Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
The Fellow Workers
Colossians 4:10-14
10 Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you received instructions, “if he comes to you, receive him”), · WEB
Six names, and among them a man once rejected, a doctor, and a man who will not last.
Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you. He had been seized in the Ephesus riot Acts 19:29 and sailed with Paul toward Rome Acts 27:2.
And Mark, the cousin of Barnabas — with an instruction attached: if he comes to you, receive him. The note is doing repair work. Mark's departure had caused so sharp a disagreement that Paul and Barnabas parted over it Acts 15:37–39, and Paul is now writing ahead to make sure the churches welcome him. Years later he will ask for him by name as useful for service 2 Timothy 4:11.
Epaphras gets the longest notice, and it is about prayer: always striving for them, that they may stand complete. The verb is the contending word of Colossians 1:29, and complete is the goal Paul named for his own ministry Colossians 1:28. The founder is still fighting for the church from a distance.
Then Luke, the beloved physician — the only place Scripture gives his profession — and Demas.
Demas is named without comment here and again in the letter Onesimus carries Philemon 1:24. In Paul's last letter the entry reads: Demas left me, having loved this present world 2 Timothy 4:10.
settled What this mark means