Greetings to Friends from Paul
Colossians 4:15-18 · Andrew Molloy · Oct 13, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261916317223

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I want to review a little bit about where we were in this Colossians study, going back to the historical kind of time frame that we're at. Currently it's, and stop me if any of this, but this should all be review. It's about 60 A.D., right? And Paul is writing to the Colossians.

He's in his first imprisonment. under house arrest, and this is review, because Bob has covered this, you've covered this, Roger. He's treated well, he has maybe an apartment, he has some liberties. Several people are with him, right? Luke, Epaphras, of course, the pastor of the church at Colossae. Onesimus, is there the slave who is about to travel back to Colossae with Epaphras. And then Timothy is there. Aristarchus and Demas are there, among probably others, right?

So there's a bunch of guys there ministering to him. Getting there to this imprisonment, he was shipwrecked, right, in Malta. And he was with that Centurion escort, because he asked for a trial before Caesar. And along with him, there was Luke. He was on the ship with him.

And Aristarchus, right? And I estimate that's about 59 AD, about two years before this letter was written. Now he's in Rome. under chains, but this was two years before. I heard Bob, you guys were talking about whether Aristarchus and Epaphras were prisoners or not, whether they were also arrested in Rome. It's kind of unclear, but if they were, they might have shared co-imprisonment duties, right? Successive terms. And my question, and I don't have an answer to this, maybe you guys do, but how can someone be voluntarily imprisoned? If you go over there to see Paul, you know, you don't have to be arrested.

So did they do something? Did they agree to be arrested so that they could be with him? right there and minister to him. Maybe they did a small crime to get arrested so they could get close to him. Yeah, right. Or are they like verbally saying whatever he's being charged with, we were there with him. Yeah, or they could co-conspirators or whatever. Right, so they know, right, if he's with Paul and Paul's under suspicion they'll arrest them too, but sort of do it... I do think too that Paul got a lot of privileges because he was a Roman citizen. Yeah. He, you know... And well known. Yeah. And well known. Well known. So, you know, I don't know that maybe those, he vouched for them and said, you know, they're going to... I don't know. Because remember, again, we talked about this.

When you were imprisoned, nope. A nice place, I mean, right on the sea and they had a palace there. And so he was there for two years, right? The Jews wanted to keep him there because they were angry with him for obvious reasons. He was preaching the gospel of Christ. They were upset about that.

And right there in Judea, Jerusalem especially, the political situation was starting to kind of falter, right? The Jews were acting up, I guess you'd say, against the Roman rule. And it could be that when Jesus was there, he just sort of upturned the whole status quo of things, didn't he? So the Jews were starting to rise up, and the Romans were sort of losing control of them, and Felix was corrupt.

And then if we jump ahead three years, after the writing of Colossians, in 64 AD, Rome burned, if you remember that from your history lessons, under Nero. And Nero might have set the fire to do that just so he could blame the Christians in Rome. And he executed and tortured many thousands, I think. Paul was not there when Rome burned, right? He was already released. But in 64, he, 64 to 68, Or 65 to 68, he was somehow rearrested and went back to Rome. And then he did not escape that second imprisonment. And we don't have any record of that. The act stops before that time. So that's just a little review of where we're at before that final exam next week.

I'll make a mess of it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you'll want to bring your number two pencils, put your stuff under your desk. I'm just going to interject this, that next Sunday, Bob and I leave for our Mediterranean cruise. And so, we will be in many of these places. Next, I'm starting, you know, we fly to Athens on Sunday. And we're going to Rhodes, we're going to Cyprus, we're going to Ephesus. We will not go to Colossae, but we will go to...

I mean, we're going to be all right there. We see Ephesus and Smyrna, and then we'll be a couple of other places before you get to Antalya, now called Antalya, which on that map was Atalya. Atalya, right here? Yeah, Atalya. We'll go all around there. We go to Patmos. Oh yeah, that's... So is it a tour intended to do biblical sites or not? No, it is not.

