“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness.” Colossians 1:24-25
“Paul again identifies himself as a “servant” in 1:25). He was a steward commissioned to carry out an assignment for his Master. The stewards of estates in the ancient world were usually slaves. Paul therefore does not view his commission as an appointment to a high office but as the exalted privilege and duty of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. He does recognize it as a divine gift that brings divine power to fulfill it.”
“The toil is Paul’s but the energy is Christ’s. He is most himself when least reliant on his own resources.”
David Garland, Colossians, Philemon NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) 123, cf. George Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison (New Clarendon Bible, 1977) 187.