Remember My Chains

Scripture: Colossians 4:7–18

Read Colossians 4:7–18 before proceeding. Keep your Bible open throughout this session.

I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.
Colossians 4:18

The People Around Paul

Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. I sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are doing and that he may encourage your hearts. I sent him with Onesimus, the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here. (4:7–9)

We come at last to the closing of the letter. The Christ-hymn is behind us. The baptismal theology is behind us. The household table is behind us. The instructions on prayer and gracious speech are behind us. What remains is what every ancient letter ended with: a list of names. The personal greetings, the warm valedictions, the human texture of an apostolic ministry that did not happen in solitude but in fellowship.

It is tempting to skim such closing sections. The names are unfamiliar, the references obscure, the section feels like the housekeeping at the end of a letter rather than the substance. But this would be a mistake. The names of Colossians 4 are the apostolic mission with its faces showing. Each one stands for a real person who labored alongside Paul, who carried letters, who hosted churches, who prayed wrestling prayers from prison, who bore the cost of the gospel in particular bodies in particular places. The Christ-hymn would not have reached the Lycus valley without these people. The letter we have been studying for ten sessions would not exist without them. The gospel was, and is, a fellowship of those who carry it together.

Paul begins with two men. Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave in the Lord. Three titles, layered. Tychicus is brother (one of the family), minister (one who serves the Church, the same word diakonos that Paul used of himself), and fellow slave (syndoulos, one who, like Paul himself, is a slave of Christ). He was a native of the province of Asia, mentioned in Acts as one of Paul’s traveling companions, and the letter to Ephesians names him in nearly identical terms. He was, in our terms, Paul’s most trusted aide: the man Paul sent on the most important errands, the man who carried the letters and represented the apostle’s mind to the churches that received them. The letter to the Colossians is in our hands today because Tychicus put it in the hands of the church at Colossae.

I sent him with Onesimus, the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. The second name is more famous, and the reason is the brief letter that travels alongside this one. Onesimus is the runaway slave whose story is told in the letter to Philemon. He had fled from his Christian master in Colossae, somehow reached Paul in his imprisonment, and been converted under the apostle’s ministry. Paul is now sending him back to Colossae, not as a runaway returning under coercion, but as the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. The new identity has overrun the old. Onesimus, who was a slave, is now a brother. He is one of you: a Colossian, a Christian, a member of the body of Christ.

This pairing is its own theology. Tychicus the faithful minister and Onesimus the converted slave travel together from Paul’s prison to the Lycus valley. The gospel does not move only through famous apostles; it moves also through trusted aides and reconciled runaways. Both are carrying the same letter. Both are equally part of the apostolic mission. The man who was a slave is named in the same breath as the man who was a free Asian Christian. The new humanity is already showing itself in the way Paul names his messengers.

Three Jewish Believers

Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him). And Jesus who is called Justus also sends greetings. In terms of Jewish converts, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. (4:10–11)

Three more names. All three are Jewish believers (the NET says Jewish converts; Paul’s Greek says literally those of the circumcision), and all three are with him in his imprisonment.

Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner. A Macedonian, from Thessalonica, who has been with Paul through some of the hardest stretches of his ministry. Acts records his presence at the riot in Ephesus, where the mob had seized him and his companion Gaius. He had traveled with Paul on the long sea voyage to Rome, surviving the shipwreck off Malta. Now he is in chains with Paul, perhaps literally a fellow prisoner, perhaps voluntarily sharing the apostle’s confinement. He greets the Colossians.

Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. This is John Mark, whose name carries a longer story. He had begun the first missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas but had turned back partway through, and his departure had caused the sharp disagreement that split Paul and Barnabas before the second journey. Paul had refused to take Mark again; Barnabas had insisted, and the two had parted ways, Barnabas taking Mark with him to Cyprus and Paul taking Silas through Syria and Cilicia. The reconciliation evident in Colossians is striking. Mark is now with Paul again. Paul commends him to the Colossians and tells them, if he comes to you, welcome him. Whatever rift had separated them has been healed. The same Mark will eventually write the Gospel that bears his name, drawing, as the early church reported, on Peter’s preaching. The gospel does its work over time. People who were once estranged are restored. The man Paul once would not travel with is now the man Paul commends to the Lycus valley by name.