But it is going, because then we go on across, after we go to Cyprus, we go to Tel Aviv, and then to Jerusalem. And we're going to go take a land trip to Nazareth. And then back to Athens. Are you going to Jerusalem too? We are. Wow, you're doing the whole thing. So Caesarea is about right here. Yeah, exactly. How long is it? A couple of weeks? Yeah, we'll be gone a little more than two weeks. Oh, great.

So we'll be on a ship. So pray for us too, because with all the stuff going on right now in Turkey and Syria, which is right there, we're hopeful that we still get to go. We're not going to Tarsus. We had hoped we would go to Tarsus, but that's not on the agenda.

That's great. You know the Turks who now control the whole area, right? In Israel they're excavating everything and doing all this historical and taking up these tells and looking at them, but Colossae is under a tell It still is, I think, and they don't have any interest in... No, there's nothing. We went by there, because we drove from Ephesus across Turkey. People thought we were nuts. All the way to Antalya. We drove the whole thing through the mountains. In Turkey, you could never do that today. No, right. You could be kidnapped. I mean, today. Yeah.

But we went right by where Colossae is, and there's really not much at Colossae. It's there, you know where it is. But it's not like Ephesus where they totally excavated so much at Ephesus. And that draws the tourists, the historical tourists. And Hierapolis is called now, and there is where we are in the book there, in the circle, the three cities. Hierapolis is called, oh, what's the place called?

I covered this in that first lesson way back when. It's Parmaluke. Parmaluke or something like that. That's the town that it's currently at. Well that sounds great. So you'll take the test before you go. So here we are in verse 15. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha Nunfa, I'm sorry that's how you pronounce that, Nunfa, and the church that is in her house.

So Laodicea, and again we're at 61 AD, what happens to Laodicea in about 90 to 100 AD is they're in trouble, right? We knew that from the the Revelation of John and Laodicea is the economic center of the region, has the banking, has all the economy. It's a big city, downriver or upriver from Colossae, depending on which way that river runs. And Colossae is a very small little town.

But in Revelation 3.14, and I've just bolded this Christ Jesus himself is saying that Laodicea I know your deeds you're neither hot or cold I wish that you were hot or cold but you're lukewarm so I'm going to spit you out of my mouth so they're lukewarm spiritually and Christ says you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I advise you to buy gold refined by fire from me so that you may become rich and white garments that you may clothe yourself."

So they're in poor shape spiritually. Anyone have any guesses as to what happened to them? Because they were on par with Prod Colossae spiritually. They had the same pastor They got the book of Ephesians delivered to them, so they knew that. They're just about to get the book of Colossians from Paul. So they were on a very good track with Epaphras as the minister. Do you think the angel, you see up there, it says to the angel of the church in Laodicea, do you think that could be Epaphras? Because an angel isn't a true angel. It's some representative for the church or messenger of the church.

So in 30 years, it could be, right? On this Sunday morning, there's no real right answers. We're not dealing with doctrine. And it's just kind of conjecture at this point. And then I was just thinking, it could be, what if it's And we'll get to him in a minute, but maybe it's Archippus, the guy that is in verse 17. We'll look at that though. Could be. So my best guess as to what happened to Laodicea in 30 years is this. And I just copied this from the Hungry Heart series from August 29th. I read that way in the past and I thought, I like this one.

He quotes Colossians 3.2, set your affection on the things above, not on the things of this earth, is the topic for that day, August 29th.

And he says this, he says that the great failure of the church was in giving up on Paul. All in Asia heard the gospel message due to his ministry. They kept the evangelical truth, but they gave up on the ministry of Paul. Anything popular you may have, but not Paul. Why? Because Paul is heavenly.

And that's the whole subject really of Colossians, isn't it? They had all the great truths about positional truths, the baptism of the Holy Spirit into Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Their placement in the body of Christ and what that is, the mystery of the body, is explained in depth in Colossians.

