Lecture XVII · Mission of Epaphroditus

IN this paragraph the apostle goes on to say that, whilst, as he has mentioned, he purposes soon to send Timothy to Philippi, and hopes to visit the church himself also before very long, yet he has thought it needful to send Epaphroditus to them at once. This intimation is followed by a statement of

his reasons for doing so ; and the section closes with an appeal to the Philippians to regard Epaphroditus, and all similarly devoted servants of Christ, with high esteem and warm affection. In reading the section carefully, with its detailed exhibition of the character and feelings of Epaphroditus, and particularly the closing appeal, it is difficult to resist the impression that on some ground, which he does not state, Paul felt a little doubt whether the Philippians, in welcoming Epaphroditus, for whom they evidently cherished a warm and tender affection, might not have at the same time in their hearts, for some reason, a certain feeling of disappointment. It may be that

they had asked the apostle, should he be still prevented from personally visiting them, to send them one of his most trusted helpers for a time ; and when Epaphroditus, one of the members of their own congregation, was sent back as in some sort Paul’s deputy, a measure of disappointment might be felt, through the proverbial blindness, in a prophet’s own country, to his claims and excellences. Supposing an anticipation of this to have been in Paul’s mind while writing, the structure of the whole passage is explained. By the mention previously of his own hope to visit them, and of his intention to send Timothy, the most honoured and loved of all his companions, as soon as possible, the way is most skilfully prepared for the intimation regarding Epaphroditus ; and now, in speaking of Epaphroditus, the apostle makes it evident that, having during his stay in Rome proved himself a most efficient and in every way admirable assistant, and been admitted to his closest friendship, he could with fulness of knowledge and of sympathy exhibit the apostle’s views and wishes to the Philippian brethren.

The only thing in the language of the passage which seems to claim a word of explanation, is the use of the fas¢ in one or two places with reference to the sending of Epaphroditus, whilst, as is clear from the whole passage, he was in fact the bearer of the Epistle. ‘I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus,—for he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness;’ and “I “γέ him therefore the more carefully.’ This is the idiom of the original language,—a letter-writer transporting himself in imagination το the time when his letter would be read, and when the course of feelings and doings which were present at the time of writing would have become fast. We, on the other hand, generally keep our modes of expression in accordance with the actual time of writing, so that we should _ naturally say here, ‘I ¢hzw& it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus,—for he has been longing after you all, and is full of heaviness,’ and ‘I send him therefore the more carefully.’

us we know nothing except what is mentioned here, and—regarding one point a little more fully—in the 18th verse of the 4th chapter of this Epistle. An Epaphras is spoken of in the Epistle to the Colossians, and in that to Philemon ; who by some has been supposed to be the same person here referred to. This, however, is unlikely. The one name, indeed, may be only a short form of the other, and the character ascribed to Epaphras is very similar to that given to Epaphroditus ; but both names, or forms of the name, were very common ; and Epaphras is expressly said to have been a member of the Colossian church,! whilst everything told us of Epaphroditus leads us to think that his ordinary place of residence was Philippi,—from which he had come to Rome, bringing to Paul such pecuniary aid as the church there could give.

The apostle here, in sending him back, speaks of him as his ‘brother. How sweet a term for ‘fellow-Christian’ this is, dear friends,—how suggestive of lofty dignity, precious privilege, holy character! It brings before our minds at once the family of God, and all the sweet and elevating affections to which the ‘ new birth’ gives rise. ‘Of His own will the Father of lights begat us with the word of truth ;’ and believers, being thus all children of the same God, necessarily, in the measure of the clearness and liveliness of their faith, feel themselves to be brethren of each other.

But the apostle has more to say of Epaphroditus than that he is a member of this glorious family. He exhibits conspicuously the features of character which should distinguish its -members. The life of the household of God should be, according to the will of their Father, full of holy and beneficent activity. Said the divine Elder Brother, ‘ My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ;’ and to every member of the family the Father’s command is, ‘Son, go work to-day in My vineyard.’ Epaphroditus had heard the call, and, as opportunity was 1

Col. iv. 12.

given to him, he laboured in his Father’s service. In Rome he evidently engaged heartily and efficiently in Christian work under the apostle’s direction, and is therefore described as his ‘companion in labour.’

