Growing and Maturing Every Day in the Lord
Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him), and Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas.
Colossians 4:10–14 Read More
Almost everyone in this list appears somewhere else in the New Testament. Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, is the Mark that wrote the Gospel. He had left with Barnabas and Paul years earlier but then bailed on them. He is back again and has regained deeper trust than ever with Paul.
Note that just a few lines after Paul says there is no Jew or Gentile in Christ, he points out who among his group is Jewish and who isn’t. This helps reinforce that Paul is practicing what he is preaching. His group is not based on nationality, past beliefs, or other hierarchies, they are all Christians. They don’t appear in this passage, but Paul had men and women traveling with him to teach the Gospel.
Epaphras was from Colossae and prayed like a boss. “Always struggling on your behalf,” says a lot. To pray in that way shows love and care from Epaphras and blows the current trend of ‘sending good thoughts’ out of the water. He was asking God to interrupt, intervene, and change them. Look at what he prayed for the Colossians:
Stand mature in the will of God
Be fully assured in all the will of God
That would be mighty progress for any of us! Not only did Epaphras pray such things with struggle and persistence, but he also ‘worked hard’ for all of the people he was praying for. Paul calls him his ‘fellow worker’ to Philemon.
Finally, the last two guys mentioned in this section have very different endings. Luke the beloved physician was busy writing the Gospel of Luke while living out what would later become the book of Acts. He would stick by Paul till the end and continue to advance the Gospel beyond the life of Paul. Demas, however, shows up in 2 Timothy, just before Paul’s execution.
For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. – 2 Timothy 4:10
Whatever path Demas chose, Paul uses the same language that John uses to describe ‘hatred against God.’ Rather than being in love with the hope of the Gospel and maturity in the will of God (like Epaphras), Demas loved himself more. This was bigger than the time Mark deserted Paul, and Paul used stronger language to describe it.
No slight on Demas, because we don’t know what his whole situation was, but you can see from this list that the people that were the most active and growing in the Lord continued on the path. Epaphras and his praying, Luke and his writing and evangelizing, Mark who would have also probably helped Luke, all went on to stand mature in the will of God and to be fully assured in all the will of God.
A long life serving the Lord consists of one day after another all put together. Let us pray and serve others today so that all of us will
Stand mature in the will of God
Be fully assured in all the will of God
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