Jesus Christ being the head, and that they were to seek Jesus Christ as the head of the body, And then Colossians 3.1, keep seeking things above and not on the earth. Maybe they just took their minds off of things above.

And because, as it says in Revelation 3.14, you know, you are rich, but you're poor spiritually. Laodicea was a very rich town.

So maybe that's what had, that's my theory. What do you think about that, Mary? And I just, it's easy because it was... Yeah, yeah. It could, and a lot of those messages in Revelation 3, right, apply to all the churches today, depending on where they're at. You know, some are here. Yeah. Yeah.

Even what's happening here in this country, which is sort of the last A big Christian country. I mean even here, we're seeing this happen. Yeah, we're losing our... We're so focused on things of the earth and the world, the whole system, that Christ has become way down the list for many people.

Right, yeah, that's true. So Nufa, is she a man or a woman? It's her house. Yes, it does. Look at that. In her house. But look at Rutherford down here. At the end, nothing more is known regarding him. And this is the only message in which he is named. So, nymphus means bridegroom or spouse. So spouse could be man or woman.

And I guess, you know, I'm not the Greek guy here, but the gender depends on where they place the accent in that Greek name for Nuntha. Because I was studying this, and I was seeing her, and in some places else I was seeing him, and I was like, oh boy, what is... So, I had to look into this. So, it's unclear.

And some say it was a little collection of believers, so it would be the house of Nufa. Maybe his or her household. Maybe she's a widow. But she has a big house, as Rutherford says down there. A sufficiently large house with a salon, sufficiently accommodating to allow the meeting of a company of believers.

She might have a great amount of wealth, which makes sense because as we say again, Laodicea was a big economic center and had a medical center and that's where all the stuff in the Lycus Valley, all the economy flowed through. So raise your hand if you think she's a woman.

Yeah, and it doesn't matter. It has no doctrinal significance, does it? And that's good. So we're set on the doctrine, but some of these details, they just don't know. So, on to Colossians 16, verse 16. When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And you, for your part, there in Colossae, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. So is the epistle, the letter to the Colossians, is that a letter that the Colossians were receiving? Is that Paul writing to the Laodiceans?

What do you think? Is it possible there was another letter that we don't know about? Yeah, it's possible. That we never saw? That we never got included? A lot of people think that, and I think I wrote it down below, but it could be a lost letter to the Laodiceans, but if you notice the language of it, it's have it also read Oh, at the end of the verse, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. And the fact that it's not, read the letter that is to the Laodiceans, right?

So he's kind of specific about that. And it could be a letter that's not addressed to anyone in particular. But most people, most commentators say that it's the Ephesians letter, right? Because the Ephesians letter is coming back from Paul with this letter, Colossians letter, and the letter to Philemon brought by who? Remember who the letter carrier is?

It'll be on the quiz. Yeah, it'll be on the quiz. So here's the guys coming back after Paul, after they visit Paul is Epaphras, of course, right? He's coming back because he's taking Onesimus and Tychicus. So which one of those are carrying the letters? Tychicus. Yes. Good. Tychicus is Paul's UPS man. And he mentions, he carries all the letters. He's the guy who is he delivers, he's the Pony Express for Paul. So Tychicus is bringing these three letters.

Or another letter to the Laodiceans. But it's from the language. We don't think it's a letter to the Laodiceans. And being that Ephesians is a circular letter, sort of, it was shared around all this Asia, it's most likely the letter to the Ephesians.

So that says that if Laodiceans are getting the book of Ephesians first, the Colossians are getting their book, their letter, the book of Colossians. That means that Laodicea, this church in the house of Nympha, was pretty high spiritually functioning because The book of Ephesians is a high-functioning, heavenly book, right? Whereas Galatians, he's really having to get down in the mud with the Galatians, because they're involved in legal, they're a mess. Corinthians are a mess, right? But the Ephesians can handle all these great positional truths. Most likely the letter to Ephesians is what it is.

Okay, on to verse 17. Here we are at Archippus. Say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. So who was Archippus? And this is from Verne. The hippos in there means horse. And Vern says, Chief of the Horses is what that means, Archippus. And only Vern would come up with that.

