23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. Philemon 1:23 (NIV)
Ever gone to the movies with a talker? I pride myself in being a non talker. Why? Talkers frustrate me. I want to watch a movie not hear you on your cell phone, not hear your baby cry, not hear you talk to the movie: “No don’t go in there! The bad guys going to get you! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” I don’t want to hear you asking your companion questions like, “Why did he say that? What did he mean? I don’t understand what’s going on. Who is that guy? I remember his face. Wait, he’s the guy from earlier, isn’t he. The guy from earlier! It’s the same guy, right? Oh, I get it.”
I get it that movies at times can be hard to understand but your loud whisper or your “low talking” is disrupting the rest of us.
The Bible can be equally hard to understand. You read a name and you’re like, “Who’s that guy? Have I read that name before? Is he the guy from earlier? Am I supposed to know him? Is it the same guy? I think I get it.” When you start to make these connections the big picture starts to get clearer.
Case in point: Epaphras. Who is this guy? Are we supposed to know him? And if we know who his is will the book of Philemon make more sense to us? The answer to that last question is yes.
Epaphras’ name is found 2 more times in scripture. It’s in the book of Colossians. Commentators believe that Epaphras was the head church leader of Colossae. He came to visit Paul and may have been thrown in prison with him. What does this all mean? Philemon is from Colossae. And where you’re from says a lot about you. Colossae used to be a large city but now as Paul writes to Philemon it had become just a small town. And what I find amazing is that two books of the Bible (Colossians and Philemon) are written to a small, declining town. This is encouraging. It tells us that God’s concern for His own is never based on human distinctions like size or prestige. Colossae was close to God’s heart. And the same is true for you. God doesn’t measure importance as man does.
Question:
How does man determine importance?
How do you think God does?
How is this comforting?
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