And Jesus who is called Justus. Of this man we know only what we read here. The name Jesus (Joshua in its Hebrew form) was common among first-century Jews; the byname Justus was a Roman cognomen meaning the just one. He is a Jewish believer, in Paul’s company, faithful enough to be named. Beyond that, his story is hidden in God.

In terms of Jewish converts, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. The sentence carries a particular weight. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, is also a Jew, and he has felt the difficulty of being a Jewish Christian whose own people had largely rejected the gospel he preached. To have these three Jewish brothers with him in his imprisonment has been a comfort to him. The Greek word is parēgoria, the same root that gives us paregoric, the soothing medicine. They have been medicine for his soul. The apostle who walked among Gentile believers found particular relief in the company of fellow Jews who shared his faith in Jesus the Messiah. The pain of his people’s largely unbelieving response to the gospel was real. The presence of these three was a balm.

Epaphras Wrestling in Prayer

Epaphras, who is one of you and a slave of Christ, greets you. He is always struggling in prayer on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I can testify that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. (4:12–13)

We have met Epaphras before, at the very beginning of the letter. He is the man through whom the gospel came to Colossae: the native son of the city who probably heard Paul preach in Ephesus, came to faith, and went home to plant the church that we have been reading the letter to. He is now with Paul in his imprisonment, the source of Paul’s information about the Colossian situation, the agent of his apostolic concern.

What Paul says of him here is moving. Always struggling in prayer on your behalf. The Greek verb is agōnizomenos, the same root that gives us agonize: to struggle as a wrestler or an athlete in the games. Epaphras is in agony for the Colossians, on his knees, wrestling with God on their behalf, every day. He is not merely thinking of them, not merely mentioning them in passing. He is contending in prayer for them. So that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God: this is what he is praying for. The same maturity Paul prayed for in 1:28. The same full assurance Paul prayed for in 2:2. Epaphras has internalized the apostolic concern and is making it his own.

For I can testify that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Paul attests to Epaphras’s labor. The Colossians could perhaps see only his absence; Paul, watching him in the prison, sees the labor that absence has been spent on. Epaphras has been working hard (the Greek says much toil), not only for Colossae but for the sister churches in Laodicea (about ten miles away) and Hierapolis (a little further). The whole Lycus valley has felt the burden of his prayer and his labor. He may be physically absent from them, but he is spiritually present in the most consequential way: he is interceding for them, by name, every day.

This is a model of pastoral ministry that the Lutheran tradition has prized. The pastor who is not visibly present in his congregation may still be present in the deepest way through his prayer. The intercessor who carries the names of his people before God is laboring on their behalf, even when they do not see it. Epaphras becomes, in the closing pages of Colossians, the type of the faithful pastor whose chief work is hidden, done on his knees, before the throne of grace, on behalf of those he loves. Paul knows what such a man is worth. He calls Epaphras a slave of Christ, the same title Paul uses of himself. Epaphras is no second-class minister. He stands in the same line.

Luke and Demas

Our dear friend Luke the physician and Demas greet you. (4:14)

Two more names, side by side, brief as a passing wave.

Our dear friend Luke the physician. This is the Luke who wrote the Gospel and the book of Acts. Paul calls him dear (literally the beloved) and identifies his profession: a physician, a man with medical training, perhaps caring for Paul’s needs in his imprisonment. The “we” passages of Acts place Luke with Paul on key stretches of his travels, including the voyage to Rome. In Second Timothy, written from a later imprisonment, Paul will write, Only Luke is with me. When everyone else had departed, Luke remained. The man who wrote the Gospel of the gentle Savior was himself a gentle and faithful presence at the apostle’s side.

