Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-01
A DOCTOR FROM TROY,
Though He Is Named but Three Times
In the New Testament,
WAS 4 GREAT POWER FOB GOOD
Tho Man Was st. Luke, Whom st: Paul
Sent Out With Titus
LESSONS FROM HIS LIES WORK

I'VE have sent with him the brother,
whose praise is in the gospel throughout all
the churches"
St. Paul was writing to the church al
Corinth. He had just informed the Cor.
inthians in his letter that he was about to
send visitor to their parish in the person
of Titus. The mission of Titus was to get
money. St. Paul was urging the Cor
inthians to show their Christianity by their
generosity. The CHURCH in Jerusalem wa.
very poor. Nowhere was the old religion
so hostile to the new, nowhere was the old
orthodoxy so bitter against the new heresy,
as in the city of the scribes and pharisees.
Christians lost their places in society and
in business. Nobody would associate with
a Christian, buy anything from Christian,
or employ a Christian. The Christians
needed help. It seemed to st. Paul that it
would be help in more ways than one il
he could persuade to the assistance of these
Hebrew Christians the hearts and purses Of
the GENTLE Christians over in Europe.
Generosity on the one side and gratitude
on the other would leave no room for parti-
san Misunderstanding.
| sT. LUKE WENT WITH TITUS
30 he wrote to the church at Corinth: and
with his letter he sent Titus, who had been
at Jerusalem and who knew Just how bad
things were there. And with Titus he sent
the brother whose praise is in the gospel
| throughout all the churches" Nobody
Knows for certain who this brother was, but
/ the probabilities indicate st. Luke The
traditional address of the Corinth letter, set
+ down in the Bible at the end of it, names
he % rxrhN : sy-x-
''Titus and Lucas"
| The name of Luke is so familiar to us, it
| stands at the head of SO many pages in the
New Testament that we learn with some
! surprise that is really written in the New
Testament itself only three times. Of course,
the authorship Of such important books as
the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apos-
ties was not likely to be a mystery among
the people of the generation in which they
were first read. All men knew who wrote
them. And the one name associated with
them from the beginning, as the name of
Cicero is associated with his orations and
the name of Virgil with his poems, was the
name of Luke.
LUXE NEVER THOUGHT OF SELF.
! Luke, however, never mentioned his own
name at all The writer of these books had
no thought of fame, had no longing after q
literary nor even an ecclesiastical reputa-
tion. He was in possession Of certain won-
derful, valuable and helpful facts, and his
whole concern was to get those facts, plain,
straight, unadorned, unchanged, into the
hearts and minds of the people of his time
st. Luke, accordingly, set down nothing
about himself. Some have imagined that he
was one of the 20 whom our Lord sent out to
preach; others have fancied that they recog-
nized him in one Of the two men who were
walking out one memorable day to Emmaus.
The probability, however, is that St. Luke
never looked to the face OF Christ. It is
likely that he first heard about the
Master from st. Paul. He was a Gentle,
living possibly in Troas where we first find
trace of him; physician. Some think from
the acquaintance that he shows with the
rigging of a ship, as evidenced in the ac-
count he gives of a notable wre k off the
Island of Melita, that he was ship doctor;
that he had his residence at old Troy there
by the water, and piled back and forth in
the Egean Sea between the coasts of Mace
donia and Asia Minor.
PAUL AN INCEssANT PREACHER
Somehow, this physician had come into
acquaintance with st. Paul; very likely in
the practice of his profession. 1t is probable
that st. Paul was never perfectly well. 1t
is certain that mora times than one he had
sore need of DOCTOR He may have called
in Luke, and while Luke ministered to
Paul's body, Paul may have ministered to
Luke's soul. That was like st. Paul The
one supreme purpose to which that apostle
had devoted his whole life was the preach
ing of the gospel; he wanted to make men
everywhere know what he had to teach
them about Christ, Christ the divine
example of human manhood; Christ the
of cinnarc. and ha nevop lost
opportunity.
He never did anything else but preach.
He was never too busy weaving. tent-cloth
for his daily bread, never too tired on his
long journeys, never too sick, to preach.
The Christian gospel never won its way in
the world by the means of two sermons on a
Sunday. 1t was carried out into that first
century in the hearts of men who we're so
in earnest about it that they thought of
nothing else; they preached the gospel
everywhere, and all the time, and to every
body they talked with. So Paul found
Luke, and made Christian out Of the
doctor.
THE WRITER AS A WITNESS.
The time when st. Luke actually Joined
himself to the company of St. Paul. and
became physicisn of the soul as well as q
physician of the body, is indicated in the
Acts of the Apostles by simple change of
pronoun. "And they, passing by Mysia
came down to Troas. And a vision appeared
to Paul in the night; there stood a man of
Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, come
over unto Macedonia and help u.s. And
after he had seen the vision, Immediately
we endeavored to 60 into Macedonia. Then
the story continues in the first person. The
writer is a witness of what he tells.
st. Luke, then, was present and assisting
at the first Christian service tnat was ever
held in Europe, in the city of Philippi.
Paul and the others went on, the pronoun
changing again, to Thessalonica, and Borea,
and Athens; Luke stayed at Phillippi 1t
seems to have been some seven years before
st. Paul came back again. Meanwhile,
Luke was the minister Of the converts at
Phillippi He was the first pastor of
Christian congregation in Europe. He
preached in the first parish that was ever
organized in all this western division of the
world.
LUKE FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.
From Philippi Luke went over to Corinth
with St. Paul's letter. He accompanied
his friend and master on his last journey to
Jerusalem. He was with him when he was
carried as prisoner to Rome. He shared
his first imprisonment; probably his second
also. He stood by Paul when all other men
torsook him. Paul wrote to Timothy that
all had Lett him, save only Luke. No doubt
he was with him at his death.
This was the brother whose praise is in