Epaphroditus example
Philippians 2:25-30 · Andrew Molloy · Jun 2, 2024
Philippians (2021-24), No. 21
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261935235608

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

In Philippians chapter 2, 25 through 30, today we study the Epaphroditus example. Let me read from 19 here. But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I may also be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit as Timothy, who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus's.

But you know of his proven worth that he has served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. Therefore, I hope to send him immediately as soon as things how things go with me, and I trust in the Lord that I myself will be coming shortly.

But I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, this is verse 25, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need, because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard he was sick. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. Verse 28. Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly, so that when you see him again, you may rejoice, and I may be less concerned about you. Receive him then in all joy, Receive him then in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like him in high regard, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me.

The first question I had when I started this study this week is, is Epaphroditus the same as Epaphrus in Colossians? If you remember, there's an Epaphrus in Colossians. And I went through it, went through it, and the answer is no, but I'll kind of give you the reasons for that. It's the same name, Epaphrus, it's the same name as Epaphroditus, it's a shortened version.

Epaphroditus means charming, handsome, and a loved one of the goddess Aphrodite. Did anyone know that? Or is that new to you? So Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. And Epaphroditus would be her boyfriend. So he has to be pretty good looking. Her wife would be. And then Epaphras is the contraction of that, which just means handsome, charming, graceful, things like that.

But the thing is, they were both in Rome with Paul from 60 to 62 AD during his imprisonment. Epaphras was possibly, I think he was a fellow prisoner with Paul in Rome. And he started the Colossian church, as you remember. And then Epaphroditus was there too, and he got the letter that we're reading today penned to the Philippians. So Epaphrus is a fellow, and sometimes Paul uses a prisoner of Christ Jesus as being a prisoner of Christ Jesus. but he says a fellow prisoner in Christ. And you don't know whether he's actually a Roman prisoner or just he's using that just of Christ Jesus. So as you remembered in Philemon. Epaphras is with Paul in Rome. And he sends Tychicus. And he was escorting a slave back to Philemon to Colossae. His name was Onesimus, the slave. And then Paul wrote a letter to Philemon there. But he mentions Epaphras there.

We can see that Epaphras in Colossians is the one who started the Colossian Church and they were saved through him. He was their spiritual father. In red there you see, even as he has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth from Epaphras. Just as you learned it from Epaphras, a beloved fellow bondservant who is also a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf. And he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. So there you have Epaphras very connected to the Colossian church.

And Colossians 4.12, Epaphras, who is one of your number, so he can't be Epaphroditus because he was one of the Philippians. And it says Epaphras was a bond slave of Christ Jesus. He sends his greetings from Rome. And this was the key thing about Epaphras in his ministry. He was a prayer warrior. He was always laboring earnestly for the Colossians in prayer. So that was his specialty in ministry.

And here I've recreated, well, I just stole from Bob Eccle here, and it's the chart he gave for an earlier study in Philippians. But we see that the first Roman imprisonment from Paul, there I have it in red, Paul wrote Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians all together, all during that one to two year period, well that two year period there. So you can see how closely related These Flippians and Colossians, the letters are to each other, plus Epaphras and Epaphroditus.

They were both there. So that's, I think that's it. I think there are two different men ministering to two different churches. Okay, so that was a little sidelight into the life of Epaphras. And here we go on to verse 25 here in Philippians chapter two. And Paul says, but I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is your messenger and minister into my need. So we saw from, I think it was last week, Roger, you brought out this, the word but, and it's de, D-E, and it's not a contrast here, but more, he's saying, moreover, I thought it necessary to send you a Paphroditus, or furthermore, so it's not a contradiction, it's just a conjunction. Yeah, more information, More information. I'm trying to advance my slide here. There we go. So why it was necessary is the spiritual well-being of the Philippian saints. He needed to send Epaphroditus back to them. Their spiritual condition warranted it. So let's go into the adjectives that Paul describes Epaphroditus as here.

First, he's a brother, a fellow, a brother, which is Adelphos. So he's a fellow brother, a fellow believer, united with a bond of affection. It's a common word here with Paul, brother, Adelphos. And then he's, Epaphroditus is a fellow worker, which is sunergos. And that means as soon as, S-Y-N is with, so with laborer, a fellow together working in an undertaking or an enterprise. And you see the word work there in ergos, that word for energy or work. And so in this case, it's work, in ministering to Paul on behalf of the Philippian believers.

He's a fellow soldier. I was able to say it earlier this week. Sustratiostis. There you see it. S-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-T-E-S. It's a fellow corpsman or platoon member. And it's a military term, so it's a band of soldiers in the Greek. And you see the word stratia in it. So what comes to mind when you see the Greek word stratia there?