But one clue as to who Archippus is, is from the letter to Philemon, which is also being carried by Tychicus, and is going to be delivered to Philemon. Paul is greeting, say hi to, Afia, our sister, and to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that is in your house, and that your house, that's Philemon. So it could, it's, it makes the most sense to say that Archippus is the son of Philemon, and his mother is Afia, A-P-P-H-I-A, is, so they're a little family unit there in Colossae.

So he's, there's a couple guesses as to what was happening with Archippus and to this ministry he had and whether it was, was he a backslider? There's a negative view of it that Paul is saying, hey, take heed to this ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. So a lot of commentators say he was backsliding or he was sidetracked with lesser things. He didn't have his eye on the ball of this ministry that he had. Ron Merriman says a little less negative that Archippus was a young man prone to get discouraged in the ministry. Maybe he was just Think of Paul. Think of what Paul went through. Imprisonment. Beatings. Shipwreck. Getting bitten by snakes. Stoning. Did I mention beatings? And beatings. And getting thrown in jail. And hunger and famine and all this stuff. So, Paul is like, hey, hey dude. take a hold of this ministry and fulfill it. So that's kind of what Merriman was thinking.

But I always thought that it might be a positive thing and I found one, I think it was from Wiest who said it could be a gentle encouragement to him because if you look Down in that last bullet point, Paul says to Timothy, and you know how great Timothy is, I mean, he was perfect, he said, but you, Timothy, be sober in all things, endure hardship, and do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry. So you see the fulfill your ministry to Timothy, and then in our verse, verse 17, to Archippus, fulfill it. See that parallelism there? So Paul is telling them, and Lightfoot says that that word for fill is plerao, just to discharge it fully or to fill to full your ministry that you've been given.

But that one, two, three, four, fifth bullet point there where Lightfoot goes into the Greek It's definitely a higher ministry than the level of a deacon. It's not a generalist. He's really got some sort of higher functioning ministry, like pastor, teacher, or something like that, or elder, or maybe bishop is a word from that time too. Could it be that he took over from Epaphras and maybe he's the guy who's ministering to Heropolis and Colossae and Laodicea?

What do you think about that? Maybe he's the guy. Maybe. As I say, there's no wrong answers in this Sunday. You know, and a lot of commentators, I don't know if you, but they, I'll give an example of Chester McCauley, Chet McCauley. He got to, he got to like the verse, we're at 15 and he said, well, there's no doctrine here. It's just greet the brethren who are in Laodicea. How can you, how can you exegete that? It's say hi. Okay.

And then he He skipped that and he went right to the review. So there's a lot of up in the air about these things. But it's really fascinating, this historical stuff and just sort of conjecturing what's going on. Especially because then you see in other books these same people mentioned. yeah and you know that because this area was very small I mean it's a very small area yeah going back and forth so they all sort of knew each other and came through these same towns right and would greet each other because the Christian community wasn't that large and so yeah probably had to stay at people's homes and They interacted with all of these people as time went on. And Ephesus plays a big part here. Where's Ephesus? Here it is. So a hundred miles from there. But there was so much that went on in Ephesus with Paul.

There was a riot and people would come to him at Ephesus and they would just bring a scarf or a cloak or a shirt and have them touch it and they would be healed and things like that so it's huge but he caused a riot and Apollos was there and so oh and then and the riot was due to that he was infringing on he was saying hey you don't need any You don't need to build any idols because God is not in the idols. He's still an idol in Ephesus. Yeah, putting out of business the silversmiths and the woodworkers there. So they caused a riot.