Still further, however. In a world which loves darkness rather than light, effort to diffuse light will of necessity bring hatred and opposition ; so that the labourers have also to be soldiers. As, under good Nehemiah, when repairing the walls of Jerusalem, ‘ the builders had every one his sword girded by his side, and so builded,’ so must it be also with those who are rearing up the wall of the spiritual city of God. The modes of opposition are different under different circumstances, but the spirit of keen hostility is never wanting. Now, as in Nehemiah’s days, ‘when the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, hear that the walls of Jerusalem are made up, and that the breaches begin to be stopped, then are they very wroth, and conspire all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.’ Epaphroditus, preaching the gospel in Rome, had to encounter contempt and peril, both among Jews and heathen. But, as we may fairly conclude from the hearty and approving way in which the apostle calls him his ‘ fe//ow-soldier, he was ‘not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of Paul His prisoner, but was partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God.’ He proved his readiness to ‘ endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,’ believing it to be a faithful saying, ‘If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him ; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.’

Looking back now over the three terms employed by the apostle, ‘ brother, ‘companion in labour, and ‘ fellow-soldier, you see that they are arranged in an ascending scale, from a simple statement of companionship in religion up to a statement of companionship in endurance of severe tests of sincerity and devotedness in religion. ‘I send to you Epaphroditus, one whom I have found to be a Christian energetic and brave, one to whom I am bound by the closest ties, through community of aspirations and sympathies, community of Christian labour, community of danger and suffering in the cause of our common Lord.’

The Philippians also had special relations to Epaphroditus, ς΄ and special cause to esteem him. ‘These the apostle exhibits over against his own. ‘On the one hand, he is mine in brotherhood, and companionship in labour and suffering,— but, on the other hand, yours as agent in beneficence,’—*‘ your messenger and (your) minister to my wants.’ Here, certainly, was a relation fitted to bind the Philippians and Epaphroditus together, and both to Paul, in the closest bonds. In the spirit so honoured by Christ—so Christlike—of caring for a righteous man ‘in the name of a righteous man,’ the Philippians had sent Epaphroditus to bear to the apostle in his imprisonment their pecuniary contributions for his support, and to discharge to him all such services as might be within his power. Most faithfully and lovingly—his whole heart in the work—had he executed his commission. Paul’s estimate of the sacredness and dignity of the work, and of the singleness and consecration of heart with which it had been done, are indicated, as it seems to me, by the terms he employs. The word rendered ‘ he that ministered’ is commonly employed of priestly service, or of the service of angels, and thus naturally carries with it the same suggestion of sacred and honourable office as our own word ‘minister.’ Again,—the term here translated, according to its original sense, ‘ messenger,’ is that usually rendered ‘apostle,’ and from which indeed the English word ‘apostle’ comes; and therefore, I think—even when used as here, rather loosely—it must always have conveyed to the minds of the early Christians some such idea of venerableness as is in our minds when, for example, we speak of John Williams as the ‘apostle’ of the South Seas. Epaphroditus, Paul’s ‘ brother and companion in labour and fellow-soldier,’ was ‘the apostle and minister of the Philippians for the supply γ. 7

of Paul’s need ;’ and thus, from his relations to both, he was certainly a most fit and natural deputy from Paul to his brethren at Philippi.

