Colossians Part 1 – Paul, Epaphras, and the Early Church

Now, are you ready? Are you with me? I’m going to give you an introduction, and it’s written right in front of you, but I’m going to tell you. I want you to listen to it with the eyes of your imagination. I want you to see it rather than hear it. I’ll even put it in the first person. I’ll start off with the first. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

It’s 54 AD. That means it’s been 24 years since the Lord ascended, since His resurrection. Paul is entering the city of Ephesus on his third church planting journey. He has six men with him who are going to live with him for the next four years. Very much like the way the Lord Jesus had 12 men live with Him.

He’s walking into a town in Turkey; it’s called Turkey today. It was a small country, and Turkey’s a big country. Do you know that really big country? Well, back then, there was a little country inside of what is today Turkey, a little country called Asia Minor. The capital of the city was one of the big cities of the Roman Empire, and Paul walks into this town; it’s called Ephesus, Asia Minor. He has six young men with him.

Now, get ahead of the story, 90 miles east, this is Ephesus right here. 90 miles due east are three towns, all within about five miles of one another. And who’s going to show me what a great scholar you are and tell me the name of those three towns? Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. Now Paul stays four years in Ephesus, but he never gets to Colossae. He’s got six men who are going to live with him for four years. They’re all going to end up being church planters. They’re going to take Paul’s place when he dies. But two young men get converted in Ephesus. A lot of people get converted, but two of them Paul allows to join the group of six. And these young men are both from Ephesus. So, there are actually eight men.

Now, who’s going to name me three or four of those eight men? A little louder. Who? Wait a minute. You can’t do one, you have to do three. Are you ready to go back there? Okay, I’m going to do them in the order in which they appear in the New Testament. The way they appear in scripture are Titus of Antioch, Timothy of Lystra, Gaius of Derbe, Aristarchus, and Secundus of Thessalonica, and Sopater of Berea. There are six. Tychicus and Trophimus, the two who are added, are from Ephesus. I’m going to go through that again, listen very carefully.

Titus is from Antioch, Syria, which is one nation. Timothy is from Galatia. You know about the Galatian letter. Okay? He was converted on Paul’s first journey. Titus came from the home church of Paul, which is Antioch. Gaius is in the town right next to Lystra, a town called Derbe. Second trip, Paul in Thessalonica, Greece. He’s now in Greece. So, we got Syria, Galatia, and Greece, three different areas. In Greece, we get Aristarcus, Thessalonica, and Secundus, who is the second child in his family. Now that’s three different nations, three different cultures. And then we get Sopater from Berea, which is a very nice, cool town up in the Greek mountains. So, we have three separate cultures and six men, and probably three or four distinct languages because Timothy’s language is actually a dialect just to his one town, the language of Lystra.

Now, then we get Tychicus and Trophimus, and they’re from Asia Minor. We got four countries here among eight men, different cultures, they’re all together. Everyone is learning something from the others. Let’s say that we had a worker from here, and we had one from Philadelphia, another one from Denver, and another one from Atlanta. And each one of them has a different story to tell about how their church was born. Are you following me? These eight men were like that. Each one of them could tell a different story.

Did anything drip by your mind right about that time? Anything comes dripping through your mind? Anything? Anybody say “ah.” You did? What was it?

Audience Member: As you were saying that, I started thinking about the work that some people are going to do with you.

Absolutely. They all have different histories. They’re all going to cross-pollinate with one another. Amen. Well, that’s what was happening in Ephesus.

Now, Paul is in Ephesus, and he’s got his eight young men with him. He’s training them, and there are people coming in from all over Asia Minor because you just do that because it’s Ephesus, it’s the capital. And a young man comes there, and he gets converted. He’s in Ephesus, and his name is Epaphras, and he finds the Lord. Probably Paul pays almost no attention to him. Paul also leads somebody else to the Lord, or in some way, this guy gets saved. His name is Philemon. He’s probably a well-to-do businessman, and he has slaves. Both these men live in Colossae, which Paul has never seen.