Luke the Evangelist 18 10 2026
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Isaiah 35.3-6
NEW TESTAMENT READING: 2 Timothy 4.5-17
GOSPEL Luke 10.1-9
Every year in our Church’s calendar, on the 18th of October we remember Luke the Evangelist. This commemoration helps us to learn a bit about Luke and the glory of the Gospel he wrote. Who was Luke?
1 He was not one of the disciples of Jesus but he was a friend of St. Paul. He did accompany Jesus in his ministry but we can understand from his writings that he had learnt a lot about our Lord Jesus Christ and shared in the ministry of St. Paul the great apostle of Jesus Christ to the non Jewish world.
2 We know that Luke was a doctor. Paul tells us that Luke was a physician. Paul writes, ‘Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you’. (Colossians 4:14).
3 We also learn from the New Testament that Luke was the only person with Paul in prison during a particular time. He must have been a very close friend of Paul and stayed with Paul in those difficult moments when Paul spent long periods in imprisonment for preaching about Jesus Christ as Lord and God. Paul wrote, ‘Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry’. (2 Timothy 4:11).
4 He was a fellow worker with St. Paul. We learn this from Paul’s letter to Philemon, ‘and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers’. (Philemon 24).
5 And finally we know that Luke wrote two books in the New Testament. The Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Both these books are so important to the Church. Luke’s gospel gives us information about the birth of Jesus which no other writer gives. He also gives us important information about the early childhood of Jesus. Mary and Jospeh taking the child Jesus to the temple and met by Simeon and Anna and their wonderful words.
In his seminal work the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us about the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles as they were praying in Jerusalem. Luke tells us the way the church was born with great power from on high and the wonderful way the disciples started proclaiming Jesus as Lord with great boldness. He also tells us about the growth of the church and the great tribulations the early Christians had to undergo. He also tells us in the Acts of the apostles the ministry of Peter and Paul, the difficulties they faced and about the journey Paul made to so many nations taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people.
In Luke’s Gospel we are reminded of the importance Jesus gave to his ministry of healing. When Jesus called his disciples, he commissioned them and gave them the power to heal and to drive away demons beside preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. Luke tells us that Jesus had also called 70 other people and commissioned them to go with the power to heal and restore health to the people.
We as a church share this calling to be healers of people. To heal people with the power of God. ‘To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues’. (1 Corinthians 12:8-10).