Hopefully I caught your attention with the word “gambler” in the title. It has a purpose derived from the Greek text and early church history. While this post is long, please read it to gain keen insight from my favorite Scottish professor, William Barclay. I will offer no comments at the end other than this prayer and comment at the outset.
Father in Heaven, by your Holy Spirit raise up people like Epaphroditus in our day, who are willing to risk everything to serve others in the name of Christ. Amen.
If you see such courage or bravery in people today in our time, do precisely what Paul did. Give thanks and celebrate their sacrifice with everything you’ve got!
But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me. Philippians 2:25-30
“There is a dramatic story behind this. When the Philippians heard that Paul was in prison, their warm hearts were moved to action. They sent a gift to him by the hand of Epaphroditus. What they could not personally do, because distance prevented them, they delegated to Epaphroditus to do for them. Not only did they intend him to be the bearer of their gifts they also intended him to stay in Rome and be Paul’s personal servant and attendant. Clearly Epaphroditus was a brave man, for any one who proposed to offer himself as the personal attendant of a man awaiting trial on a capital charge was laying himself open to considerable risk of becoming involved in the same charge. In truth, Epaphroditus risked his life to serve Paul.
In Rome Epaphroditus fell ill, perhaps with the notorious Roman fever which sometimes swept the city like a scourge, and was near to death. He knew that news of his illness had filtered back to Philippi, and he was worried because he knew that his friends there would be worried about him. God in his mercy spared the life of Epaphroditus and so spared Paul yet more sorrow. But Paul knew that it was time that Epaphroditus went back home, and in all probability he was the bearer of the letter.
But there was a problem. The Philippian Church had sent Epaphroditus to stay with Paul, and if he came back home, there would not be lacking those who said he was a quitter. Here Paul gives him a tremendous testimonial, which will silence any possible criticism in return.
In this testimonial every word is carefully chosen. Epaphroditus was his brother, his fellow-worker, and his fellow-soldier. As Lightfoot puts it, Epaphroditus was one with Paul in sympathy, one with him in work, one with him in danger. He in truth had stood in the firing-line. Then Paul goes on to call in your messenger and the servant of my need. It is impossible to supply the flavour of these words in translation.
The word Paul uses for messenger is apostolos. Apostolos literally means anyone who is sent out on an errand, but Christian usage ennobled it and by using it Paul by implication ranks Epaphroditus with himself and all the apostles of Christ.
The word he uses for servant is leitourgos. In secular Greek this was a magnificent word. In the ancient days in the Greek cities there were men who, because they loved their city so much, at their own expense undertook certain great civic duties. It might to defray the expenses of an embassy, or cost of putting on one of the dramas of the great poets, or of training the athletes who would represent the city in the games, or of fitting the athletes who would represent the city in the games, or of fitting out a warship and paying a crew to serve in the navy of the state. These men were the supreme benefactors of the state and were known as leitourgoi.
Paul takes the great Christian word apostolos and the great Greek word leitourgos, and applies them to Epaphroditus. “Give a man like that a welcome home,” he says. “Hold him in honor for he hazarded his life for Christ.”
Paul is making it easy for Epaphroditus to go home. There is something wonderful here. It is touching to think of Paul, himself in the very shadow of death, in prison and awaiting judgment, showing such Christian consideration for Epaphroditus. He was facing death, and yet it mattered to him that Epaphroditus should not meet with embarrassment when he went home. Paul was a true Christian in his attitude to others for he was never so immersed in his own troubles that the had no time to think of the troubles of his friends.
There is a word in this passage which later had a famous usage. The Authorized Version speaks of Epaphroditus not regarding his life; the Revised Standard Version uses risking his life; we have translated it hazarding his life. The word is the verb paraboleuesthai; it is a gambler’s word and means to stake everything on a turn of the dice. Paul is saying that for the sake of Jesus Christ Epaphroditus gambled his life.
In the days of the Early Church there was an association of men and women called the parabolani, the gamblers. It was their aim to visit the prisoners and the sick, especially those who were ill with dangerous and infectious diseases. In A.D. 252 plague broke out in Carthage; the heathen threw out the bodies of their dead and fled in terror. Cyprian, the Christian bishop, gathered his congregation together and set them to burying the dead and nursing the sick in that plague-stricken city; and by so doing they saved the city, at the risk of their lives, from destruction and desolation.
There sound be in the Christian an almost reckless courage which makes him [or her] ready to gamble with his [or her] life to serve Christ and men.”
William Barclay in The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, Revised Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975) 48-50.
Do it again in our day, God, raise up gamblers like Epaphroditus!