Epaphroditus had been very ill in Rome. ‘ He was sick, nigh unto death.’ ‘To the young believer it often and most naturally presents itself as a strange thing that affliction is not altogether withdrawn from Christ’s people. Is not affliction an element of death,—and have not Christians ‘passed from death unto life’? The mature believer also sees mystery very near ; but he knows, at least, that the subjection of the saints to trouble is not an isolated anomaly connected with God’s mode of saving them, but fits in with the entire plan. The grandest element of Christ’s salvation is the emancipation of the moral nature, which is our glory, from the debasing thraldom of sin. Now here, as in all His actings on our souls, we have no violent convulsion—no sudden substitution of a complete or perfectly holy nature for our former sinful selves, such as we can scarcely conceive compatible with the maintenance of a sense of personal identity. We have a gradual process,—a growth. The heart, the will, ‘out of which are the issues of life,’ receives the heavenly seed of holy desire, to develope according to its kind, under the influence of the refreshing rain of heaven, and the genial beams of the Sun of righteousness. A most important form of the tillage is affliction. ‘Every branch that beareth fruit,’ the Great Husbandman ‘purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit.’ Surely, then, ‘Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest out of Thy law!’

By affliction our Father /eads us into deeper seriousness. Even a Christian is apt, amid the frivolities of earth, to find the great realities which faith has revealed to him growing dim to his view. His heart and conscience, made so tender by the good Spirit aforetime, are prone to be in no small measure hardened again by the passage of secular thoughts and affections. The power over him of God’s word and ordinances is”

apt to grow feebler. Now affliction is the great cloud-dispeller for the spiritual nature. Before its breath the mists ___which hid God and eternity from us disappear, so that the vanities assume their true littleness, and the realities stand out once more in their impressive grandeur. From the distracting noises of the world, which drown the ‘still small voice,’ God, through affliction, lovingly leads His children out into the wilderness, that there He may commune with them alone, and ‘speak comfortably to them, giving them their vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope.’

Affliction gives much help, too, in serious self-study. The heart is ‘deceitful above all things,’ and even the Christian knows very little of himself. Affliction lets down a blazing torch for him into the depths of his nature ; and he sees many things which he little expected to see. He finds his faith weak where he thought it strong, his views dim where he thought them clear, his pride stubborn where he thought it broken. Thus afflictions of every kind are ¢ria/s—testing and revealing agencies,—that the believer may know himself, and be led to cry to his Father for wisdom and strength.

Such a case as that of Epaphroditus—where, from an important field of Christian labour, a workman, very efficient

and seemingly much needed, is laid aside by long and severe sickness, or, it may be, removed permanently by death—has obviously special difficulties of its own, with relation to Christ’s administration of His kingdom of grace. This good man has been brought across the sea, and through manifold dangers, to succour the aged apostle, and cheer him by undertaking in his room some portion of the work which, through God’s providence, he is prevented from doing personally. He has begun this work most successfully, and the weary heart of the noble old soldier of Jesus Christ is finding great comfort in this loving and energetic friend,—when the Lord’s own “hand suddenly prostrates him utterly, and the shadow of death

falls upon him. How often we ourselves have felt the difficulty, my brethren,—when a wise Christian father was taken away from his children at the very time they were about fully to face the temptations of life, and seemed most to need his watchful, prayerful, guiding love,—or a young minister at home, or missionary abroad, who appeared to us to have been by grace polished with singular completeness as a shaft to pierce the heart of the King’s enemies, is removed at the very outset of his work! All such cases have peculiarly impressive teaching for those who have ears to hear. I doubt not that Epaphroditus, as he lay on his bed of pain and weariness, was taught by his sickness, as Milton by the blindness which severed him from his old modes of work, that

‘God doth not need Either man’s work or His own gifts,’—

that even those instruments which He has made and fitted most perfectly for His work may at any moment be broken, whilst yet ‘the Word of God liveth and abideth for ever,’— that He Himself is the All-efficient, and most rightfully claims all the glory.

Severe as the illness of Epaphroditus was, it was not unto death. ‘God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. ‘The earnest cry of the apostle to the great Giver and Sustainer of life was heard ; so that upon the trouble which he already had, as a prisoner, compassed inevitably with various sources of distress, there was not laid the additional and very heavy sorrow which the death of this beloved and most helpful friend would have caused. In mercy to Epaphroditus himself, too, the recovery came. I can imagine a little wonderment occurring for a moment to some readers, at this part of the apostle’s statement. Is not this he who told us but a short time ago, that, for the believer, ‘to depart is to be with Christ, which is far better’? Can he then, with justice, call it a manifestation of

mercy to this eminent servant of Christ, that, after having endured very much of the bitterness of death—after having passed far through the dreariness of the valley of the shadow— he should yet be withheld from entering on that ‘ far better’ lot, and should be brought back to the perplexities, and sins, and sorrows of this earthly life ?

