Part 7 (1/2)
TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS
”Puisse la meme foi qui consola leur vie Nous ouvrir les sentiers que leurs pas ont presses, Et, dirigeant nos pieds vers la sainte patrie Ou leur bonheur s'accroit de leurs travaux pa.s.ses, Nous rendre ces objets de tendresse et d'envie Qui ne sont pas perdus, mais nous ont devances.”
A. VINET
CHAPTER VII
TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS
PHILIPPIANS ii. 19-30
Epaphroditus--The variety of Scripture--Contrasts in context--Henry Martyn's letter--”The human element”--”His letters I have read”--The two aspects of Scripture--Divine messages in human context--”Together with them”
Ver. 19. +But I hope in the Lord Jesus+, with an expectation conditioned by my union with Him in all things, and with you in Him, +promptly to send to you Timotheus,[1] that I too+, I as well as you, who will of course be gladdened by his presence, +may be of good cheer, getting+, through him, +a knowledge+ (_gnous_) +of your circ.u.mstances+ (_ta peri humon_). I send him, and not
Ver. 20. another, +for I have+--at hand, and free to move--+no one equal-souled+ with him,[2] +one who+ (_hootis_) +will genuinely take anxious care about your circ.u.mstances+; the ”care” which is not a weary burthen, better cast upon the Lord (iv. 6), but a sacred charge, undertaken in and for Him, and absorbing all the
Ver. 21. thought. +For all of them+ (_oi pantes_), all from whom I could in this case select, +are bent on+ (_xetousi_: cp. Col. iii. 1) +their own interests, not the interests of Jesus Christ+; they plead excuses which indicate a preference of their own ease, or reputation, or affections, to a matter manifestly and wholly HIS.
Ver. 22. +But the test through which he+, Timotheus, +pa.s.sed+ (_ten dokimen autou_) you remember (_ginoskete_, ”you recognize,” as you look back); you know +that as child with father+ so +he with me+, in closest companions.h.i.+p and sympathy, +did bondservice[3] for the Gospel+, _eis to euaggelion_, ”_unto_ it,” for the furtherance
Ver. 23. of its enterprise and message. +So him then+ (_touton men oun_[4]) +I hope to send, immediately upon+ (_hos an_ . . . _exautes_) +my getting a view of+ (_apido_) +my circ.u.mstances+, my position with regard to my trial
Ver. 24. and its result. +But+ (though I thus allude to external uncertainties) +I feel sure, in the Lord+, in the light of union and communion with Him, +that I too in person shall speedily arrive+, in the track of this my messenger and forerunner.
Ver. 25. +But I count[5] it obligatory+ (_anagkaion_), and not merely a matter for hopes and personal satisfaction, +to send to you+, as I now do, in charge of this Letter, another person, +Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier+, a man who has toiled and contended at my very side for the Lord and against the Enemy, +while he is+ also +your missionary and ministrant[6] for my need+. Yes, I feel that I _ought_
Ver. 26. to send him, and to send him _now_; +since he has been suffering from home-sickness for[7] all of you+, (all, without exception; his affection knows no party or partiality,) +and from the distraction+ (_ademonon_) of over-wrought feeling, because you have heard that he
Ver. 27. fell ill[8] (_esthenese_). +And+ so it was; +for he did fall ill, almost fatally+ (_paraplesion thanato_). +But our+ (_ho_) +G.o.d pitied him+, sparing him the grief of broken hopes and purposes in the Lord's work on earth, and the grief of being a cause of tears to you; +and not only him but also me, that I might not have[9] sorrow upon sorrow+. For had he died, I should have had a sore bereavement, and the sad consciousness that you, in a loving effort for my benefit, had lost a beloved friend; and all this added to, heaped upon (_epi_ _c.
acc._), the antecedent pain of my captivity and the trials which it involves.
Ver. 28. +With the more earnestness therefore I have sent him,[10]
that seeing him you may be glad again, and that I may feel less sorrow+, finding my imprisonment, and also my loss of this dear friend's company, softened to my heart by the thought of your joy in
Ver. 29. welcoming him back. +Receive him therefore in the Lord+, in all the union and sympathy due to your common share in Him, +with all gladness, and+
Ver. 30. +hold in high value such men as he is; because on account of Christ's work he was at death's very door,[11] playing+ as it were the +gambler with his life,[12] that he might+ (lit., ”may”) +supply your lack+, do the service which you could not do, and so complete your loving purposes, in regard +of the ministration+ you designed +for me+.
Our present section ill.u.s.trates well the inexhaustible variety of Scripture. That pregnant Christian thinker, the late Dr John Ker, has some good sentences on this subject: ”What varieties are in the Bible, side by side! The Book of Ruth, with its pastoral quiet after the wars of the Judges, like an innocent child which has crept between the ranks of hostile armies; the intense devotion of the Psalms after the speculative discussions of Job, and before the practical wisdom of Proverbs; the gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness of the Song of Solomon, as sharply divided as the eastern morning which leaps from the night, or, as an old Greek might have said, silver-footed Thetis rising from the bed of old t.i.thonus; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle pinion, with Jeremiah's dovelike plaint; the cloudlike obscurities of Ezekiel, to be solved, as one might expect, by piercing light from the sky; and the perplexities of Daniel, to be opened by the movements of the nations.”[13]
What a variety lies before us here!
”Into the heaven of heavens we have presumed, And drawn empyreal air”;
while the Apostle has told us (only fourteen verses above) how Christ Jesus, in the glory of the Throne, in the Form of G.o.d, cared for us men and for our salvation, and made Himself void, and took the creature-nature, and died; and how He is now on the Throne again in His Incarnation, to receive supreme and universal wors.h.i.+p. And then again we came back to earth, yet so as to be led into the deep secrets of the Lord in the inner life of His saints below; ”G.o.d is working in you, to will and to do, for His good pleasure's sake.” And then we have seen this inner life expanding and shewing itself in the holy life without, which s.h.i.+nes as a star in the dark, and speaks like a voice from the unseen. And then again we have watched the Apostle's martyr-joy as he thinks of dying for his Philippians, if need be. Close upon all these heights and depths now comes in this totally different pa.s.sage about Timotheus and Epaphroditus, with its quiet, practical allusions to individual character, and to particular circ.u.mstances, and to personal hopes and duties; its words of sympathy and sorrow; the dear friend's agitated state of mind; his recent almost fatal illness; the mercy of his recovery; the pleasurable thought of his restoration to the loving circles at Philippi.