This week's reading covers the epistles of Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, Timothy, and Titus. The epistle to the Philippians was written by the apostle Paul while in prison in Rome. Philippi was an important town of Macedonia, on the great highway from east to west, named by Philip II of Macedonia after himself. In Paul's time it was a Roman colony. And here the apostle Paul suffered; but he found a devoted church, who sent him means again and again. It seems more like a letter from the heart than any of the other epistles of Paul.
Ephesians is one of the deepest of all the epistles of the apostle, opening to us the great things of God. From the lack of the personal greetings to the church itself, where the apostle stayed so long, it seems to have been a general epistle to various churches. It sets forth Christ as the great Head of the church.
Colossians, some think, was written before Ephesians; some place it after. It deals with the same general subject, altho not so fully, as does the Ephesian epistle. It was written to the Christians in the city of Colosse, situated in Southwest Phrygia, on the great trade route to the sea. It seems to have been founded by the apostle Paul's fellow worker, Epaphras perhaps. It seems to have been known to the apostle only by report. It points out the wickedness of the philosophy which some sought to ingraft upon the church.
Philemon seems to have been a friend of the apostle Paul, and the occasion of this epistle was that a slave of Philemon's had run away and had been converted, and Paul returns him again to his master, not as a slave alone then, but as a brother. Seemingly he gives him a new name, or at least brings into prominence the name which he bore, Onesimus, "profitable."
The epistles of Timothy were written to an assistant and companion of Paul's, who had been trained by a faithful mother and grandmother. Both epistles contain most important instruction to the minister and servant of God, the first written about the year 64 or 65, and the second about the year 67, the last of the apostle's writings.
Titus also was a fellow laborer of the apostle Paul, and accompanied that great soldier of the cross in many of his journeys. He was a Gentile Christian, and he was one upon whom the apostle placed various responsibilities in the organizing of churches and setting things in order; and the epistle pertains to such instruction, containing some very precious passages indeed.