In answer, it may be said that the Christian in full spiritual health, knowing that God makes ‘ a// things work together for good to them that love Him,’ will hold all providential dealings, whatever be their aspect to the eye of sense, as mercies; and therefore ‘ praise will continually be in his mouth.’ At midnight, in the inner prison, their backs bleeding from unjust stripes, Paul and Silas ‘sang praises to God.’ If from illness a Christian recovers, he will praise God for the mercy of restoration ; if he dies, he passes out into the sphere of the full, glorious, unclouded manifestation of divine mercy.

But though this is true and important, yet, as an answer, it is plainly inadequate ; for when Paul uses the expression ‘ God had mercy on Epaphroditus,’ as simply equivalent to an intimation of the fact that ‘Epaphroditus recovered from his illness,’ he obviously leads us to suppose, not merely that Epaphroditus was ready to acquiesce in either issue, and count it a mercy, but that this particular issue was desired and prayed for by him asa mercy. It was natural and right that it should be so. And the little difficulty is solved by a moment’s consideration. Christianity proves itself to have the same Author as man, by according in everything with our original nature—the nature which God gave us,—opposing itself only to the perversities, the secondary superinduced nature, due to sin. Now our instincts lead us to love life; and the convictions and affections which belong to the purest and loftiest spirituality give strength to this instinctive longing. The love to God and man which the cordial acceptance of the gospel awakens, prompts to ardent desires and earnest efforts for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. Thus, looking at the powers

and opportunities we have here to exercise influence for Christ, the Christian feels, as none other can, the inestimable preciousness‘and nobleness of life. It argues therefore not elevated spirituality, but spiritual morbidness, spiritual ignorance and cowardice, if, so long as God continues power to serve Him, longings and prayers for speedy death be allowed to occupy the heart,—desire of the personal happiness and rest which heaven will give gaining more influence than the desire of usefulness, the desire of ‘serving our generation by the will of God.’ A ‘good soldier of Jesus Christ’ will not be wishful to quit his post, so long as the Captain of salvation continues with him the means of maintaining it. It was natural, then, and right, for Epaphroditus, stricken down by illness in the midst of important labours, and while full of strength and hope, to wish and pray for prolonged life.

As the years flit on, and loved ones pass away before us to heaven, and the infirmities of age show themselves, ‘the keepers of the house trembling, and the strong men bowing themselves,’ —or, in earlier life, when months and years of feebleness, and weariness, and pain, bring home the sad conviction of permanent incapacity alike for the work and the pleasures of earth,— it becomes natural then, and reasonable, to have the patriarch’s ‘T would not live alway’ much before the heart. In cases like these, the Divine Captain is, in His providence, intimating His purpose to withdraw the soldier from his post; and, by turning the longings alike of nature and of grace toward the peace and the energy of the other life, He meetens the soul for the change. ‘I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better,’ says the war-worn veteran of the faith, now ‘such an one as Paul the aged ;’—but mark, he is ‘in a strait betwixt two’ in his feelings on this matter even yet, and, so long as any duty remains for him to do, he would rather stay to do it. Still, at the shouting of the Lord’s adversaries, the old soldier’s eye flashes, and with renewed ardour he girds on his sword again, and takes his place, to defend the cause and the friends \

οἱ Him he loves ; and again his battle-cry rings out loud and ‘clear. ‘To abide j in the flesh is more needful for you: and having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your furtherance and joy of faith.’

