Colossians 4:7-18 Remember my chains. Grace be with you.
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: October 19, 2020 Colossians 4:7-18
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts, and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him), and Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.” I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.
(Understanding the Text) Paul ends with a lot of greetings. First of all, he speaks of the people who will be bringing his letter. They will be able to give more details than what is in the letter. They include Tychicus–who is not a Colossian and Onesimus–who is from the Colossae area. Of Tychicus, Guzik’s commentary says “Tychicus is mentioned in Act_20:4 as one of the men who came with Paul from the Roman province of Asia to Jerusalem, to carry the offering of those believers to the needy Christians of Jerusalem and Judea. iii. ‘The reference to Tychicus is almost word for word identical with Eph_6:21-22. He was evidently the bearer of the letter to the Ephesians as well as this one.’ (Bruce)” Onesimus is interesting. He was going with Tychicus on a mission back to his master. “Onesimus was a slave owned by a believer in Colosse, but he ran away and came into contact with Paul in Rome. There, Onesimus became a Christian and a dedicated helper to Paul. His story is continued in Paul’s letter to Philemon. i. Paul could have wrote about Onesimus, ‘the escaped slave who I am sending back to his master.’ Instead, he called him a faithful and beloved brother, and let the Colossian Christians know that Onesimus was now one of you” (Guzik). Thus, this letter to the Colossians may not have been written to deal with any kind of heresy. It may have been that since Paul had to send some people there, he needed to write an introduction for them, but if you are going to write, you should write something meaningful, so he did.
Then Paul starts listing specific people who are with him. I guess because the Colossians might know them or know of them? These other people include Aristarchus, Mark, Justus, Epaphras, Luke and Demas.
We know a little bit about these people. Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus are Jews. Epaphras and Luke are Gentiles. Aristarchus is also either a prisoner in Rome, or he was stuck with Paul as Paul’s slave and thus imprisoned with Paul. “He was a Macedonian from Thessalonica (Act_20:4). He was Paul’s travel companion, and with the apostle when the Ephesian mob seized Paul (Act_19:29). He was also with Paul when he set sail for Rome under his Roman imprisonment (Act_27:2). Here Paul calls him my fellow prisoner. It seems that Aristarchus had an interesting habit of being with Paul in hard times. Some (such as William Ramsay) suggest that he actually made himself Paul’s slave so that he could travel with him on this journey to Rome” (Guzik). Mark, on the other hand, is free to move about and might travel to Colossae. He is John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas and wrote the book of Mark. He is known to have spent a lot of time with Peter, but evidently, he has been with Paul here. I wonder if he was the go-between for Peter and Paul, taking messages back and forth. For some reason, the Colossians have already been informed about Mark, but Colossae is not Paul’s stomping ground, and he is in prison, so I think there may have been official instructions sent out. Mark may be traveling as an official message bearer for the Jerusalem church at this point, or he may have been preparing the way for Peter to travel there secretly. Guzik points out that Mark is introduced to the Colossians as Barnabas’ cousin, so they may have known or at least, known of Barnabas. “Because Paul identified Mark in terms of his relationships with Barnabas, it seems that the Colossian Christians knew who Barnabas was. Either this was through his reputation, or through further missionary journeys that were not recorded in the Book of Acts. It reminds us that the Book of Acts is an incomplete record of the history of the early church.” We don’t know much more about Justus, except that his Jewish name was Jesus.
The Gentiles also have some information that we know. Epaphras was the main Colossian interacting with Paul. He had done a lot for Colossae, Laodicea, and another city called Hierapolis. Paul knew that Epaphras regularly prayed for both the Colossians and for the people of Laodicea. An important point is that Paul and Epaphras wanted the Colossians to be mature Christians and prayed for that. Luke is a doctor who wrote Acts and Luke, so he was highly literate as well. I don’t know about Demas. Guzik says that he is the Demas that Paul later criticized in one of his letters. “Here, nothing positive is said about Demas, only that he greets the Colossian Christians and therefore must have been known to them. In Phm_1:24 he is grouped among Paul’s fellow laborers. Yet in the last mention of him (2Ti_4:10), Paul said that Demas had forsaken him, having loved this present world, and that he had gone on to Thessalonica. i. ‘Surely here we have the faint outlines of a study in degeneration, loss of enthusiasm and failure in the faith.’ (Barclay)” (Guzik).
Then Paul gives greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to a woman named Nympha, who has a church in her house. Guzik says that we actually don’t know if Nympha was a woman because some manuscripts list the masculine form of the name. Finally, someone named Archippus is working in Colossae, and Paul knows him well. It sounds like Paul may have been this man’s mentor because Paul reminds Archippus of his calling and duties in a fatherly way. Guzik gives more background. “This special word to Archippus is of special interest. Paul wrote another short word regarding Archippus in another letter, mentioning Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house (Phm_1:1). i. This mention in Phm_1:1 makes some people believe that he was the son of Philemon, since he is mentioned in the context of the wife of Philemon (Apphia) and his household (the church in your house). It also shows that Paul thought highly of Archippus and valued him as an associate in God’s work (our fellow soldier). ii. The context of Col_4:17 leads some to think that though Archippus was part of the family of Philemon, he was connected with the church at Laodicea. Perhaps Archippus was the pastor of the church at Laodicea. Of course, there is no way to know this for certain.”
We know that Colossians was not written by a secretary. Paul wrote it all himself. Another thing we know is that Paul felt that its message was timely not just for the Colossians but for the Laodiceans also. In addition, Paul wrote a letter to the Laodiceans, which he wanted shared with the Colossians. For some reason, this letter did not survive to become part of the canon of the Bible. It is evidence that there were other letters that Paul wrote which God did not choose to keep. They were good for the times that he lived in, but not for other times. I always wondered why we have the book of Philemon, but now I realize that it adds depth to the ideas of the book of Colossians. Knowing its background information allows us to understand Paul’s thinking when he wrote that in Christ, there is neither bond nor free, and also when he gave advice for how masters and slaves should deal with each other. When the references to Onesimus and Archippus are taken into account, a fuller picture of the letter becomes clear and that Paul was clearing the way for Onesimus to be accepted and valued by all. I wonder if the message to Archippus was also an oblique way to tell him to support the former slave of his relative in his Christian walk? There was a lot going on that we don’t know, except to know that there was a lot going on.
(Revelation of God / Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that God is directing many people in His work and He knows what is going on, so I don’t have to worry about the complexity of what is going on. I just need to do my little corner that He gives me. I pray to do that well.