2nd Timothy Chapter 4 verse 11 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 11. - Useful for profitable, A.V.; ministering for the ministry, A.V. Luke; probably a shortened form of Lucanus. Luke was with St. Paul in his voyage to Rome (Acts 27:1; Acts 28:11, 16), and when he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:4), having doubtless composed the Acts of the Apostles during St. Paul's two years' imprisonment (Acts 28:30). How he spent his time between that date and the mention of him here as still with St. Paul, we have no knowledge. But it looks as if he may have been in close personal attendance upon him all the time. if he had been permitted to write a supplement to the Acts, perhaps the repeated "we" would have shown this. Take Mark. Mark had apparently been recently reconciled to St. Paul when he wrote Colossians 4:10, and was with him when he wrote Philemon 1:24. We know nothing more of him till we learn from this passage that he was with or near to Timothy, and likely to accompany him to Rome in his last visit to St. Paul. He is mentioned again in 1 Peter 5:13, as being with St. Peter at Babylon. The expression, "take" (ἀναλαβών), seems to imply that Timothy was to pick him up on the way, as the word is used in Acts 20:13, 14; and, though less certainly, in Acts 23:31. He is useful to me, etc. (εὔχρηστος); as ch. 2:21 (where see note). This testimony to Mark's ministerial usefulness, at a time when his faithfulness and courage would be put to a severe test, is very satisfactory. For ministering (εἰς διακονίαν). It may be doubted whether διακονία here means "the ministry," as in the A.V. and 1 Timothy 1:12, or, as in the R.V., more generally "for ministering," i.e. for acting as an assistant to me in my apostolic labours. The words, "to me," favour the latter rendering. The sense would then be the same as that of the verb in Acts 19:22, where we read that Timothy and Erastus "ministered unto him," i.e. to St. Paul, and that of ὑπηρέτης applied to Mark in Acts 13:5.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(11) 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 Caesarea, 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 (1Peter 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. . . .