Three Marks of a Faithful Minister of Christ

It’s so easy to skim over the ‘minor characters’ in Scripture, isn’t it? Men and women whose names are mentioned only once or twice – about whom very little is said. Epaphras is one of those names that only appears three times in the whole Bible (Col 1.7, 4.12; Phm 23), and yet he was a spiritual giant whose example we would do well to follow. He was a church planter and the pastor of the churches in at least Colosse, Laodicea and Hierapolis, if not in other towns in the Lycus valley of Asia Minor. Paul describes him in Col 1.7 as a ‘beloved fellow-servant’ and a ‘faithful minister of Christ’. In Col 4.12 he is referred to as a ‘servant of Christ Jesus’ – a phrase that Paul uses of only two other men: himself and Timothy. So this is a man who was exceptionally highly regarded by the apostle Paul. Why? What marked him out as a ‘faithful minister of Christ’? Paul mentions three things.... Read More