Strategy. Yes. Yes, strategy. So it's definitely a military term. So it has the meaning of that they're going into battle together. And so their exposure to danger is high. And I thought of 2 Corinthians 11, 26, when Paul says he has dangers from rivers, dangers from seas, dangers in the wilderness. dangers in the city, dangers from false brethren, and dangers from robbers. So that's a fellow soldier exposed to danger.

Epaphrodite is a messenger, apostolos, which is a commissioned sent one, a sent one. And that's his primary ministry in all this in Philippians. He's a messenger. He's delivering to Paul a gift, right, a monetary gift. And then he's coming back to the Philippians with a letter. So he's a commissioned sent one, Apostolos. He's, Epaphroditus is a minister in verse 25 as well. So that's liturgos. And it's one who goes about the business of the people, basically. Like in politics, especially in the UK, you have a housing minister. So it's a group of people and you're attending to their needs.

But in this case, it's spiritual needs of Paul. So he's a minister. So meeting Paul's needs, what was his needs? He was in prison. And so, and I learned from all of you that in prison he had to supply his own rations, his own food, right? And people had to do that for him. So that's why Philippi was sending Paul some money and a care package through Epaphroditus to Paul. So I imagine maybe it's a, not only money, but a package of clothes, maybe a basket of Pepperidge Farm food, if you ever get that at Christmas, which would be especially exciting for Paul, I guess.

So not only that, not only this one gift, but as you remember, we'll see in Philippians 4.12, the Philippians supported Paul numerous times after he left them, and he was establishing the church in Thessalonica. They sent more than one gift, we'll learn in chapter four, to Paul that came from the Philippians to Paul. So those were Paul's needs, and that's the ministry here going on in Chapter two, through Epaphroditus. Okay, on to verse 26.

Epaphroditus, he was longing to see you all, and then he was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, not only on him, but also me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow.

So, Ironsides says that this sickness is likely the Roman fever, and it's a trench fever. And I guess military guys got it. But it was spread through body lice, of all things. And it causes cyclical five-day fevers, bone pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms, according to Smithsonian. And it was common in that time. And he had it really bad, because he was down for the count for a long time.

And keep in mind this point, that Epaphroditus went about 800 miles to Rome. It might have taken him more than a month or possibly be more than that. And then someone was there with him. He was sick. someone trekked back to Philippi 800 miles and told the Philippians that Epaphroditus is sick and he's close to death. And the Philippians got very anxious. And then someone had to go back and tell Epaphroditus and Paul that his church at Philippi was concerned. So they were concerned about his sickness. So you see how all those trips, take months and there's a lot of communication going back and forth there. So this whole thing took a while and a lot of trips back and forth from Philippi to Rome.

But God had mercy on me. Elias is the word there, and that's to help in affliction and having mercy. Mercy is removing one's misery or making it less severe. So God is both assuaging Epaphroditus' misery in sickness because he's sick. And then Paul, he's assuaging, he's having mercy on Paul because now Paul is heart sick about Epaphroditus' sickness and the condition of the Philippian believers because they're anxious. Everyone's sort of on edge here. This section of Philippian says in chapter two, Why do you think Paul didn't just heal Epaphroditus?

As he could have, right? And then gotten this all done much quicker. And we don't know. But I think it's because Paul never healed himself. And he just depended on the Lord to heal both himself and his fellow workers. but he would heal, he would heal for gospel reasons, right? So people would come to believe, but not in this, not after that, and just relying on the Lord's mercy.

Yeah. Do we have evidence that Paul's healing opportunities or capabilities exist? Do we? I mean, the new church was filled with signs and wonders, right? Paul was part of that. I'm just wondering whether this had reached a point where Paul's feeling, those gifts had now left him. I don't know that we can document that.

You know, the other thing, we learn a lot from this, don't we, in terms of the way we deal with one another's illnesses, don't we? We're all bothered by them too, aren't we, Bob? Yes. Yeah, right. And we don't have the gift of, yeah. And I see what you're saying. You're saying is, I think what you're saying, Bob, is had that one special gift kind of run out of time, right? And not been available anymore. And that's a good question. You know, who knows? But it could have went on for the first century and maybe into the second century. You don't know.

But yeah, there's a decline of those gifts, at least I think there was. Some churches don't believe that, right? Some churches do believe in the gift of healing. Otherwise, one of you could heal Lem and Wayne and Russ. But we just don't have that ability, do we? Andrew, isn't the main reason for the gift of healing was to show that Christ was the Messiah and that salvation was through Him. The gift wasn't to make my wife get over her cold. Or it wasn't for me to feel better.

