Who are Euodia and Syntyche in the Bible?

"Euodia I urge, and Syntyche I urge, to mind the same thing (or, to be of the same mind) in (the) Lord." (Phil. 4:2)

Euodia and Syntyche were two sisters in Philippi between whom a misunderstanding, or quarrel, had arisen. Paul knew these two sisters well for they had shared his contest in the Gospel in the early days, when first he preached there. We do not know what was the cause of the quarrel, but we do know that "Only by pride cometh contention". (Prov. 13:10). It is probable that Epaphroditus had brought word to Paul of this sad trouble in the assembly at Philippi: and I think it had weighed heavily on the apostle's mind as he has been writing. In the second verse of the second chapter, he had written: "Fulfil my joy when ye mind the same thing". Now he uses exactly the same words, but this time addressed directly to the ones quarrelling. It would seem that he had them in mind when he wrote these words the first time.

Notice how wisely he speaks to these sisters: "Euodia I urge, Syntyche I urge, to mind the same thing in the Lord". He does not say, "I urge Euodia and Syntyche". But he speaks to each one separately: not suggesting one is more to blame than another. Indeed he makes no suggestion of any blame. You remember our Lord said: "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift". (Matt. 5:23-24). That is what these sisters should have done. The Greek word for "be reconciled" is di-allasso. This word is never used for man to be reconciled to God. Then it is a different word, kat-allasso. Di-allasso denotes mutual concession after mutual hostility, an idea absent in kat-allasso. (Abbott-Smith, quoting Lightfoot). It would seem that when saints have a quarrel or misunderstanding, the Lord sees that generally, if not always, there is fault on both sides; and both need to make concessions. Euodia would have to make concessions to Syntyche, and Syntyche would need to make concessions to Euodia. There is a possible exception to this in the case of a wife who had left her husband and wished to be reconciled to him again: 1 Cor. 7:11: here katallasso is used. But this, perhaps, we can understand, as she (a Christian woman) had been told not to depart from her husband. I think every other case where this word is used, is speaking of man being reconciled to God: where, of course, man only is wrong, and makes concessions.

Paul knew the Scripture, "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with" (Prov. 17:14). This would make him the more urgent to see this strife settled. Mr. Lavington writes: "From a small beginning, if it is not judged, evil will spread. How many a time from a very small root there has arisen that which has taken floods of tears to settle. Let us be watchful. Beloved, if you have anything against one another, judge it before the Lord. You cannot be happy with the Lord, while you are not of one mind with your brethren".

Euodia and Syntyche are two sisters who had labored with the apostle Paul in the gospel (see Philippians 4:2-3).

Philippians 4 is founded on both. The apostle takes up, no doubt, the sweet affections of chapter 2, but then they are strengthened by the energy that Christ seen in glory imparts, as in chapter 3. Hence he thus opens, "Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown." One cannot overlook the amazing strength with which he speaks even of his affections. "My joy and crown," "my dearly beloved." Not that there were not difficulties; there were many. "I beseech Evodia" (we may just notice the true form in passing; Euodias sounds like a man's name, whereas here it is really a woman). "I beseech Evodia, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. Yea [not and], I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which labour with me." According to the true meaning it is not others, but those very sisters that he commends to Epaphroditus in desire for their blessing, "which labour with me in the gospel [or seeing that they shared the conflict of the gospel with me]." "Laboured" gives a wrong sense. Many hence have wrongly gathered that they were preachers. There is really no reason to suppose that they preached at all. What they did seems a much more proper thing, in my judgment, for a woman. They shared the conflict of the gospel; they partook of the reproach that covered those who preached it. This is lost in the idea of labouring in it. We must think rather of the conflict of the gospel: there was often for all concerned disgrace, and pain, and scorn.

Yes! Then Paul names the difficulty, a thing we may very often be afraid to do. The apostle was not afraid to name these two sisters (we understand they are both female names), and it may be that the difficulty existing between them was the very thing that had divided the meeting.

But this is quickly followed by a plea for unity of mind. He addresses two sisters in the Lord, perhaps both of spiritual character, for their names (Euodias - "well met" and Syntyche - "a sweet smell") have good implications. Yet each evidently had a mind of her own, and they were at issue. Beautiful it is to note that the apostle will not take sides, but tenderly beseeches them to "be of the same mind in the Lord." For, to "stand fast in the Lord" does not mean to be disagreeable toward others. Unity may be maintained, and should be, and indeed will be, if we simply seek the Lord's mind instead of our own.

