Additional Notes §15
§15 Commendation of Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25–30)
Even before Timothy sets out, Paul has another emissary ready to go to Philippi. Epaphroditus, an emissary from the Philippian church to Paul, was now to return home immediately, without waiting to learn how Paul’s case would turn out.
2:25 / Epaphroditus had come from Philippi to visit Paul, bringing him a gift from the church there (cf. 4:18). When Paul describes Epaphroditus as his fellow worker and comrade-in-arms (fellow worker and fellow soldier), he may imply that Epaphroditus had on some previous occasion been associated with him in his apostolic activity or that after delivering the Philippian church’s gift to him he had stayed on and taken some share in his ministry. The strenuous character of service in the gospel is indicated by Paul’s fondness for describing it in athletic or military language. The Philippian Christians may indeed have instructed Epaphroditus to stay on after delivering their gift to Paul and give him on their behalf what help he seemed to need. This may be suggested by Paul’s calling him your messenger or “envoy” (Gk. apostolos). The “messengers (apostoloi) of the churches” had a special status as their churches’ duly commissioned representatives for specific purposes (cf. 2 Cor. 8:23, NIV: “they are representatives of the churches”). Epaphroditus may not have been vested with such a formal status by the Philippian church, but Paul speaks of him with the respect due to such an envoy: he is your apostolos and my leitourgos (a minister to my need), says Paul, choosing the latter word also as one commanding respect (it denotes a person who renders a religious service).
Probably the Philippian church had intended Epaphroditus to stay longer with Paul, to take care of his needs as their representative. Paul makes it plain that he is responsible for sending Epaphroditus back earlier than they expected. I think it is necessary, he says, and goes on to say why.
2:26 / Some time after leaving Philippi, Epaphroditus had fallen ill. His illness raises questions to which no certain answers can be given. Did he fall ill on his way to Paul, or after he had reached the place where Paul was? The usual view is that it was after his arrival, but careful consideration should be given to the possibility—indeed, the probability—that it was while he was on the way there. G. B. Caird, for example, concludes: “He fell ill on the road from Philippi to Rome, and it was his determination to complete the journey and to discharge his commission that nearly cost him his life” (ad loc.).
If (as we believe) Paul was in Rome, Epaphroditus would travel west from Philippi along the Egnatian Way. Somewhere along this road he fell ill, and his friends in Philippi got to hear of it. How they heard we do not know. Perhaps (and “perhaps” is all that can be said) he was able to send a message back to them by someone traveling in the opposite direction, warning them that he might not be able to continue the journey (at least not within reasonable time) and asking them to send someone else to the place where he was, to collect the gift and take it on to Paul in Rome. The Philippian Christians were naturally concerned about Epaphroditus, but had difficulty in finding a replacement for him: they could only hope he would recover in time to complete the journey.
Epaphroditus did recover and was able to complete the journey to Rome, but he knew that his friends in Philippi would be anxious about him and may well have blamed himself for causing them anxiety. In spite of being distressed over this, he was eager to stay with Paul and be of service to him, as he had been instructed to do. But Paul knew that the sooner Epaphroditus returned to Philippi, the happier Epaphroditus himself and his friends there would be, so he sent him back, exonerating him in their eyes from all responsibility for returning so soon.
2:27 / He was certainly ill, Paul adds; indeed, his illness nearly proved fatal. Until they received the letter, the Philippians may not have known how serious Epaphroditus’s illness was. It did not matter if they knew it now, for it was Epaphroditus who took the letter to them, and they could see for themselves that he was safe and well.
Paul had been sorry indeed that Epaphroditus should run the risk of death in his eagerness to serve him on behalf of the Philippian church. He would have had sorrow upon sorrow if Epaphroditus had actually died. His recovery was a token of God’s mercy to Epaphroditus himself, but it was a token of God’s mercy to Paul also, as Paul viewed it.
2:28 / Now that Epaphroditus had recovered, he would willingly have remained in Rome and served Paul further, but Paul said, “No: our friends back in Philippi have been very anxious about you and will be relieved to see for themselves that you have quite recovered. Besides, I am giving you a letter for them to tell them how things are going with me here and to thank them for the gift you brought me from them.” Paul himself would be the more relieved to think of the mutual joy that Epaphroditus and his friends in Philippi would experience when they were safely reunited. It was ultimately because of their love for him that both Epaphroditus and the other Christians in Philippi had been upset and anxious, and Paul’s love for them moved him to relieve their concern as soon as possible. His own anxiety at being the involuntary cause of their concern would thus be lessened.
2:29 / So then, says Paul, welcome him in the Lord with great joy. This is not the only occasion on which Paul bespeaks a welcome for one of his letter-carriers: he similarly asks the Roman Christians to receive Phoebe “in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints” (Rom. 16:2). But Epaphroditus does not need to be introduced to the Philippian Christians. He is one of them, and is sure to be received with great joy on his return—to be received “in the Lord,” as a fellow member of the believing community. Even if part of his commission had perforce to remain unfulfilled, Paul says, “Welcome him nevertheless: it is I who am sending him home.”
It is people like Epaphroditus who are worthy of honor and esteem in the church. Paul uses the same kind of language in commending Stephanas and his family to the Corinthian Christians. Because they “have devoted themselves to the service of the saints,” he begs the church of Corinth “to submit to such as these and everyone who joins in the work, and labors at it”; mentioning some others of the same character, he adds, “Such men deserve recognition” (1 Cor. 16:15–18). The Philippians already had their “overseers and deacons” (1:1); Epaphroditus by his self-sacrificing service had shown himself well qualified to be added to their number.
