2 Corinthians 8:18 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The brother, whose praise is in the gospel. — We cannot get beyond probable conjecture in determining who this was. The general current of patristic interpretation (represented, we may add, in the Collect for St. Luke’s Day in the Prayer Book of the Church of England, though not in that of the Breviary of the Church of Rome) ran in favour of St. Luke; but this rested on the assumption, for which there is no evidence, and against which there is a strong balance of probabilities, that he was already well known as the writer of a Gospel. (See Introduction to St. Luke, Vol. I., p. 239.) Apart from this, however, it may be urged that there is more evidence in favour of this hypothesis than of any other. If the words be interpreted, as they must, as pointing to a preacher of the gospel, we have indications of St. Luke having done this at Antioch, at Troas, and at Philippi. None of the other companions of St. Paul who have been suggested, such as Tychicus or Trophimus, was likely to have so wide-spread a reputation. None was so likely to be with him at the time at Philippi. And it may be noted further — and this, so far as I know, is a point which has not hitherto been dwelt on — that there was no man so fitted to stir up the Corinthians, by his personal character, to a worthy completion of the good work they had begun. We have seen that in his Gospel he dwells emphatically on all parts of our Lord’s teaching that point out the danger of riches and the blessedness of a generous almsgiving (see Introduction to St. Luke, Vol. I., p. 242); how at Philippi his influence was traceable in the liberal supplies sent to St. Paul at Thessalonica (see Note on Acts 16:40, and Philippians 4:15) and at Corinth (see Note on 2 Corinthians 11:9). Was not such a man, we may ask, eminently adapted for the mission on which the “brother, whose praise is in the gospel,” was now sent? and was not the Apostle likely to choose him above all others for it? For Mark and Gaius, who have also been suggested, there is not a shadow of evidence; and as the latter was of Corinth (Romans 16:23), he was not likely to have been sent thither from Philippi. The tense, “we have sent,” is, as before, the epistolary aorist, used of the time at which the letter was being written.