In becoming moral order, helping follows closely with unity; "I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life." This is evidently addressed to Epaphroditus, the bearer of the epistle. It may well be that Euodias and Syntyche were among the women of whom Paul speaks. But he entreats Epaphroditus in this case to help them, not to reprimand them. Those who have sought by labour to further the work of the Gospel will be the special object of Satan's attacks, and to help them is only right, and particularly spiritually, as the verse doubtless implies. God is not unrighteous, that He should forget their work and labour of love, and the apostle too speaks of it in manifest appreciation, "whose names," he adds, "are in the book of life." Man's books of history and biography had no place for such, but how infinitely more honoured a distinction was theirs!

But he notices also two sisters even, who were not of one mind in resisting the enemy. In every way he desired unity of heart and mind. He entreats Epaphroditus (if indeed it be he) as the Lord's servant to help those faithful women who had laboured in concert with Paul to spread the gospel. Euodias and Syntyche were perhaps of the number — the connection of thought makes it probable. Their activity, having gone beyond the measure of their spiritual life, betrayed them into an exercise of self-will which set them at variance. Nevertheless they were not forgotten, together with Clement and others, who were fellow-labourers with the apostle himself, whose names were in the book of life. For love for the Lord remembers all that His grace does; and this grace has a place for each of His own.

Verse 2. 'I beseech Euodias and Syntyche,' etc. An unenviable notoriety is here given (not to shame them, but for our profit) to two Christian women who, alike zealous for the truth, were yet of different minds, like Martha and her sister Mary, as to what true service means. Such things were common then, and are so still, and Paul may perhaps have recollected his own sharp dissension with his fellow-labourer,2 when addressing this double entreaty to these disunited helpers in the work. Their differences were known, no doubt, to the bishops and deacons at Philippi, and, indeed, to the whole assembly of the saints. But they continued, wrongly as is evident, yet plausibly, or we should not have had so pointed an entreaty on the Apostle's part to unanimity. Nor would he have endeavoured to interest another specially in their case, if he had not felt that their actual relation to each other was operating as a hindrance to the Gospel. This appears plainly from what follows.

Verse 3. 'And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow,' etc. To the contending sisters his word would convey both entreaty and injunction.3 His true yoke-fellow he only asks4 to mediate and seek to bring together again two who had entitled themselves to his honourable as well as loving remembrance as his fellow-labourers in the Gospel. Who this true yoke-fellow5 was it is in vain to conjecture, as we have on this subject no trustworthy information. It is of more interest to notice the prominence here given to women in the work of the Gospel. Euodias and Syntyche were probably among the women to whom Paul and Silas spake by the river-side,6 and had since sought diligently to propagate, in such manner doubtless as became the Lord's true handmaidens,7 the truth they had themselves received. Lydia, the mother of the Church at Philippi, was most likely dead at the date of this Epistle, or her name would hardly have been lost in this general reference to Paul's fellow-labourers. Why Clemens is here particularly named, and whether he was then at Rome or at Philippi, are also matters of uncertainty. That he is the same who is later known to us as Clemens Romanus, and whose Epistle to the Corinthians is the earliest extant example of patristic, as distinguished from Apostolic, writings, is not at all improbable; but, like most other facts of no true spiritual value, it is incapable of proof. The mention here made of 'the book of life' may well bring to our remembrance the Lord's words to the seventy who had freshly proved the virtue of His name.8 Were the names of those who preached Christ spitefully at Rome also written in the book of life? He is silent on this point, and so am I.

Then. in the twelfth verse we read: "Next to him repaired Shallum — the son of Halohesh, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem, he and his daughters." This is an important thing, too. It is a very great mistake to suppose that women have not a seemly and a weighty place in the work of the Lord. Indeed they have, and the apostle Paul takes good care to show it. Let me refer to Philippians for a few moments, just to show where they can help and where not. The fourth chapter of Philippians gives us a beautiful picture, not without sorrow, but, nevertheless, full of profit. "I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord." The work of the Lord very often brings difficulties, and the reason is not that it ought not to be carried on with a pure mind, but, alas! that will so often mingles with it. These two women, both of them valued by the apostle, were at variance more or less. "And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow" — Epaphroditus, I suppose he refers to — "help those women" (referring to these very ones) "which laboured with me in the gospel."

