Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ Scripture: Philippians 2:25-30

 

/Philippians 2:25 //But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.

26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.

27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died.

But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.

28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety.

29 Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him,  30 because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.

*[1]*/

 

/4:18 //I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.

They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.*[2]*/

 

1.

A Helper Released

 

It was a “necessary” thing to send Epaphroditus home – not a preferable thing.

He had been sent with gifts to minister to the imprisoned apostle in the pagan city of Rome.

Anyone ever visit people in prison?

I don’t think I have ever seen such appreciation for visitors as I have in prison.

At any rate, he let him go for higher reasons than his own wishes and sent him home with great references and the Philippian letter to deliver.

q      Reference.

“/my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.”/

Epaphroditus was released from his assignment with excellent references.

!! PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

 

These quotes were allegedly taken from actual federal employee performance evaluations:

 

"Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."

"When she opens her mouth, it seems it is only to change feet."

"This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

"He sets his personal standards low, and consistently fails to achieve them."

"This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better."

"He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless."

"I would like to go hunting with him sometime."

"He would argue with a signpost."

"He has a knack for making strangers immediately."

"He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room."

"If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one."

"Takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes."

--submitted by Pastor Paul

 

Who was Epaphroditus?

What do we know about him from the scriptures?

His name appears twice only in the letter to the Philippians.

A Macedonian Christian from Philippi.

There are no grounds for identifying him with Epaphras of Col. 1:7; 4:12, or Phm.

23.

His name means ‘comely’ or ‘charming’.

Paul calls him your messenger (hymoµn apostolon, Phil.

2:25), where the word used is one more frequently translated elsewhere as ‘apostle’.

This does not mean that Epaphroditus held any office in the Philippian church; he was simply a messenger (cf. 2 Cor.

8:23) who brought the gift from the church to Paul in prison at Rome.

He became seriously ill, possibly as a result of over-exerting himself in journeying from Philippi to Rome, or in serving Paul at Rome.

The av says ‘he regarded not his life’ (see Phil. 2:30), but rsv more correctly ‘*risking his life’*.

The word used is paraboleusamenos, ‘having gambled with his life’, from paraboleuesthai ‘to throw down a stake, to make a venture’.

In the early church there were societies of men and women who called themselves the parabolani, that is, the riskers or gamblers.

They ministered to the sick and imprisoned, and they saw to it that, if at all possible, martyrs and sometimes even enemies would receive an honorable burial.

Thus in the city of Carthage during the great pestilence of A.D. 252 Cyprian, the bishop, showed remarkable courage.

In self-sacrificing fidelity to his flock, and love even for his enemies, he took upon himself the care of the sick, and bade his congregation nurse them and bury the dead.

What a practice of the heathen who were throwing the corpses out of the plague-stricken city and were running away in terror.

* *

/Bibliography.//

J. Agar Beet, ‘Epaphroditus and the gift from Philippi’, The Expositor, 3rd Series, 9, 1889, pp.

64ff.; C. O. Buchanan, ‘Epaphroditus’ Sickness and the Letter to the Philippians’, EQ 36, 1964, pp.

157ff.

d.o.s*[3]*/

He had been sent by the Philippian church to deliver a gift and to minister to Paul’s needs.

They sent him out of town with their offering and therefore he would have been greatly trusted in the church at Philippi.

The church at Philippi was the first-fruits of European Christianity.

Their attachment to the apostle was very fervent, and so also was his affection for them.

They alone of all the churches helped him by their contributions, which he gratefully acknowledges (Acts 20:33–35; 2 Cor.

11:7–12; 2 Thess.

3:8).

The generosity of the Philippians comes out very conspicuously (Phil.

4:15).

“This was a characteristic of the Macedonian missions, as 2 Cor. 8 and 9 amply and beautifully prove.

It is remarkable that the Macedonian converts were, as a class, very poor (2 Cor.

8:2); and the parallel facts, their poverty and their open-handed support of the great missionary and his work, are deeply harmonious.

At the present day the missionary liberality of poor Christians is, in proportion, really greater than that of the rich” (Moule’s Philippians, Introd.).

Now Paul was sending him home with some reluctance at losing his help.

Paul was not given to flattery and was especially cautious and even critical in the choosing of those who served with him.

It was personnel issue that drove a wedge between Paul and his ministry advocate and mentor, Barnabas.

We have come to associate the name Barnabas with encouragement.

Acts 4:36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement),  37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

[4]

 

It was Barnabas who once went to bat for Paul and vouched for him.

Acts 9:26 When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.

27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles.

He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.

28 So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.[5]

While Paul was the benefactor of Barnabas’ encouragement, he could not agree with Barnabas assessment of John Mark who left them in the middle of a previous missionary attempt  and their disagreement over this issue drove them apart.

Acts 15:39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company.

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,  40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

/*[6]*/

 

But he called Epaphroditus by some very complementary terms:

 

Ø      Brother – same family

 

Ø      Fellow worker – same task~/peer

 

Ø      Fellow Soldier – same force~/kingdom builder

 

This was about as good a reference as a man could get, being sent back to his own.

q      Reasons.

Why was he sent home?

/26 //For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.

27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died.

But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.

28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety./

It really wasn’t primarily his sickness.

He had already recovered and the danger was past.

He was sent home because:

 

Ø      He loved and missed his home church

 

Ø      He worried about reaction to rumors related to his sickness

 

Ø      He had accomplished his mission

 

Ø      He carried the letter to the Philippian church from Paul

 

Ø      His return was a commission to ministry at home