Colossians4chapter 4

Colossians 4:1

The household code's last word belongs to the masters: give unto your servants that which is just and equal, righteousness and fair dealing owed to those Roman law said could be owed nothing. The ground is the same leveling truth as Ephesians 6:9, ye also have a Master in heaven, the owner himself owned. Onesimus, a runaway slave returning with this very letter's courier, would hear the verse read in the assembly.

Colossians 4:2-4

Continue is the word for steadfast persistence, and watching in prayer with thanksgiving keeps it awake and grateful at once. The request Paul makes for himself is a door of utterance, an opening for the message, not the prison's opening, and the mystery of Christ is what he wants freedom to speak, for which I am also in bonds. That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak, asks prayer for the manner as well as the opportunity.

Colossians 4:5-6

Toward outsiders the rule is wisdom in walk and grace in speech, and redeeming the time is the merchant's verb, buying up the season while it is on the market. Speech seasoned with salt was a Greek idiom for wit; the letter baptizes it into wholesomeness that preserves rather than corrupts. The aim is readiness, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man, one man at a time.

Colossians 4:7-9

Tychicus carries the letter and the news kept off its pages, the same courier with nearly the same commendation as Ephesians 6:21, binding the prison letters into one postbag. With him comes Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you: the runaway slave of Philemon returns home named only as a brother and a Colossian, his case handled in the private letter traveling beside this one. The two together shall make known all things which are done here.

Colossians 4:10-11

Aristarchus the Thessalonian has shared Paul's road since the Ephesus riot and the shipwreck voyage (Acts 19:29, 27:2), and now shares the title fellowprisoner. Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, is John Mark restored: the man whose departure once split Paul from Barnabas (Acts 15:38-39) is now to be received if he comes, and 2 Timothy 4:11 will call him profitable. With Jesus called Justus these are the only fellow workers of the circumcision, a comfort to Paul, and the note is history's own record that the Jewish mission's laborers had grown few around him.

Colossians 4:12-13

Epaphras, the church's own founder, appears at his post: labouring fervently is agonizomenos, wrestling in prayer, the same striving word Paul used of his ministry at 1:29. The prayer's aim repeats the letter's, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. Paul adds his sworn record of the man's zeal for all three Lycus towns, Colosse, Laodicea, and Hierapolis, the whole valley on one intercessor's heart.

Colossians 4:14-15

Luke, the beloved physician: Luke, the beloved physician, is the companion whose we-passages carried Acts to Rome, and this verse is the one that names his profession. Demas greets without epithet, and the silence becomes audible only later, at 2 Timothy 4:10, having loved this present world; here he still stands among the workers and the letter says nothing against him. Nymphas hosts the Laodicean believers, and the church in his house shows the assemblies of the valley still meeting in homes.

Colossians 4:16-17

The letters were to circulate: Colosse's read in Laodicea, and ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea, a letter to be picked up there. What that letter was the text does not say, and the candidates stand with their holders: a letter now lost, or Ephesians circulating as an encyclical and then at Laodicea; the apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans is a later fabrication by common consent. Archippus, named a fellowsoldier in Philemon 2, receives a public charge, take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.

Colossians 4:18

Paul takes the pen for the authenticating line in his own hand, as at 1 Corinthians 16:21 and 2 Thessalonians 3:17. Remember my bonds is both a plea for prayer and a seal on the letter's authority, the chain clinking as he signs. Grace be with you closes the letter on the word the whole epistle has argued: everything is given in Christ, in whom all fulness dwells.