It would be wrong to suppose from this, that they had been preaching the gospel along with the apostle Paul: it does not mean that. I dare say many persons have drawn that inference from it — that Paul recognised them as fellow-preachers of the gospel with himself; but that is not the case. The meaning of the word, the proper and true meaning — and it is important to bring it out here — is this: that they shared the trials of the gospel when the gospel went there, and when it was in a time of trial. These noble-hearted women joined themselves in all the conflicts of the gospel. They bore the reproach of it. They were acting in every possible means — perhaps, in opening their houses — perhaps in hospitality to those that went there with the word, perhaps in seeking souls, praying with them, inviting them — a thousand things that women can do a great deal better than men. And accordingly, the apostle shows that he was very sensible of this. He tells Epaphroditus to help those women. It is very likely the brethren rather slighted them, and that Epaphroditus, being a person of much fellowship of mind with the apostle, would enter into his thought and feeling. "I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me — shared with me the trials of the gospel" — that is the thought. It is no question about preaching, but of sharing the trials of the gospel — "with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life."

‘Yea, I ask thee also, true yokefellow, assist them, who have contended along with me in the glad tidings, with Clement also, and my other fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life’ (Phil. 4:3). When Euodia and Syntyche ‘contended along with’ Paul (the same Greek verb translated ‘labouring together’ in 1:27) it seems they got on fine, but when he was no longer with them (compare 2:12) they started to contend against each other. Some brothers and sisters do exercise a unifying effect on their brethren but really, having the same Lord, we should be ‘of the same mind in the Lord’ (4:2), and if we were more conscious of His abiding presence — ‘The Lord is near’ (v. 5) — rifts like the one between these two sisters would not occur. It was a blot on the testimony and a potential catalyst for further and wider disunity, so Paul exhorts them both in equal measure because both are responsible for letting it develop. Each needs to judge her wrong thoughts, words, actions, etc. — and without waiting for the other to do so. But sometimes things go so far that we need help to do this. Being in Rome, Paul cannot complete what he has begun by exhorting them in this epistle, so he calls on his ‘true yokefellow’ in Philippi to share the burden with him and fill the blessed role of peacemaker there (Matt. 5:9). Evidently, this unnamed person was someone for whom he felt a special affinity in the Lord’s service and could trust to act solely for the glory of God and the blessing of His people.[3] But he makes his appeal known, not of course for interference or gossip — the matter is to be handled spiritually (Gal. 6:1) and with discretion and care — but so brethren can be exercised and pray. His reference to Clement, meaning ‘mild’ or ‘merciful’, and to other fellow-labourers (the same word as in 2:25), should touch the consciences of the sisters. Once they had expended their energies in the advancement of the gospel in light of the fact that their ‘names are in the book of life’. Why waste them on contention now?

And now the final testimony of the prisoner of the Lord, telling us from his own experience that Christ is sufficient for all circumstances down here. The first verse is filled with the precious fragrance of the great apostle's affection. What refreshment there is for all His dear saints in these opening words of this chapter! "Therefore my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, dearly beloved." How he loved the saints and longed for them. He looked upon them as his joy and crown; his joy down here and his crown in the day of Christ. So the aged John testified, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth" (3 John 4). They were to stand fast in the Lord, for this gives strength and the Lord constantly before the heart and mind gives victory. Euodias and Syntyche, two sisters in the Lord, are exhorted to be of the same mind in the Lord. They had difficulties and had become separated. How graciously and tenderly they are exhorted to overcome their differences. The true yokefellow is probably Epaphroditus, who was now fully restored and carried this letter to the Philippians. Paul requests him to assist those women who had contended with him in the gospel, of course in the sphere which belongs to woman. And there were Clement and other fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life. These names are known to Him and in His day their labors will come to light and they will receive their reward. It is enough for the laborers to know that his name, though unknown to the world, is in the book of life, and his service, though unapplauded by the world, has His approval. Once more he exhorts to rejoice in the Lord alway, under all circumstances, at all times. And again I say, Rejoice. He did not write such words when he was taken up into the third heaven, but these blessed words come from the prison in Rome. When the Lord is before the heart, if He is the controlling principle of our life, the pattern and the goal, never lost sight of, then He giveth songs in the night.