What Does Philippians 2:25 Mean?

(25) **Epaphroditus.**—The name was often shortened into Epaphras. But it was a common name; hence any identification with the Epaphras of Colossians 1:7; Colossians 4:12; Philemon 1:23, is, to say the least, extremely precarious. It is hardly likely that one who was a native Colossian would be a resident and chosen messenger of Philippi. The three titles here given him are closely joined together in the original, and form a kind of climax—“brother” in a common Christianity, “fellow-worker” in the service of Christ, “fellow-soldier” in the “hardness” of daring and suffering, which the warfare of the Cross implies. (See 2Timothy 2:3-4.) **Your messenger.**—The original word is *apostle;* and by some interpreters, ancient and modern, it has been thought that it is intended here to designate the chief pastor—or, in the modern sense, the bishop—of the Philippian Church (as probably is the case with the “angels” of the churches in the Apocalypse); and the word “your” is then explained in the same sense as the words “of the Gentiles” in Romans 11:13. But this is very unlikely, (1) because there seems to be no example to confirm the statement that the chief pastor of a church was ever called its “apostle;” (2) because the character of the apostolate, being general and evangelistic, was very different from that of the local and pastoral episcopate; (3) because in this passage the word is inseparably connected with the following “and minister to my needs,” showing the latter phrase to be explanatory of the previous word; (4) because the style of commendation in Philippians 2:29 is hardly suitable as applied to one whose office alone should have commanded respect. Our version is, therefore, correct in rendering it “messenger,” just as in 2Corinthians 8:23 (“the messengers of the churches”), where there is a similar reference to the transmission of alms.