In our day and in our land, we are more or less accustomed to a postal service that makes the conveyance of mail a relatively simple matter. In the ancient world, such facilities didn’t really exist, and the despatch of a letter from its writer to its intended reader was normally dependant on a mutual acquaintance who would act as bearer. This was no less the case with the apostle Paul, and several of his epistles, including the epistle to Philemon and the one to the Colossians, reached their destinations in this way – the one being carried by the hand of the runaway slave, Onesimus, the other by “a beloved brother” called Tychicus.
Onesimus.
Onesimus was a slave in the household of Philemon, a man of some standing in the region of Laodicea. It would appear that at some point in his life Onesimus committed a crime against his master Philemon and apparently fled to the great city of rom, where he possibly thought his anonymity would be secure. God moves in a mysterious way, however, and through some train of events, of which we are not told, Onesimus was brought into contact with Paul, now imprisoned in Rome for the truth of the gospel. As we know, Paul always looked on himself in such circumstances as “the prisoner of Jesus Christ,” and so, within the confines of that Roman prison he preached Christ and Him crucified to the servant who had absconded from his masters service. “Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds,” he calls him.
The purpose of Paul’s epistle to Philemon, then, is to effect the reinstatement of Onesimus to Philemon – back into his service and back into his favour once more – and in the course of that short epistle, you have one of the great Biblical illustrations of the truth of substitutionary atonement. “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought,” Paul writes to Philemon concerning Onesimus, “put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it.”
It takes very little spiritual effort to envisage, by faith, the essence of that plea being made on the behalf of guilty slaves such as we are before our God in heaven by the One who had all “our transgressions” laid to His account. “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought;” and with that word in his hand Onesimus set off from Rome to his master’s house again.
Tychicus.
When Onesimus set out from Rome to Laodicea that day, he wasn’t travelling alone. As Paul draws his epistle to the Colossians to a close, he says this:- “All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate and comfort your hearts; with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother …” Then, right at the end of Colossians, Paul tells the believers there, “And when this epistle is read among your, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.”
“The church of the Laodiceans” at that point was, in all probability, the “church that is in thine house,” as Paul writes to Philemon. Therefore, “the epistle from Laodicea” would be the epistle to Philemon that they were to later receive and read, after Philemon had read it.
And so, side-by-side – now running, now walking; now resting, now talking – the two epistle-bearers made their journey from Rome to Laodicea, and then on to Colosse, and the reading of the two epistles in question.
The assessment and descriptions of the two men (quoted above) which Paul makes in his epistle to the Colossians, might well catch our hearts and minds. Tychicus was one of those men who joined themselves to Paul just after the uprising at Ephesus under Demetrius the silversmith, (Acts chapters 19 and 20.) No doubt, he had gone through manys and up and down with Paul, and it’s from the depth of his Roman imprisonment that Paul gives this description and assessment of him. There is one precious phrase in particular that Paul uses; he calls him, “a beloved brother.” “All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother.”
There was a time when Paul would never have used such a phrase as that of a man like Tychicus. Tychicus was a Greek Gentile, and nothing could have been more unthinkable for an orthodox Pharisee such as Paul had once been to consider any Gentile dog a “brother” to himself. Ironically, of course, brothers they most assuredly were! If Paul had only stood and listened to our Lord’s ministry in John chapter 8 then he would have known that unless a man is “born again” he is of his “father the devil,” be he Jew or Greek. Saul of Tarsus (the apostle Paul) and Tychicus of Colosse were, indeed, brothers together for they had one common father – their old father, the devil. But then, there came a point where the “brotherly” relationship was broken. Whoever was converted first – Saul of Tarsus or Tychicus, we are not told – but when either one of them was converted, the old relationship was broken. One of them now had “God to his Father,” and the other was still of his father the devil; but they were no longer brothers. But then, again, when the day of salvation arrived for the other party in the twosome, then, “brothers” they became, indeed, in Paul’s use of the term now, and he calls Tychicus, “a beloved brother.”
He calls Onesimus the same thing; “with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother,” he says. And what could better illustrate the gospel terms? Tychicus, and Paul, and Onesimus, too, must look to one common ground of redemption – the Spirit of God granting them adoption from their old family to their new: The Spirit of God causing them to be “born of God,” and true living sons of the living God. No nationality would do; Paul the Jew as well as Tychicus the Greek must be “born again.” No status could mean anything; Paul, of the elite of Israel and Onesimus the runaway rebel slave must both be “born again.” But once they are born of God then, they are “children of the living God,” and “brothers,” indeed, in the household and family of the redeemed.
But so, the apostle Paul places the letter to the Colossians firmly in the hand of Tychicus, and the letter to Philemon firmly in the hand of Onesimus, and off they go – bearing the very Word of God itself to its earthly destinations. Take one last look at them as they set off. See the mighty Empire of Rome that they leave. Paul is a despised prisoner there as these two non-descripts in the eyes of the world take their leave of him with the small scrolls that he has just written in their hands. But that Empire has now gone; God’s word we have yet. And when all the Empires of this world, and this world, shall have passed away, that Word will remain for ever. And every believer in Christ is made a “bearer” of that Word; they can “hold forth” the Word of life – indeed, they are themselves made to be “living epistles.” And although the earth should pass away, nevertheless, to be faithful in our calling will write our names on the rocks of eternity. So, “Let the lower lights keep burning,” indeed.