Epaphras, who is [one] of you, [the] bondman of Christ Jesus, salutes you, always combating earnestly for you in prayers, to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all [the] will of God.
Paul's letter closes with greetings. One of them names a man from Colossae itself, now far from home with Paul. What marks Epaphras is not preaching or travelling. It is his prayer for people he could no longer reach in person.
The greeting begins by tying Epaphras to the people he prays for. He belonged to that town, yet his care reached past it.
It would be a joy for the believers at Colossae to know this about Epaphras. He was a Colossian himself, like Onesimus. He held a high place in the Apostle's love and esteem, and just as high a place in his earnest remembrance of them in prayer, asking God to bless them... He was not so narrow that he prayed for only one gathering of believers. Yet he remembered with affection the needs he knew best, where he knew the people and their circumstances.
Knowing a place from the inside shapes what a person asks for.
Epaphras being a local brother would know what to pray for, "always labouring fervently for you in prayers".
The word behind "struggling" is not a gentle one. Paul says this was Epaphras's settled habit, not a burst of feeling. Older translations render his goal for them as "perfect and complete," where the ESV has "mature and fully assured."
Prayer, you see, is work — or at least it can be work. Epaphras took it so far that it really was work for him, and ongoing work too, since Paul testifies that it was always his practice. The word translated "struggling" means striving or fighting. Epaphras was away from his friends, yet he fought a real battle in prayer for them. His aim was that they might stand in the will of God, perfect and complete.
If prayer was a fight, there was an opponent.
It seems he realised that the enemy was making a definite attack on these gatherings of believers, to draw them away from Christ by religious devices... This is a healthy and encouraging reminder that prayer is a powerful weapon against the opposition of the enemy. And Epaphras did not only want the enemy's efforts stopped. He also wanted the believers to "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God". He saw that if they were full-grown Christians, settled in the truth according to the will of God, they would be able to stand against every attack of the enemy.
The word "complete" carries the sense of being filled full.
The word comes from the Greek pleroo, 'to fill full.' The believer is complete in Christ, or filled full. This points to all fullness dwelling in Christ: the fullness of the Godhead is in Christ, as towards the believer; and the believer, as towards God, is complete in Him. The prayer for the Colossians is that they might be 'complete in all the will of God,' or, as most editors read it, 'fully assured' in all the will of God.
Knowing God's will and standing in it are not the same thing, and Epaphras was reaching for the second.
It is a great thing to have full knowledge of the will of God... It is a greater thing to stand perfect and complete in that will. Standing in it means we are subject to it and marked by it... Clearly the desires and prayers of Epaphras for the believers at Colossae and the neighbourhood ran on exactly the same lines as Paul's prayers for them.
This work needed no platform. That puts it within everyone's reach.
The precious work of private prayer needs no special gift, no unusual talents, no outstanding mental powers. Every Christian can do it. A man may not have the ability to preach, teach, write, or travel; but every man can pray. People sometimes speak of a gift of prayer. It is not a pleasant expression... It often means no more than a smooth flow of familiar truths that the memory holds and the lips pour out. This is poor work to be at. This was not the way with Epaphras... We want a spirit that enters into the present need of the Church, and carries that need in steady, earnest, believing prayer before the throne of grace.
One more reason to pray like him is where such prayer puts a person.
Christ is at work on behalf of His people. He desires that they should "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God," and those who are drawn out in prayer for this same end have the privilege of deep fellowship with the great Intercessor. How wonderful that poor, weak creatures down here are allowed to pray about the very thing that occupies the thoughts and interests of the Lord of glory!
- Near. Epaphras was one of them. His prayers carried an insider's knowledge, yet were never shut up to his own town.
- Labour. The word means striving or fighting. This was steady work, not a passing mood.
- Combat. Prayer met a real attack that aimed to draw these believers away from Christ.
- Complete. He asked that they be filled full and settled in all God's will — knowing it is much, standing in it is more.
- Communion. Any believer can pray like this, with no gift or platform. Doing so shares the very desire of the great Intercessor.
For I bear him witness that he labours much for you, and them in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Luke, the beloved physician, salutes you, and Demas.
Paul closes the letter with a short list of names. In one line he sets two men side by side: a doctor he loved, and a man given a name and nothing more.
Commentators notice how much Paul says about Luke and how little he says about Demas.
Luke's occupation was not wiped out because he was a saint and a servant of Christ, and even an inspired writer. Demas, I gather, was already distrusted by the Apostle. Paul mentions his name with an ominous silence and no affectionate word — something unusual for him. Even in the letter to Philemon, written at about the same time, he is "my fellow-labourer." In 2 Timothy he had forsaken the Apostle, having loved the present age. The steps of decline were rapid, and no record tells of his recovery. But a wider falling away was near (2 Timothy 1:15); once the ice was broken, many were ready to slip through.
One writer hears a warning in that silence. A record with nothing good in it does not stay neutral.
Paul mentions Demas by name only. If there had been something good to say about him, it seems Paul would have said it. But later, in 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul writes, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." Does this not tell us that, if we have no positive testimony for Christ, our testimony will soon become negative?
Paul names Luke by his job. Luke travelled with Paul and wrote a Gospel, yet Paul still calls him a doctor.
Luke is called "the beloved physician". This proves that his everyday job as a doctor did not clash with his higher call to serve — as the companion of the Apostle on his travels, and as the inspired writer of the Gospel.
Another writer applies it to everyday life. Your job does not set your place among believers.
Here we are in different walks of life, and yet we see each other from the standpoint of the divine circle — "beloved brother", whatever job a person may hold.
The word "beloved" is not decoration. It says something about Luke's character.
Luke is called "the beloved physician" (v.14). He earned that title by a character of kind concern for the needs of others, which drew a loving response.
One writer weighs that word against the social rank of doctors at the time.
Paul wrote in the days of hard Roman rule. When he mentions that Luke was a physician — the beloved physician — scholars at once suspect that Luke may have been a freed slave. Though he belonged to an honourable profession, it was then by no means an honoured one. Here again we find the dignity of Christianity. It ignores local prejudice, narrow hatred between social ranks, and hostility between classes, and rises far above them all. Matthew is a tax collector; Zenas a lawyer; Luke a physician; Philemon a "capitalist," and Onesimus a slave.
Demas appears in three of Paul's letters. One writer reads that sequence as a decline that began long before it showed.
The final break with Paul might have been sudden, but we may be sure that his soul had been drifting long before. A gradual decline of spiritual life and energy always comes before an open failure. This is how the Lord deals with His people. If they have grown cold and have turned aside in heart from His ways, He lets them be tested sooner or later, so that their true state comes to light.
One writer stops short of calling this a loss of faith.
This may mean that Demas had not abandoned the faith, but that love of this present age had pulled him away from the path Paul followed.
Paul's warm word for Luke was not just politeness.
In these inspired letters Paul paid no false compliments. Any praise he gave to one person or another was deserved.
- Beloved. Luke earned that word by real care for people's needs, and Paul never gave praise that no one had earned.
- Beloved at work. Luke's service never cancelled his trade. An everyday job and a high spiritual calling sat together in one man.
- Beloved across ranks. Doctors held low rank in Rome, yet Paul's warmth crossed class lines. Tax collector, lawyer, doctor, wealthy man and slave stand in one circle.
- Named only. Demas gets a name and no warm word, and commentators read that silence as a symptom already visible to Paul.
- Then gone. The drift came first and the open failure came later. Not everyone calls it a loss of faith, but love of this present age pulled Demas away from Paul's path.