It was evidence of God's work. And once we got the Word of God, the Canon, it was no longer necessary. Right. And I think as well, when Christ was, and he healed all the time, and scores, and probably everyone who came to him who was sick. And I think it was to show that the kingdom was here, was at hand. Because in the millennial kingdom, there's no sickness, there's death comes after when you're, if you die at 100 years old, it says you die in infancy. So healing, he was just bringing about the conditions of the kingdom and saying, Everyone's the kingdom is a place of healing. So that's why he healed everyone to show them that the kingdom was, was, was at hand, I believe to. Yeah, but good point. So sorrow pump. Oh, go ahead. I want to keep things going too long.

But I think Yeah, 1 Corinthians 13, or is it 12? It could be 12. Yeah, but they do kind of taper off, don't they? So is that 1 Corinthians 12? I think so. 13 has some. Yeah, and continuing to 13. This so that Paul would not have sorrow upon sorrow at the end of verse 26 here is from Vincent. It's an accusative implying motion. So sorrow coming upon sorrow or wave after wave of sorrow. And that would have been, Paul would have had wave after wave of sorrow, Epaphroditus, or the Philippians would have had wave after wave of sorrow if Epaphroditus had died. So yeah, sorrow upon sorrow. So I've, yeah.

In the book of Philippians, the word brother is used nine times, much more than any of the other Paul's epistles. So there was a bond that Paul had with the Philippians, and the Philippians had with Paul that was very close. Their love for each other was great. And that's why sorrow upon sorrow for what was going on. Yeah, great, great point. I didn't know that brother was used that many times.

But yeah, this you can read, when you read Philippians, you you've, it's very emotive, you can, it's, it comes out crystal clear that the love and the closeness they had with Paul, and the multiple gifts and things like that. And Paul was trying to get them to be one. And yeah, it's just a wonderful book for brotherly love. I guess you could say it's a good brotherly love letter.

Here is, I don't know if Epaphroditus went by the way of this pink line. Paul went that way, you know, on his missionary journey to Rome. So that's a possible route. But another possible route that Epaphroditus could have taken was by the Ignatian Way, which you see in the bottom, Philippi is along that road, and it goes to that direct queue.

And then over to the boot there of the heel of Italy. So we don't know which way he went. And I was just thinking maybe he went down through Thessalonica. And maybe he stayed with the Thessalonian brothers. And then maybe he stopped through Corinth. You never know. And then on the right, you see Colossae. There's about where that is. And Laodicea and Hierapolis. And that's where Epaphras, that's where he was from. So I just wanted to show you that really quick so you get a visual of where this is on the globe.

So verse 28, I have sent therefore, I have sent him all the more eagerly so that when you see him again, you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you. So therefore is the logical statement, it's Paul logically concludes that the best course of action is for Epaphroditus' troubled, anguished soul, and he knows he's being worried over by his brethren in Philippi, and the Philippians longing to see him again, the best thing is to send them back and to assuage everyone's sorrow and their anxiety here. So that's why this therefore, that's why the therefore is therefore, as we say in all our classes. I have this opinion that when Epaphroditus traveled back to Philippi, he had this letter with him, and he was very much protected with maybe an army. I thought of Second Kings and Elisha, when he opened his servant's eyes to see this army of angels, that they were protected from this army.

And that this letter is all these couriers of Paul's letters, very important because we have them today. And we need them today. And they'll go on in the future. And they have eternal value. So this messenger ministry of Epaphroditus and like Tychicus for the Colossians, it's a very critical ministry.

And I think there it's, You know, there's no way that letter would have been lost because God had it in his mind to get it to the Philippians. So, sending back Epaphroditus all the more eagerly is spoudeios, it's the Greek word, and that means post haste. or with the haste of the mail, which I thought was kind of funny because the US mail these days is not a post-haste organization anymore, as you may know. But back in the day, it was. You think about the Pony Express, right? Post-haste. And so all the more eagerly, it's Bodeos.

So that you may rejoice when you see him. Joy is used seven times and rejoice eight times in this epistle. And it's a really important theme in the book of Philippians. The joy in the Lord, and that's a fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? And the fruit of the Holy Spirit comes through the presence and person of dwelling Lord Jesus Christ in the believer.

Paul here is also. displaying in all this with the Philippians, his gift of shepherding the flock. He's a shepherd, so poumano is the Greek word. And some of those roles in shepherding the flock is protecting, rescuing members of the flock, mending their wounds, their spiritual wounds, their emotional wounds. Consoling people is all poi mano. Is that how you pronounce it, everyone? Do I have that right? Or any other pronunciations?

Poimenos. Poimenos. Poimenos. Yeah. Poimenos. Poimenos. So that's the word. Yeah, that's the word for shepherding. It's part of what a pastor would do, or an elder like Roger. Poimenos. So on to verse 29. Receive him in the Lord with all joy. and hold men like him in high regard, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me." So we have a restored Epaphroditus coming back with this very important, valuable letter here.

