Philemon 1:23

Fellow prisoner with Paul at Rome. He worked at Colossae, the place he belonged to. He is described as "a faithful minister of Christ," and as one who agonised in prayer for the Colossians, with zeal for their welfare. Col. 1:7; Col. 4:12; Philemon 23.

It is not "fellow-soldier," as said of Archippus in verse 2... It is not exactly desmios, "prisoner," as Paul speaks of himself in this and in other letters. Nor do we have enough reason to say that Andronicus, Junias and Epaphras were bound in a literal chain. The apostle himself was bound, for Christ's sake. Yet it is a word of force, and means a captive, or war prisoner. Certainly we hear of no outward event in the conflicts of the gospel that gives a ground for such a title.

In the letter to the Colossians Aristarchus was his fellow prisoner. Here it is Epaphras. Did the saints take it in turn to share the apostle's imprisonment?

Meyer, following Fritzsche, suggests that some of the apostle's companions chose to share his prison by turns. On this view, it was the turn of Aristarchus when he wrote to the Colossians, and of Epaphras when he wrote to Philemon... This is ingenious, no doubt; but Rom. 16:7 presents no small difficulty to accepting it.

There is nothing more blessed than this thought: Jesus is able to throw Himself into our own circumstances. He was in prison with Paul. He could as easily have delivered him out of prison as He had delivered Peter. But He chose rather to share the prison with him. There He made him the keeper of His deepest thoughts. We have the prison to thank for the deep revelations of the mind of God in the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. It was not the active travelling. And so it was, in a lower degree, with Paul and Epaphras — the prison deepened their fellowship with one another.

But behind everything, we want a spirit of prayer — fervent, agonising, persevering prayer. Without this, nothing can prosper. A prayerless man is a dried-up man. A prayerless preacher is a profitless preacher. A prayerless writer will send out barren pages. A prayerless evangelist will do little good. A prayerless pastor will have little food for the flock. We want men of prayer, men like Epaphras. Only the walls of the room where they pray alone see their agonising labours.

Luke, called "the beloved physician" in Col. 4:14, here comes last among the fellow workers: clear proof that the order in no way marks, as men do, the spiritual value or the honourable rank of those brought before us.