And Demas. The greeting is bare. No title, no warmth, no description. Just the name. And the reason becomes clear only when we read Second Timothy, written years later: For Demas deserted me, since he loved the present age, and he went to Thessalonica. At the time of Colossians, Demas is still with Paul. The defection is in the future. But the brevity of the greeting in Colossians may already hint at something; perhaps Paul sensed that Demas’s commitment was not what Luke’s was. Or perhaps the brevity is incidental, and we read too much into it. Either way, the bare name Demas now carries the freight of what came later. The man who was with the apostle in his earlier imprisonment did not stay.

This is a sober note. Not every fellow worker remains faithful. Not every name in the apostolic company ends well. Demas is in the New Testament not as a model but as a warning. The Christian life is not finished at conversion; perseverance is required, and perseverance is not automatic. The same warning Paul sounded in chapter one of Colossians, if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel, is given a face in the brief greeting from Demas. He was once established and firm. He did not remain so. The believer who reads his name does well to take it as a caution. The Lutheran tradition has always insisted that the gospel is for the whole Christian life, not just for its beginning. Demas stands as a warning of what the pull of this present age can do to one who drifts from the means by which Christ keeps his people.

The Wider Circle

Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters who are in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets in her house. And after you have read this letter, have it read to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea as well. And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.” (4:15–17)

Paul widens the circle. He sends greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, the sister church about ten miles from Colossae, where Epaphras has also labored. He greets Nympha and the church that meets in her house. The name is feminine in the best manuscripts, and the picture is of a woman who hosts a house church in her home, providing the space, the hospitality, the meal, the practical means by which the gathering of the believers happens. The early Church met in homes, and women played significant roles in providing those homes. The Lutheran tradition, with its honoring of vocation in every station, has recognized that hospitality of this kind is a holy work. Paul’s wording places Nympha’s house church in or near Laodicea; it was probably one of the gatherings of believers there. Her vocation was to open her doors.

And after you have read this letter, have it read to the church of Laodicea. The apostolic letters were public documents, read aloud to the assembled congregation when they gathered. Paul instructs the Colossians to send their letter on to Laodicea so the Laodicean church can hear it too. Apostolic letters circulated. They were not the private correspondence of one church but the common possession of the network of believers across the region.

In turn, read the letter from Laodicea as well. This is the most tantalizing line in the closing greetings. There was a letter to or from Laodicea (Paul refers to it as if the Colossians would know which one) that Paul wanted them to read. The letter has not survived. Some have proposed that it is what we know as Ephesians, which appears to have been a circular letter that may have reached Laodicea in its journey. Others have speculated that it was a letter from Laodicea to Paul. We do not know. What we know is that there was apostolic correspondence Paul considered valuable that the providence of God did not preserve in the canon. The Spirit who preserved what we have did not preserve what we do not have, and we do well to be content with that. The Word of God for the Church is what the Church received and kept. The rest, we do not need.

And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.” The final personal note. Archippus is also mentioned in the letter to Philemon, where Paul calls him our fellow soldier. He was likely a member of Philemon’s household and a leader in the Colossian or Laodicean church. Paul charges him personally, through the Colossians, who would deliver the message, to complete the ministry you received in the Lord. The Greek verb, plēroō, means to complete, to fulfill, to bring to its proper fullness. Archippus has a ministry; the ministry was given to him in the Lord; he is to complete it. The exhortation is short but searching. Every minister of Christ stands under this same word. The ministry is the Lord’s gift; the minister is to fulfill it. Not partially. Not until it becomes inconvenient. To the end.

I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. (4:18)

We come at last to the final words. Paul has been dictating the letter to a secretary, as was his standard practice. But he now takes the pen in his own hand to write the final greeting. I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. The personal handwriting at the end made the letter verifiably Pauline. There were impostors and pseudonymous letters in the ancient world, and the apostle’s own signature was the sign that the letter was genuine. Paul does this in several letters; he says it explicitly in Galatians 6, First Corinthians 16, and Second Thessalonians 3. The handwriting changes at the end. The apostle’s actual hand makes its mark.

And in that own-hand signature, Paul writes three words that have echoed in the Church for two thousand years. Remember my chains.