And receive him is Dekomai, and it's It's pros-dekomai, or pro-dekomai. Pros-dekomai, I think, is how the whole word reads. So you put the pros with the dekomai, and it's pros, which is facing towards, and then dekomai, which is to take by the hand or take in. grant access to for fellowship and friendship and hospitality. So you can see the kind of word picture there of facing someone and welcoming them with open arms. So that's that word for receive him, prostekamai. And to hold men like him in high regard, is to, in the Greek, it's to prize him highly, honor him.

And the fact that he's a precious minister to you is what Paul is saying. So yeah, to Bob W's point, very emotive words and brotherly love here going on. And I'll get the whole point of all this on this little vignette, I call it, on the life of work of Epaphroditus. And I'll cover this more next week when I review the chapter.

And that is to show that he's putting his welfare behind for the work of ministry to Paul and his fellow believers. And he's an example, a Christ-like example, from Philippians 2 verses 3 and 4 and then 5 through 8. He's putting, he's thinking like Christ, he's putting on the mind of Christ, but with his thinking and heart, he's emptying himself of any self-interest to serve Paul and the Philippian flock. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, so I was on this point here, just saying that this whole This section of Epaphroditus in chapter 2 here is to show that he's a Christ-like example. from Philippians verses three and four and five through eight.

We'll cover that more next week. But he's putting his interests behind the ministry of ministering to Paul and the Philippians. He's emptying himself like Christ did, I think is the point that I made to nobody in particular because your internet feed was down. So he was risking his life as well. He was not regarding his life or Vincent has venturing his life, exposing his life to risk.

Vincent says that the early church brothers, there was this, I guess, sect of brothers who would care for the sick and maybe the contagious, and they were said to be reckless persons, is how they were described, these church brothers in the early part of the church, reckless persons. because they were caring for these sick people.

I guess like leprosy, right? You could get leprosy from someone. So we complete verse 30 here with Epaphroditus risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me, in the Philippians service to me. And that sounds like a kind of put down, right? In the English, if you have a job evaluation and you say, your service was deficient, that's not a good thing. But in the Greek, it's not.

It's a compliment. And Paul's being affectionate, as this whole letter is, affectionate, with affection. And he's kind of saying something, and I'm paraphrasing, he's saying something like, I see your service and the gifts you've sent me and that you could have, you wanted to bring them personally to me if you could have, but you couldn't have because there's this deficiency or this gap of distance between Rome and Philippi. And he knows that they would have certainly met him in person with it and things like that. So summarizing this little section is some very good words that these men can put much better than I can. And I just thought I'd bring them out from J.T. Mawson.

He says these six verses in this chapter are devoted to the perfect pattern, to the Lord's humbling of himself and his exaltation. And these six verses are devoted to Epaphroditus and the way he answered to that pattern. And Epaphroditus, he was neither an apostle, nor was he an apostle's delegate. He was just a brother, just a simple brother.

And we see that this pattern is indispensable to Paul. And Paul is really bringing that that out of Epaphroditus's indispensability to the ministry. And Paul is honoring him in the section of the letter. Macintosh, C.H. Macintosh says that Epaphroditus filled the gap. And let me read this, because it's really good.

But Epaphroditus, that dear, unpretending, self-surrendering servant of Christ, presented himself to supply the missing link, to do the very thing that was needed, and nothing more, to be the channel of communication between the assembly at Philippi and the apostle at Rome, deep and real as was the apostle's need, precious and seasonable as was the Philippians gift, yet an instrument was needed to bring them both together to meet that gap and Epaphroditus offered himself for the work. There was a manifest need and he filled it. And then finally, Epaphroditus was not one of the pushing, self-confident, extensive class. He was a dear, self-hiding, lowly servant of Christ, one of that class of workmen to whom we are irresistibly attracted.

Nothing is more charming than an unpretending, retiring man or woman, who is content just to fill the empty niche, to render this needed service, whatever it is, to do the work cut out for him by the master's hand. And I just think that, yeah, I would like to say it that way, but I can't.

But Macintosh can. So I thought those were really good quotes to wrap up the study this morning. That's great, Andrew. That's great. So there we go. Yeah, Epaphroditus. So I'm review Chapter 2 next week? Yes. OK. We can wrap it all up. And I'll close here. I got that all in, even though we had a couple of dropouts there. Actually, we survived it all. Yeah. So otherwise, we would have had sorrow upon sorrow. I couldn't get through, right? So good. Well, I'll close in prayer here.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the example of Epaphroditus, and we're mindful of the very quiet, simple things that everyone in our fellowship and everyone in the whole body of Christ throughout the world does that don't get recognized, that aren't seen, but are nonetheless very critical for the work of the ministry, of Christ's ministry to us. And we thank you for all those people, and we just pray that you'll guide us and bless us in those ministries. and we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.