This direction of Paul’s is completely in line with the teaching of Jesus, according to whom greatest honor among his followers belongs to the one who renders the lowliest service (Mark 10:42–45; Luke 22:24–27; cf. John 13:13–15).
2:30 / Epaphroditus (together with others like him) must be honored, Paul repeats, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life. Epaphroditus expended himself in service to his fellow Christians of Philippi, doing on their behalf what they as a body were unable to do (they could not all make the journey to Rome to visit Paul). He expended himself equally in service to Paul, ministering to him not only on his own account but also as the representative of the Philippian church. Paul and the Philippian church were alike engaged in their gospel partnership (1:5): by serving them both, Epaphroditus was expending himself in the cause of Christ.
Paul did not set out deliberately to present three examples of the same self-renouncing attitude “as that of Christ Jesus” (v. 5). But in fact this is what he has done. His own readiness to have his martyrdom credited to the spiritual account of his Philippian friends, Timothy’s unselfish service to Paul and genuine concern for other Christians, Epaphroditus’s devotion to his mission at great risk to his health and (as it might have been) to his life—all these display the unselfconscious care for others enjoined at the beginning of this chapter and reinforced by the powerful example of Christ’s self-emptying.
2:25 / R. W. Funk (“The Apostolic Parousia: Form and Significance,” in Farmer, Moule, and Niebuhr, Christian History, p. 250) considers vv. 25–30 to be attached to the “apostolic parousia” proper (vv. 19–24) as a secondary but related passage. Elements characteristic of the “apostolic parousia” found in vv. 25–30 are (a) despatch of an emissary, with name, credentials, and purpose; (b) the emissary’s eagerness to see the recipients; (c) benefit accruing to the recipients from the sending of the emissary; (d) benefit accruing to Paul from the sending of the emissary.
I think it is necessary: Gk. anankaion de hēgēsamēn, where hēgēsamēn is probably to be taken as epistolary aorist (i.e., the time perspective is that of the readers, not of the writer). Cf. epempsa (v. 28).
Epaphroditus, meaning “lovely” (derived from Aphrodite), was a very common personal name; cf. Josephus’s patron Epaphroditus, to whom his later works were dedicated (Ant. 1.8; Life 430; Against Apion 1.1; 2.1, 296). Epaphras of Colossae (Col. 1:7; 4:12; Philem. 23) bears a name which is a shortened form of Epaphroditus, but there is no reason to identify the two men.
Fellow worker and fellow soldier: Gk. synergos and synstratiōtēs, two of Paul’s well-loved compounds with syn- (cf. 4:3, sy(n)zygos, “yokefellow”). He uses synergos also of Priscilla and Aquila (Rom. 16:3), Urbanus (Rom. 16:9), Timothy (Rom. 16:21; 1 Thess. 3:2), Titus (2 Cor. 8:23), Philemon (Philem. 1), as well as others more comprehensively (Phil. 4:3). As for sy(n)stratiōtēs, he applies that term also to Archippus of Colossae (Philem. 2). Elsewhere he refers to the gospel ministry as a military campaign (strateia, as in 2 Cor. 10:4) and speaks of himself and his colleagues as waging (spiritual) warfare (strateuesthai, as in 1 Cor. 9:7; 2 Cor. 10:3).
Who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs: a happy rendering of the hendiadys* “your messenger (apostolos) and minister (leitourgos) to my need.” For the somewhat sacral leitourgos cf. leitourgia in 2:17, 30. In Rom. 15:16 Paul is the leitourgos of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, discharging a “priestly service” (hierourgein); in Rom. 13:6 even secular rulers are “ministers (leitourgoi) of God.”
2:26 / On the timing of Epaphroditus’s illness see W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, p. 722; B. S. Mackay, “Further Thoughts on Philippians,” NTS 7 (1960–61), p. 169; C. O. Buchanan, “Epaphroditus’ Sickness and the Letter to the Philippians,” EQ 36 (1964), pp. 157–66.
Distressed: Gk. adēmonōn, used of Jesus in Gethsemane in Mark 14:33 par. Matt. 26:37 (“deeply distressed”), “representing the distress which follows a great shock” (H. B. Swete, The Gospel According to St. Mark, p. 342).
2:28 / Therefore I am all the more eager to send him: Gk. spoudaioterōs oun epempsa auton, where epempsa is epistolary aorist (cf. hēgēsamēn in v. 25) and spoudaioterōs emphasizes Paul’s initiative in sending him back.
W. Schmithals suggests that, over and above Paul’s avowed reasons for sending Epaphroditus back, he perhaps wanted to post in the Philippian church a man he could trust, one who would see to it that he got accurate reports on the situation there (Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 70, 71). This suggestion is bound up with Schmithals’s view that Paul was disturbed by Gnosticizing tendencies in the Philippian church.
2:30 / Risking his life: Gk. paraboleusamenos tē psychē, lit., “having gambled with his life” (this is the only NT occurrence of paraboleuesthai).
The work of Christ: the variant reading “the work of the Lord” is found in a number of witnesses to the text, including Aleph A P Psi (perhaps under the influence of 1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10). According to J. B. Lightfoot “the work” with no genitive (as in C) is the original text.
To make up for the help you could not give me: lit., “in order to fill up your deficiency of ministry to me” (Gk. hina anaplērōsē to hymōn hysterēma tēs pros me leitourgias). The leitourgia would include the gift mentioned in 4:10–20, brought to Paul by Epaphroditus (cf. the verb leitourgēsai used of monetary gifts in Rom. 15:27) but was not exhausted by it; that was a ministry that the Philippian Christians could and did render, but the personal ministrations Paul received from Epaphroditus in Rome (as their leitourgos to Paul’s need, v. 25) could not be rendered by them in person, and those ministrations are included in the leitourgia here.