world. It may be that some of its quality lingered on to touch the knowledge and standards of this Greek doctor. Was this one of God's provisions to sustain Paul in his enormous task? How well could one of us have done the job? Would we have earned, like Luke, the title 'the beloved physician'?

Lord, wherever you put me in life, help me to use my
knowledge and skill well, to maintain standards that
please you and try to be, like Luke, a beloved
physician.

Further reading: Acts 20:17-27.

RRW