Articles
Philemon 23-24
In this article, we will be wrapping up the letter of Paul to Philemon and looking at those who were with him as he wrote this letter. I hope throughout these articles you have enjoyed the study of Philemon as I have as well. Here in Phi-lemon, we have found a godly man being ap-pealed to by the apostle Paul to take back his runaway slave with love and the runaway slave’s name was Onesimus. Onesimus has be-come a Christian in his time away from Phile-mon and now they are brothers in Christ, and they are to treat each other as such. Paul has great care for both of these men and wants God to be glorified in this situation.
Before we touch on these people, it important to know that these men may not be the exact same men as mentioned in other places. It was possible that there were more than one Mark. While this is unlikely and these are likely the same men, let’s have this in the back of our minds. First, Epaphras is mentioned. He is also a fellow prisoner in Christ, which seems to be pointing to being in a similar situation as Paul, whereas the other men mentioned in verse 24, seem to be free men. Epaphras is also men-tioned in Colossians 1:7-8 and 4:12. In Colos-sians 1, we learn Epaphras was the one who taught the Colossians the Gospel. That he was a fellow bondservant with Paul and was faithful in service to Christ for his fellow workers behalf. We also see in verse 8, he had told Paul and those with him about the love of The Colossians in the Spirit. In addition, Colossians 4:12, tells us that Epaphras is “always striving earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” Verse 13 also adds that Epaphras had a deep care for the Colos-sians, as well as those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. The next person that is mentioned is Mark. Often times we call him John Mark. This is likely the same Mark as the one mentioned in Acts 13 and Acts 15, amongst other places in Scripture. In Acts 13, Mark, called John in verse 13, abandons Paul and his companions on Paul’s first missionary journey and went back to Jerusalem. In reading Acts 13, this may not seem like a big deal, but when we get to Acts 15, we see that Paul wants to go back and visit the brethren in every city where they had taught the gospel. Barnabas wanted to take John, who was also called John Mark. John Mark was Barnabas’s cousin which adds an interesting layer into why Barnabas may have want-ed to bring him, and after all, Mark abandoned Barnabas as well when he left in Acts 13. Paul didn’t want to bring John Mark, because had had abandoned them and not done the work. This created a sharp disagree-ment between Paul and Barnabas in which they separated from each oth-er. There is nothing stated as sinful in this separation and therefore no one should make such claims. Brethren can disagree on matters of opin-ion, and this clearly didn’t put Paul and Barnabas in opposition of each other, as they both separate ways serving and teaching Jesus. Now, this isn’t the last we read of John Mark. Obviously, with his name being men-tioned in Philemon, he had come to work with Paul. In 2nd Timothy 4:11, we see Paul instructing Timothy to take Mark with him as they go to Paul, as Mark is useful to Paul for service. Clearly, they worked together after this point of disagreement, showing there was no bitterness or division between these two men. Also, it’s thought that John Mark is the one who physically wrote the Gospel of Mark.
The next man that is mentioned is named Aristarchus. Aristarchus is also mentioned in the book of Acts. In Acts 19:29, after Demetrius the silver-smith had stirred up the crowd with rage and confusion upon hearing about Paul’s teaching and persuasion, that gods made by hands aren’t gods at all. This would affect the livelihood of these people, since they made money off making these idols, and also the temple of their goddess Artemis (Dianna) would be regarded as worthless if they did nothing.
Their goddess would be dethroned if they didn’t do something. These peo-ple in the midst of confusion grab ahold of Gaius and Aristarchus, who were Paul’s Macedonian Traveling companions. They aren’t mentioned again in chapter 19, but as we see from chapter 20:4, Gaius and Aristarchus are back to traveling with Paul, so they escaped with their lives from this riot filled with confusion. Additionally, Aristarchus is mentioned on being on the boat with Paul in Acts 27. This is the boat that will crash by the end of the chap-ter, but with no loss of life. Aristarchus was clearly a zealous man of God, and also sent his greeting to Philemon and the church in his house.
The next man that is mentioned is named Demas. Demas was a companion of Paul’s at first, as we see in Colossians 4:14, where it says Demas sends his greeting to them. Aside from this, we don’t know any other good that De-mas did. We do now that sadly he fell away. 2nd Timothy 4:10 says “For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thes-salonica…” Hopefully Demas turned back to God and to the work, but we don’t know the answer. Certainly, this shows that all though these were great men of God, they faced temptation and Demas was tempted by something in the world, which caused him to abandon Paul and the gospel.
The last man that is mentioned is Luke. Luke is the physical author of two books in the New Testament, being the gospel of Luke and Acts. Luke was an intelligent man and was very detailed in his writings. In the beginning of the gospel of Luke, he makes mention of how he wrote out his gospel in an orderly sequence. Luke was also a physician and as we know with Physi-cians today, they are very focused on the details. This certainly makes a lot of sense on why Luke would write the gospel in an orderly sequence with great detail. Colossians 4:14 tells us that Luke is a physician. While being the author of Acts, he also was present for some of the events. For the first time in the book of Acts, we see Luke switch from saying they went or did this action, to we. This is seen in Acts 16:10 for the first time. Luke, like Aris-tarchus, was on the boat that crashed in Acts 27. He also is noted as being the only one who was with Paul upon the writing of 2nd Timothy 4:11, which is believed to have been written shortly before Paul was killed.