The phrase is brief and devastating. Paul does not let his readers forget where he is. He has confessed the cosmic Christ in whom all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form; he has applied baptism and the cross with full theological weight; he has named the ethical implications and the household practices; he has greeted his beloved coworkers. And now, at the end, he writes the three words that summarize his own situation. Remember my chains. The gospel he has been confessing has cost him his liberty. The Christ he has been preaching has brought him to this prison cell. The mystery of Christ that he has been making known is the mystery for which I am in chains, as he wrote in verse 3. Remember my chains. Do not forget the cost. Do not let the comfort of your own circumstances make you forget that the gospel is preached, in this generation as in every generation, by people who are bearing real loss for it.

Lutheran piety has heard these three words with particular seriousness. The Christian life is not a life of unbroken ease. The gospel comes through suffering: through the suffering of Christ on the cross, through the suffering of the apostles in their missions, through the suffering of pastors and confessors and martyrs in every generation, and through the lesser sufferings of ordinary believers who have borne real costs for their faith. Remember my chains is the apostle’s request that the Church not forget any of this. The believer who reads Colossians and walks away as if it were a free gift with no attached cost has missed the apostolic signature. The same hand that traced the Christ-hymn traced the chains. The two belong together.

Grace be with you. And then, with three more words, the letter ends. Grace, charis, the gift-word that opened the letter in 1:2. Grace and peace to you from God our Father! he had written then. Grace be with you, he writes now. The whole letter has been an unfolding of what that grace is, where it comes from, what it does, how it reshapes the lives that receive it. And at the end, the apostle’s last word is grace. The Christ in whom the fullness of deity lives in bodily form is the gift of grace. The believer who has been reconciled is a recipient of grace. The chains that bind the apostle do not contradict the grace that has brought him to them; they are themselves an instance of the grace that runs through the entire letter. Grace be with you. The letter closes where it began, with the gift-word that defines everything else.

Gathering the Threads

We have walked, in this volume, through the four chapters of one of the most concentrated letters of the New Testament. Paul wrote it from prison to a church he had never visited, in answer to teachers who were trying to add to the gospel that had been planted there. The letter that resulted has shaped Lutheran theology more than perhaps any other single letter of the captivity correspondence.

It opened with a greeting and a thanksgiving that named the Colossians as saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, gave thanks for their faith and love and hope, and unfolded the five phrases of accomplished salvation: three decisive past-tense verbs (qualified, delivered, transferred), a present possession (in whom we have redemption), and its content (the forgiveness of sins). It rose to the Christ-hymn: the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the head of the body the church, the dwelling-place of the fullness, the maker of peace by the blood of his cross. And it applied that hymn personally to the Colossians whom the cosmic reconciliation had reached. It described the apostolic ministry of making known the mystery, whose name is Christ in you, the hope of glory, the verse that gives this volume its title. It pressed the keystone passage on baptism and the cross, with the canceling of the cheirographon and the disarming of the rulers and authorities. It set out the believer’s freedom from human regulations and self-made religion. It pivoted from doctrine to life with the great call to seek the things above and to put on the new man. It named the virtues of Christ-shaped character: a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, with love added to them all as the perfect bond. It addressed the household table (wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters) in the framework of vocation and the three estates. It called for devoted prayer, a wise walk, and gracious speech. And it closed with the personal greetings and the apostolic signature: Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

For the Lutheran reader the letter has been a feast. The Christology of chapters one and two (above all 2:9) stands behind the Formula of Concord’s eighth article on the person of Christ. The baptismal theology of chapter two stands behind the Lutheran teaching on the sacrament of baptism. The canceling of the certificate of indebtedness sounds the note Apology IV sounds throughout its treatment of justification. The freedom from human regulations stands behind the Augsburg Confession’s articles on human traditions. The indicative-grounding-imperative ethical structure shaped the Lutheran understanding of sanctification. The household table has long been read with Luther’s teaching on vocation and the three estates. There is no captivity letter that has done more theological work for the Lutheran tradition than this one. Paul’s brief, dense, prison-written letter to a church he had never seen has become a foundational text for the entire confessional inheritance.

