Colossians 4:14

The context

Colossians closes with greetings from a small circle: Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus called Justus, Epaphras, Luke and Demas. The letter is presented as written from Paul's imprisonment to a congregation unsettled by teaching about ascetic practice and angelic powers. Verse 14 sits in that list, near the final instructions and the greeting to Nympha's house church.

What it establishes

Luke is named as a companion and identified by a trade. The greeting shows a real network of coworkers and places a physician among them without comment. The term is descriptive, and the letter treats the detail as worth passing on.

What it does not establish

It does not prove Luke wrote a Gospel. The identification of this Luke with the author of Luke–Acts rests on early church tradition and on the "we" passages in Acts, not on this verse. "Physician" is one word here; it says nothing about his role or his work.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• The Bible is a collection of fairytales written by illiterate goat herders back in the Bronze Age. The Catholic Church cherry picked which fables to include to mind control non-thinking tithers.
• The Bible is a collection of fairytales written by illiterate goat herders in the Bronze Age, and the Catholic Church cherry-picked which fables to include to mind-control tithing peasants.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.