So that, I'm sure, just spread through and they knew Paul. They knew what had happened in Ephesus. So they knew exactly what was going on in Ephesus. Okay, Pamphylia, and it's on the bottom there, you see it? That's probably where your ship will pass right by there, Margaret. And that's in the Galatia region. And so Paul was there on his first missionary journey. He picks up Timothy in Lystra, right there, right? He meets his mother and likes Timothy, so he takes him along. Oh, and this, Panthylia, is where John, Mark, abandons them, he and, who was in Barnabas, right? Mark goes back to Jerusalem, Paul's upset about that, so Paul and Barnabas split there, and It's yeah, so that's the historical part about Pamphylia.

But what I want to point out is there is this disease that was going down there at that time called ophthalmolia. Does anyone know what that is? It's conjunctivitis. Pink eye is a good example. I told you one time when I was here, maybe in the winter, I forgot what it was, but I looked something up for the study and I said, don't Google this because It's awful.

Well, if you don't have the medicine like we do, where it'll go away in a day or two, and it just festers and gets worse, it would be horrible. So that was going on down, maybe mosquito-borne or something, and it might have been a virus, but that was happening, that was prevalent down there, historically. So could it be that Paul picked that up, and that's his, as I put here, put down Galatians 4 13 through 15 he's talking to the Galatians it was because of bodily illness that I preached to you the God yeah he was he couldn't go on he wanted to go on to think Athens he wanted to jump over the the pond there and go to Athens but he was stuck there in Galatia he couldn't go because of this bodily condition but the Galatians took him in and they nursed him back to health and I guess he looked probably hideous maybe because as I say on Google if you it's just yellow cakey and swollen and and then that stuck on my my home page for a couple days because I thought that I wanted to go back there and this pig oh it's just awful But it reminded me, oh yeah, Aptalia. So there's the talk that Paul's thorn in the side was something else, like maybe with his leg, or maybe he liked bourbon too much, his thorn in the side, or women, or something.

But isn't it really clear from the Galatians 4, 13 through 15 passage, that there's some eye There's something with the eye there. At the end, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. So he needed an eye replacement, right? So I think that's it. But who knows? Again, there's no set in stone here. What do you guys think? Do you know anything else about the Thorin side that you want to...

Well, you know, actually I taught that passage. And I sort of thought it was maybe close to leprosy. Because it was the fact that people didn't want to look upon it. He didn't want people to look so bad. It could be the eyes, but almost like it could be leprosy, but it probably wasn't leprosy because it would have been probably mentioned. Yeah, because you could never heal from leprosy.

And it would have been later on, it would have shown up. He would have gotten worse and worse. I mean, he would have had body parts dropping off. But it seemed like it kind of was of that, it's some kind of physical thing that people can see. Well, even pink eye, right? If some, you're like, ooh, what's going on with you? It's hard to look at. Yeah. Especially when you can't treat it. Yeah, but interestingly in Laodicea they made these, and in the Revelation passage it says, I salve. They were making this because it was, you know, Hierapolis was spa town. They probably had this healing mud or something that helped it.

But Paul never got there. He wanted to get to Klose and see Philemon, but he never got there. Maybe that would have helped him a great deal. Okay, 418. I, Paul, write this in my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you. Why does Paul write in his own hand?

Maybe because of the opthalmia, right? If you can't see and your eye is... So maybe he could barely... We have an old golden retriever who can't see and she tries to go down the stairs. And she sits there for a minute, and she cannot, she, yeah, it's hard. But finally she'll take a step in faith and go, and once she got one down, she'll just time it. And she can't see what she's doing.

But that could have been Paul. He also had this standard thing where he wrote at the end of most of his epistles that he wrote in his own hand. It could be number two to say, hey, this letter is truly from me. And the subtext of that is, you remember Thessalonians, they thought that the end had come and the day of the Lord was at hand, and they were disturbed and quickly shaken about that. and Paul says, now we request you brethren with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, they thought they were left behind and are gathering together with him that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter from us. So there was a couple instances where there might have been some some false letters from Paul. What's the word? Fake news. Oh, forgeries from Paul. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. Forged letters from Paul saying all sorts of things.

