Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

At one point I considered referring to this section as Paul’s groupies but that wouldn’t be the best way to refer to these men.

Unlike the modern popular preachers and those in ministry who seem to develop cults of personality, the first century accounts would provide us a warning against thinking that following Christianity because it is the “popular” thing is maybe an unhealthy idea.

In the early days of the church the disciples were gaining a popular standing with the people of the city because of their generosity and sharing with one another.

One named Barnabas had sold property and given it to the church.

The very next story we find in the Bible is about a couple who wanted to join in and get some of the notoriety that Barnabas had for his generosity.

We don’t really have a good description of how all of this sharing of all things played out in daily life, but Ananias and Sapphira wanted to be recognized - and so they lied and as a result experienced the only instantaneous Old Testament style justice of God in the entire New Testament.

Then later in Acts as the Gospel spreads out from Jerusalem into Samaria a man named Simon is tagging along with first Phillip and then Peter and John and is greatly impressed by their ability to impart the Holy Spirit on people by the laying on of hands.

He asks for this ability and even offers to pay Peter for it.

You would think that someone who told a beggar “silver and gold I don’t have” might be willing to take donations when they come.

But Peter instead tells Simon

In each of those instances it was God purging His church of unholy influences - I think He may care about the condition and image of His church.

And then add to that a culture that was bent on keeping the new movement of the church in its place and not letting it gain too much momentum with the new teachings that seemed to subvert, if only ideologically, the Pax Romana - the Roman peace.

So these men that were with Paul in Rome were not there because it was the popular or comfortable thing to do.

They were there because they cared deeply about the mission that they had been called to fulfill.

This in itself is a lesson for us.

As it becomes less and less popular and acceptable to be a Christian in our society where will you stand?

It encourages us to follow through on what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5

Or that Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:10

We, each of us as individuals, needs to make sure that we came to the Christianity of the Bible and not some other slightly altered version and that we are in the faith.

That we didn’t come to Christ for the benefits of salvation without seeking the Savior who provides those benefits.

That we aren’t doing what was once popular and has now become just another habit because should persecution come, should we like these men face the prospect of jail time or other persecution for our faith - if we came to the faith because it was the popular thing, if we are band-wagon Christians then we will fall away.

And in light of our current culture there is much that we can learn both from the way that Paul talks about these men and from the men that he chooses to highlight.

Please open your Bibles with me and turn to Colossians 4. We’ll be looking at verses 10-14 today.

Those of the Circumcision

What little we know of Aristarchus in Scripture tells us that he was one of those people that trouble just found.

It’s a little like the advice I got from someone when I moved up here and he was counseling me on how to survive a bear attack.

He said you have to be “just fast enough”.

I said just fast enough to outrun a bear?

He said no - just fast enough to outrun whoever is with you.

We first meet Aristarchus in Acts 19 in Ephesus.

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Aristarchus gets caught up in the riot that happened as a result of Paul preaching the Gospel in Ephesus and the threat to the local religious practices there.

He is also in Acts 27and he’s in trouble again.

Paul, in Colossians calls Aristarchus his fellow prisoner.

Whether Aristarchus is actually a prisoner alongside Paul or he calls him a prisoner to emphasize that he is a brother in Christ is unclear.

The word used for prisoner here is generally used to refer to those who are prisoners of war.

What is evident from what Paul writes of him is that he had a concern for both Paul and the Colossians.

While the information surrounding Aristarchus is mostly speculation it is evident that he had a prior relationship with Paul and that he volunteered or was commandeered to travel to Rome with Paul possibly to be a help to him.

Prison in the first century did not include the three square meals, a cot and a work out yard like prisons have today.

It was a lonely existence and the funds for supporting the prisoner were the prisoner’s or his family’s responsibility.

Aristarchus may have volunteered to travel with Paul, much like Luke had, to help care for his needs.

The other is that he sent his greetings to the Colossians.

It is possible that he was known to the church but either way he sends his greetings and concern for their welfare alongside Paul.

Of the people that Paul writes about we have the most information about Mark.

Mark is introduced in Scripture early on in the story of the church when Peter is released from prison in Acts 12 and he heads to Mark’s mother’s house.

Here, Paul tells us that Mark is Barnabas’s cousin which explains some of the other information surrounding Mark.

On Paul’s first missionary journey Mark was a part of the team along with his cousin.

But Mark left early and this leads to a rift between Paul and Barnabas when the time comes for a second missionary journey.