When the prayer of Epaphroditus was heard, and he came back from the gates of the unseen world, we cannot doubt that it was to enter on a life of even more devotedness than he had before shown. An enemy of God may sometimes take up again the weapons of his unholy warfare, even after being by the divine mercy restored from severe illness; for if, as our Lord tells us, even the sight of a man returned from the dead would not work faith in those who refuse to hear Moses and the prophets, no doubt such an approach to resurrection in one’s own experience as was granted to Epaphroditus may fail. But it may safely be declared impossible that an earnest, active Christian like Epaphroditus could be dealt with as he was, and not be a more profoundly spiritually-minded man, and more resolute to ‘work while it is called to-day,’ than he had ever been. He blessed Him ‘with whom are the issues from death,’ and dedicated his renewed life to His glory.

Observe the glimpse which we have here of the spiritual training through which God brought His illustrious servant _ Paul,—a glimpse fitted to bring the apostle nearer to us, and _ give his example and his teaching greater power over us. The points in which the apostles differed from ordinary believers— _ the inspiration and miraculous power which they received to qualify them for their peculiar work—sometimes, I think, hide from us a little the fact that, as men by nature sinful, but - guided onward and upward by divine grace, their spiritual experience was, in all important respects, similar to that of other believers. You see here, that though, as regards signs and wonders as well as energy and success, Paul was ‘ not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles,’—though at Ephesus, as we read, ‘ special miracles were wrought by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or

aprons, and the diseases departed from them,’—yet the discipline of spending days or weeks by the sick-bed of a dear friend, of anxiously watching the varying pulse, of wrestling with God for mercy, of seeing with trembling alternations of hope and fear the slow return of life,—this precious discipline could not be withheld from Paul. When the idolaters of Ephesus were to be convinced that the kingdom of God was come nigh to them, then a handkerchief from Paul’s body could at once bring health to the diseased; but when Paul himself, and his helpers, were, through the teaching of affliction, to have their spiritual life beautified and strengthened, then Epaphroditus had to languish in sore illness, and from the bank of the dark river come back by slow stages,—and Trophimus had to be ‘ left at Miletum sick.’

One of the apostle’s reasons for sending Epaphroditus to Philippi was the intense desire of Epaphroditus himself to revisit his home and friends: ‘ For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness because that ye had heard that he had been sick.’ ‘There are probably not a few among us, who from our own experience can illustrate this statement,—recalling how, after a severe illness away from home, amid the nervous weakness of convalescence an intense longing took possession of the heart to see again the kind faces which had smiled on us in childhood, and hear the old familiar tones of love. The particular form which the feeling took in the case before us was such as to show a very gentle and amiable character. Epaphroditus knew that many among the Philippian Christians cherished a lively affection for him ; and, being aware that they had heard of his illness, he knew that there would be among them much grief and anxiety. Under these circumstances, it seemed to him as if he could not have comfort of spirit again in returning to his evangelistic work, until he and his friends had once more looked each other in the face. There was here a certain womanly tenderness, which some men would have called weakness. Paul does not call it such, and evidently

does not think it such. He knew the manly robustness of spirit, the decision and energy and devotedness, which had made Epaphroditus his honoured ‘companion in labour and fellow-soldier ;’ and to him, I doubt not, the element of softness and sweetness, brought out in the languor of the recovery, exhibited a new charm.

Not merely did Epaphroditus long to return to Philippi, but the apostle himself thought it every way desirable. How beautifully the tenderness of A7s character also is illustrated in this little paragraph! ‘God had mercy on him,’ he says, ‘and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. J send him therefore the more carefully, that when ye see him again ye may rejoice,and that I may be the less sorrowful, ΕἼ feel it such a blessing to myself to have Epaphroditus back again from the edge of the grave, that I cannot but wish you, his Philippian friends and mine, to be sharers in my satisfaction, through resuming personal intercourse with him. You will be made glad, I know; and though I shall greatly miss his kind and affectionate attentions to me, and his pleasant Christian converse, yet it will gratify me much to feel that his return has gratified you. The dreariness of my imprisonment _ will remain, yet it will seem less gloomy to me,—I shall be the less sorrowful,—through my knowledge that you are happy in his society.’ How exquisite is this Christian courtesy !