So when he writes it in his own hand, That's his way of saying, no, this letter is truly from me. This is one of my authenticated letters. Number three, I thought maybe it's just, it's also probably a way just for him to break in because he's having, what book is it? Maybe Timothy, someone's writing for him because the guy breaks that fourth wall and he says, this is me. Joe, Joey Bag of Donuts. And I say hi, but he's the scribe. I forget what his name was. So he broke in and said hi to the people in that book.

And this is a way for Paul to break in there at the end and say hello in person. And you can see the examples of when he writes things in his own hand. You have Thessalonians, you have Philemon, First Corinthians. Thessalonians, because they thought they missed the coming of the Lord, he says, I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. You know, he's being very obvious. This is my distinguishing mark in every letter I write. This is what my writing looks like. This is from me.

To Philemon, he says, this is in my own hand. I owe you any money that Onesimus owes you. That's an I owe you there in Philemon, written in Paul's own hand. Corinthians, he just says, this greeting is in my own hand, Paul. And then Galatians, because maybe of the I thing, he's saying, see what large letters I'm writing to you.

I can barely see what I'm doing. but I can kind of and I think this is my own thing but I think he verse chapter 6 verse 12 in Galatians I think he wrote this verse himself those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised but I say no you know simply so they will they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ and he's writing that just so they get that in their mind. It's probably sloppy, but it's from Paul. That's my theory, anyway. So there's the examples of Paul writing in his own hand.

And he says, remember my imprisonment in verse 18. And I have that, well, that's obvious, right? Duh. is sort of the connotation of that. So the Colossians know that he's in prison. Because they sent Epaphras there to minister to him. And so currently they have someone else at Colossae in Laodicea in Hierapolis. Maybe Archippus, right? Taking over the pastoral duties there. So they know he's in bonds, but he mentions this And I have a King James version down here at the bottom, Remember My Bonds.

And I try to summarize what, who was that? I think it's Wiest that I'm sort of quoting there in capital letters. It's a very tender way to say, remember that I'm here in chains for your sakes. trying to keep you from the dark, and this is me just summarizing, sort of like Adam Schiff, summarizing what did he make up the other week.

Oh, that phone call. You remember that. So this is me sort of doing that in Adam Schiff here. Trying to keep you from the dark perils of false doctrine. But this fight has landed me here in chains. Remember that. So just it's a tender plea to, hey, remember I'm here.

Because now these guys were back to them. Epaphras, Tychicus, and Nesimus, they were now gone. He was left there. But Luke was probably still there in Rome. So he's just sort of a sad thing that he's saying there at the end. And that's what Wiest was trying to get across. I thought that was good. And grace be with you ends the book of Colossians. And you've heard this before. This is a review. The signature phrase of Paul is grace to you, grace be with you. Grace to you. Who has that ministry? John MacArthur, yeah, grace to you. And there's the Greek word in the second point there, charis, right? That's easy, that's what it looks like.

I always called it zapis when I was teaching this kids course, this kids Sunday school course. And then Macaulay tells us that it's used 155 times in the New Testament. Paul eats up 130 uses of the word charis. And Macaulay again says, as the Greeks understood the word charis, when God wanted to express his character, more than anything else he'd use the word charis. And this also, Paul was the grace minister, wasn't he? He was the minister who had to reveal this new operating system. It's a dispensation that Paul called it a dispensation or an operating principle.

And it was, the law was ended. What ended the law is Christ. The law came to a It was a train that came to the terminus, the station, where the concrete platform is. There's no more track. There's a big bumper. Law ended. So grace was now the operating principle. And then I've just defined it in A and B there at the end.

I really like that Aristotle definition. Do you like it? Charis is something, a favor conferred freely with no expectation of return, and it finds its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver. And that's how the Greek, because it's Aristotle, so he wasn't a, that's not a Christian or a religious definition of charis, that's Aristotle.

But that gives you sort of the breadth of what that word means. And then B, I gave you the holy version. It's the Holly Hills version. And I couldn't find it anywhere exactly. But how did I do there? The undeserved, unmerited favor towards man, that God is free to bestow based on the work of Christ. Totally adequate work of Christ. And the thing is, grace is never defined.

