Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
Tychicus and Onesimus
Colossians 4:7-9
7 All my affairs will be made known to you by Tychicus, the beloved brother, faithful servant, and fellow bondservant in the Lord. · WEB
The letter names its own carriers, and one of them is a runaway slave going home with a second letter in his bag.
Tychicus will make Paul's affairs known — the beloved brother, faithful servant, fellow bondservant. Three titles for a man whose job here is carrying mail, and who carried the letter to the Ephesians on the same journey Ephesians 6:21.
Verse 8 states why: that he may know their circumstances and comfort their hearts. The messenger is also an inspector and an encourager, since a letter cannot ask questions.
Then verse 9, and it is the sentence that ties this letter to another. Together with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.
Onesimus is the runaway slave whose case the letter to Philemon exists to settle, and Philemon lived in this town — which is what one of you means. He is going home to face his master, carrying a private letter asking that he be received as a brother Philemon 1:16, while this public one names him in advance as faithful and beloved, with no qualifier about his past. The congregation would hear that read aloud before he walked in, and Paul arranged it so.
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