In the zgth and 3oth verses the apostle exhibits the duty _ of the Philippians towards Epaphroditus. ‘ Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation ; because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death,—not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.’ To our ears these last words have somewhat of a reproachful sound ; but it is evident from the whole tone of the context, both here and in a passage in one of the Epistles to the Corinthians, where similar words occur,! that the apostle has no thought of reproach in using them. He simply means to show

Δα Cor. xvi. 17. bs

how much he owes to Epaphroditus, and to commend him to the love of the Philippians, by mentioning his having with affectionate solicitude rendered to the aged prisoner those personal services which the other Philippians would, no doubt, according to the testimony of their whole conduct, gladly have rendered, but were by absence prevented.

In these verses, you see, the apostle states a fact regarding his friend’s illness, which had naturally drawn out his sympathy with peculiar intensity. The illness was directly traceable to his devotion to the Master’s service. The particular way in which it was brought on is not mentioned. The cause might be exposure or over-exertion on the journey by land and sea to aid the apostle, or in his attendance on him, or in preaching the gospel in Rome; but, be this as it may, certainly in some way it was ‘for the work of Christ’ that ‘he was nigh unto death.’ It is not by any means impossible that something of imprudence, in the way of undue exposure or labour, had aided in bringing on the illness. It very frequently is so in such cases ; and it is exceedingly probable, I think, that if Paul recognised anything of this kind, the same wise and watchful affection which led him to enjoin on his zealous young friend Timothy some consideration of his delicate constitution and ‘often infirmities,’ might prompt also a quiet word of caution to Epaphroditus. But the soul of the faithful old servant of Christ was refreshed by the sight of the imprudence of holy devotedness. His heart had been distressed by seeing some, of whom he had hoped well, ‘seeking their own things, not those which are Jesus Christ’s ;’ and the fervour of

zeal, and grand self-forgetfulness, of Epaphroditus came to him like a draught of cold water in a thirsty land. 4

The fact that ‘for the work of Christ’ Epaphroditus had incurred his affliction, evidently gave him a very strong claim on the love and veneration of all the followers of Christ. It behoved the Philippian church, therefore, to ‘receive him in the Lord with all gladness’—not merely to give him the welcome _ a friend, but to rejoice over him with fervent brotherly affection, as one in whom the transforming power of the grace of Christ had been signally shown,—and to ‘ Ao/d’ very specially ‘in reputation’ him and all who, like him, glorified the Redeemer by self-sacrificing zeal in His cause. Knowing the warm-hearted Philippians as he did, Paul could have no doubt that the reception of his messenger would be indeed ‘ with all gladness.’ You remember the enthusiastic welcome which was accorded among us a year or two ago to the brave young American who had encountered innumerable perils to carry aid to the illustrious missionary pioneer of Central Africa, David Livingstone. We felt as if in helping the noble old man, whom all of us had come to think of as a personal friend, he had helped ourselves. We know what pleasure and sense of honour. would be felt if Florence Nightingale presented herself under our roof, or under the roof of any true-hearted countryman of those wounded soldiers of the Crimea, for whom she cared so wisely and lovingly, and who kissed her very shadow on the wall, as she passed through the wards of the hospital. Somewhat like this would be the position of Epaphroditus on his return to Philippi. The knowledge of his heroism and self-devotion in the cause of the Saviour they loved, and this in discharging the duties of a ministry for the relief and comfort of their dear friend and spiritual father the apostle, could not but lead them to feel it a peculiar privilege and honour to be permitted to welcome him once more among them.

No one, I think, my friends, can attentively read the paragraph we have now examined, and that immediately preceding, without feeling that they supply fine illustrations of the exquisite beauty of the Apostle Paul’s character. How gloriously free, unreserved, and unselfish his commendations of Timothy and Epaphroditus, and how tender and loving the heart from which they came! And even with these friends, so dear and so needful to him, the aged servant of Christ, worn with

labour and suffering, is willing, ‘for the work of Christ,’ to part,—and to be left alone! This is he who aforetime ‘ was a persecutor, a blasphemer, and injurious’ —who ‘entered into and self-sacrificing zeal for all that is true and beautiful and good, to which ‘the love of Christ constrained him !’