And at the center of all of it, the verse that gave this volume its name. Christ in you, the hope of glory. The whole letter is a working out of these seven words. The Christ confessed is the Christ in whom all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. The Christ in the believer is the Christ given through baptism, sustained by the Word, fed in the Sacrament. The hope of glory is the day of appearing, when the hidden life of the believer will be revealed in glory with the Christ who is his life. Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is, in a sense, the whole gospel in seven words. It is certainly the whole letter to the Colossians in seven words. And it is, for the Lutheran Christian, the heart of his confession of who he is in Christ and where his life is finally going.

Remember the apostle’s chains. Hold the grace that has come to you. The Christ confessed in this letter is enough: for the Colossians, for the Reformers, for us. He has always been enough. He will always be enough.

For Discussion

The following questions are for group discussion or personal reflection.

Paul ends his letter with a long list of names: fellow workers, letter-carriers, intercessors, hosts of house churches, those who would later prove faithful and those who would not. Who in your own life are the fellow workers in the gospel, the people whose faithfulness has made your own Christian life possible?
Onesimus, who was a runaway slave, returns to Colossae as the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. What does this say about how the gospel transforms identities that the world considers fixed?
Epaphras is described as always struggling in prayer on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured. Is there someone in your life right now who needs you to wrestle for them in prayer the way Epaphras wrestled for Colossae?
Demas is named here with no comment; years later Paul would write that Demas had deserted him, since he loved the present age. What does Demas’s later story say to you about the importance of perseverance, and where do you feel the pull of this present age most strongly in your own life?
See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord, Paul writes to Archippus. What ministry, in whatever station of life, has the Lord given you that you are called to complete, to bring to its proper fullness?
Remember my chains. As we close this volume on Colossians, what does it mean for you to remember that the gospel you have received was preached by an apostle in chains, and that it continues to be preached today by Christians who bear real costs for it?

Looking Ahead

We have come to the end of the letter, and the end of this volume. Volume Three of The Pauline Captivity Letters closes here. But the series continues.

The fourth and final volume of the series will take up the letter to Philemon, the brief personal note that traveled alongside Colossians, carried by the same Tychicus, accompanied by the same Onesimus. Philemon is the shortest of Paul’s letters that has come down to us, and it is in some ways the most personal. It is Paul’s letter to Philemon, a Christian believer in Colossae, urging him to receive his runaway slave Onesimus back, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a dear brother. The letter has been a particular treasure of the Christian tradition because of what it shows: the gospel reaching into the most intractable of human institutions and reshaping the relationship from the inside. The brother in Christ overrides the slave-master hierarchy. The gospel does its slow corrosive work on what cannot stand where the brother-relationship is real.

When that volume appears, it will close the series of four captivity letters. Ephesians on God’s purpose in Christ. Philippians on partnership in the gospel and the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Colossians on the fullness of Christ and Christ in you, the hope of glory. And Philemon on the gospel reaching into a single household and a single relationship and transforming it. Four letters, written from prison, by the apostle who refused to let his chains silence him. Four windows onto the one Christ confessed by the apostolic Church and confessed still by the Church today.

Until then, grace be with you. And remember the apostle’s chains.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, through the apostle Paul, in his chains, You gave the Church the gospel of who You are and what You have done. We give You thanks for this letter. Thank You that in You all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. Thank You that by baptism we have been buried with You and raised with You. Thank You that You have destroyed the certificate of indebtedness that stood against us and nailed it to the cross. Thank You that You have disarmed the rulers and authorities and triumphed over them. Thank You that You are all and in all, and that nothing can take Your place: no human category, no philosophy, no human tradition, no elemental spirit. Be with us as we live our lives in You, rooted and built up in You, firm in the faith, overflowing with thankfulness. Be the peace that rules in our hearts. Be the Word that dwells in us richly. Be the Master we serve in every station of life. Be the hope of glory that lives in us. And bring us at last to the day when You appear, and we are revealed in glory with You. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.