There are many people in the Bible that we would like to identify with - like the Apostle Paul.

I mean who wouldn’t want to be identified as arguably the second most important person in all of human history.

As the writer of half the New Testament.

As a man’s man.

I mean the guy was stoned outside of Lystra and left for dead and what does he do - he gets up and walks back in to town.

The Apostle Paul was the original Chuck Norris - and if you don’t understand that reference just ask me after service and I’ll explain it.

But he is so far up there that we can only aspire to identify with him - at least that’s how I see him.

Mark is a little easier for me to identify with.

He demonstrated weakness.

He was a person who had all the right pedigree and so of course he should have been chosen by Paul and Barnabas to accompany them on their first journey.

He was raised in a Christian home.

He was exposed to the Apostle Peter.

By many accounts from church history he was the lad who fled naked on the night that Christ was arrested (Mark 14:50-51).

Mark’s initially failure in ministry was a case of right calling, wrong time.

I can identify with him as I was a young man, raised in a Christian home and slated to go into the ministry in 1994.

In fact I was three weeks away from going to school.

But as I considered what I was about to do I realized (and this is both a mature and an immature realization) that I wasn’t doing a good job of maintaining my own salvation how was I supposed to be responsible for maintaining a whole church’s salvation?

It was mature because it was very self-aware.

It was immature because it wasn’t very spiritually aware.

See what I failed to realize, and what thankfully by God’s grace I recognize now, is that I don’t maintain my own spirituality or salvation.

Christ does all of that.

I have to put in effort, true - Philippians 2:12 tells us that - but Christ through the Spirit maintains and grows my spiritual life.

But my 21 year old self didn’t recognize that yet and so I walked away from that - and I’m sure that many looked at me the way that Paul looked at Mark.

But God wasn’t done with Mark (and thankfully by His grace He wasn’t done with me either).

Exactly how it happened no one is sure but Mark ended up in Rome and came into contact with the Apostle Peter (much of his Gospel is attributed to Peter as Mark’s “source”).

Their relationship became quite close.

Peter refers to Mark in 1 Peter 5

And so Mark - the young man who was a coward and always running away - when the time was right became not only Peter’s son in the faith but also was reconciled to Paul such that he would be with Paul as he wrote this epistle and the epistle to Philemon (Philemon 24) but that Paul would actually send for Mark later in his ministry (2 Timothy 4:11)

And not only send for him but choose to have him near during the last days of his life.

But at this moment in time it seems likely that Paul was about to dispatch Mark to Colossae maybe to shore up the groundwork that had been laid by this letter.

He makes a cryptic comment at the end of this section regarding Mark that the Colossians had received instructions regarding Mark and that they should welcome him when he comes.

I think that it is very possible that Paul was going to dispatch Mark to Colossae (just as he would dispatch Timothy to Philippi as promised in that book) but that he couldn’t afford to do it just yet and so he had sent Tychicus and Onesimus ahead of him.

Mark’s story is one of the great redemption stories of the Bible and it is an example for each of us that although it may seem we have a calling on our lives we need to wait for the Lord’s timing to execute that calling.

The final member of this trio is Jesus called Justus.

If we know very little about Aristarchus, we know less than nothing about this man.

Twice previously in the New Testament is the name Justus mentioned.

The first is in Acts 1 when the Apostles were seeking a replacement for Judas

And then later in Acts a man from Corinth is called by this name

Whether this man that Paul now mentions is either of these men is lost to the annuls of church history.

What we can glean from the text is that this man was with Paul in Rome, that he was Jewish (which probably rules out the man from Corinth) and that he is concerned about the Colossians enough that he sends his greetings.

The Non-Circumcised Servants

Paul shifts his attention now to the another group of men that are with him.

We have more information regarding these three men than we did about the previous group.

He starts out saying that Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus greets you.

And this would really seem like such an obvious statement that Paul shouldn’t even spend time making it.

It was Epaphras who had left the church in Colossae to go to Paul and bring to him the concerns of what was happening there.

It was Epaphras who was the diligent servant that Paul referenced at the beginning of the book saying this

Epaphras, their teacher and preacher, their church planter was sending them greetings.

Of course he would be.

But Paul is saying so much more here than simply conveying that one of their own was sending greetings.

Paul calls Epaphras a servant of Christ Jesus applying to him the moniker - doulos - that he only uses in the New Testament to refer to four people - himself, Timothy, Tychicus and here to Epaphras.