Only Luke is with me. — The “writer” of the Third Gospel, the Gospel which, as has been stated above, was very possibly the work of St. Paul — “my Gospel.” Luke, “the beloved physician” of Colossians 4:14, of all St. Paul’s companions, seems to have been most closely associated with the Apostle. Most likely this close intimacy and long-continued association was owing to the Apostle’s weak and infirm health — to that dying body — the noble Paul ever bore about with him. Luke was with St. Paul, we know, in his second missionary journey, and again in his third missionary journey; he accompanied him to Asia, and then to Jerusalem; was with him during the captivity time of Cæsarea, and subsequently of Rome, the first time St. Paul was imprisoned in the capital (Acts 18). After St. Paul’s death, Epiphanius speaks of him as preaching chiefly in Gaul; a very general tradition includes him among the martyrs of the first age of the Church. The name is probably a contraction of Lucanus. (See Introduction to the Acts of the Apostles.)
Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. — “But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them... and went not with them to the work” (Acts 15:38). There is something strangely touching in this message of the aged master to Timothy to bring with him on that last solemn journey one whom, some quarter of a century before, St. Paul had judged so severely, and on whose account he had separated from his old loved friend, Barnabas the Apostle. Since that hour when the young missionary’s heart had failed him in Pamphylia, Mark had, by steady, earnest work, won back his place in St. Paul’s heart. Barnabas, we know, when his brother Apostle rejected him, took him with him to Cyprus. After some twelve years, we find him, during the first imprisonment, with St. Paul at Rome (Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24). He is mentioned (1 Peter 5:13) by the endearing term of “my son,” and the unanimous traditions of the ancient Christian writers represent him as the secretary or amanuensis of St. Peter. It was his office to commit to writing the orally delivered instructions and narrations of his master. These, in some revised and arranged form, probably under the direction of Peter himself, were given to the Church under the title of St. Mark’s Gospel. A later and uncertain tradition says he subsequently became first Bishop of Alexandria, and there suffered martyrdom.
For he is profitable to me for the ministry. — Profitable, according to the suggestion of Grotius, owing to Mark’s knowledge of the Latin tongue. This is possible; but it is more likely that he was profitable or serviceable as an assistant who was well acquainted with the details of St. Paul’s many sided work.