And we only started really nailing down the definition, maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago or something? You only hear it's a free gift, or it's a gift, or it's the free gift of God. But that Aristotle thing, to where, and especially in those Macaulay tapes, if you listen to those, it's really, it's really cool.

Oh, what's the, what's the, Here's wrapping up to, I hope you don't, I'm not stealing this from you, but what's the most important word in Colossians for next week? This will be on the test. Think of this, the word is all. A-L-L. It's used like 28 or 32 times. That's what Richeson said. And that makes sense, because when you look at it, now that should pop out.

I mean, one time he says, Paul says, that Christ be all in all. So, in all things, all. So yeah, that might be the most important. Tom? I'm thinking of that closing phrase from one of Jesus' lessons. All is all, and that's all Paul is. Exactly, yeah. And that's the point that Paul is trying to get across to these Colossian believers, that it's, you know, all is all.

So take your hand here like this, and then go like this, and then pat yourself on the back. Because you've just... We did it. Yeah, you did it. We've been taking the test. Oh yeah, right. Yeah, now you just study and then you go on spring break. That's a good little book though, isn't it? Oh, and I also wanted to mention really quick that, because Bob started it last week, but after You get to chapter 4 and he talks about prayer a little bit, but then he starts this section of saying hello to this guy and all this personal instruction. That takes up a lot of real estate in the Book of Colossians. And the Book of Colossians is a short book, so it's good that we did two weeks on this, because in other books, that little ending session is just very short.

So this stuff is important, these people, these guys. Yeah, right. But usually, like guys, yeah, they just say, okay, this is, but this is neat that we get to do that. And all those, I think those, the fellow worker and the, go through and when you look at this, You know, he calls Tychicus a beloved brother, faithful servant, and fellow bond-servant in the Lord. Anesimus is faithful and beloved. But these things really mean something. I mean, because usually, I used to think that, oh, you know, he's just kind of throwing out the niceties, but I don't think he is. Because, and Bob mentioned this, he gets to Demas, he says, oh, Demas. Gives him no calls.

Like, my brother, they used to make up call signs for you know pilots so and they always they meant something though like uh hollywood robins he was hollywood robins because he was good looking and he he was the poster child of the squadron and he was on the daily show one time he went on to command the thunderbirds so his call sign was hollywood and there was a guy named too tall And he was like this, this tall.

And I was too tall. And then there was Weinberger. His call sign was Booger. So, um, oh, oh, he was zap. He said he was, it was, uh, conferred by God because he was getting out of plane, his jet and a lightning bolt hit his plane and froze him to the the ladder coming down and he was he was frozen up for a while. Zach sounds better than Zach the Mormon engineer. There was a song about it. I'll just quote it. I'm not going to try to say it. Old Zachy had a wifey in every railroad town, etc. So he was Zach. This is the end of the lesson today. Yeah.

Oh and then one guy when he retired he would give call signs out to civilians, engineers, down at AFOTEC. He was at the Air Force Testing Center. And they really liked these engineers. And one guy was BC. They called him BC because he was like this tall, and he looked like the BC character. Yeah, the cartoons of BC.

Oh, and then one woman said, at his retirement party, said, you never gave me a call sign. And he goes, I didn't? I could have sworn I did. But then she gave herself a call sign. And he said, that's because she did something spectacular at one time. So those are very important, those little call signs, as I call them. Jesus, who was called Justice, he was a just man. So yeah, so that's, I'm just following up on Bob's thing from last week. And Demas, nothing, because Demas, what happens to Demas? He abandons the ministry, right? At the end. So he does not get any love from Paul. Okay, let's, anyone want to close? Sure, I'll close. Thank you, Father. Thank you for our meeting today, Lord. Thank you for this wonderful study in Colossians, Lord. Thank you for the wonderful truths that are contained there. Thank you for the study. I glorify you in Christ's name. Amen.