Brother and Fellow-Worker

“Epaphroditus, my brother” (Phil. ii. 25).

“My brother.” It is a word which takes us down into the heart, aye, a word expressive of kinship, of closest intimacy — of blood relationship. It literally signifies “born of the same parent,” but we have taken the word and lifted it away from all material connections, and we now use it to express affinities and relationships of a higher kind. Two men may be mentally born of the same intellectual parentage. Two poets may trace their sonship to the same head. They were born at the same fountain, and the marks of the common birth are unmistakable in both. But the word “brother” has a finer significance still. We now lift it quite above all suggestion of mere mental currency — of intellectual blood — to express the subtler currents

that move in the remotest places of the soul,

too

When Paul uses the term “brother” he is away in the sphere of purposes and motives, where hopes and fears are born, where prayers begin to ascend, and where the marvellous powers of grace are experienced and enjoyed. He is away in the new life that is born of Christ. “He that drinketh My blood hath eternal life he is away in that blood-relationship. Paul and Epaphroditus had both drunk of that parentage, and that marvellous current flowed in their spiritual veins. Each was born of God, and they were brothers in Christ.

And what times they had together! The spirit of each vibrated and responded to each other. In their sorrows deep called unto deep, and they discovered how brave and sweet was their comradeship in the Lord. They thrilled to each other’s joy, and handed round the cup of each other’s delight. They had interchanged revelations, and had passed whole nights in repeating into each other’s ears the story of the Lord’s dealing with them. “Epaphroditus, my brother.” When Paul had a wound, Epaphroditus knew just where to put the balm. If Paul were a little depressed because his services were imprisoned, and his spirit was a little feverish and heavy, Epaphroditus knew just what window to open, and what blind to pull up in order to let in the air and light of God. And if Epaphroditus was sick or in trouble, Paul was an expert hand in bringing to his spirit exuberance and grace. Each of them just flowed with the gracious sympathy of the Lord, and because they were one in Christ, their lives interpenetrated each other with the ever-embracing influences of redeeming grace.

“My fellow-worker Epaphroditus was a man who was not afraid of hack-work. If there was a bit of service, a bit of grey drudgery, which would be accompanied by no flying banners and no brass bands, Epaphroditus was the one to do it. He never asked the colour of the service; if anything, he preferred the grey. It is easy to be a show horse, and to prance round the ring to the accompaniment of music and popular applause. But to be a common hack, working the gin, or, worse still, just carrying fodder for the show-horse, is not an alluring service. But how much we are indebted to the willing drudge. Now Epaphroditus was perfectly willing to do the hack-work. He was “your messenger.” He was the errand boy of the Church. He was your “minister.” He was the servant of the party. I have been thinking that if the little company at Philippi kept a minute-book you would find many such entries as these: “It was moved by Clement, and seconded by Euodias, that our brother Epaphroditus be requested to make arrangements for the visitation of all the Churches in Macedonia.” This resolution, like all such resolutions, would be carried unanimously, and Epaphroditus quietly carried it out. Or here is another: “It was moved

and seconded that our fellow-worker, Epaphroditus, be requested to collect subscriptions for our distressed brethren in Jerusalem.” And again he would quietly carry it out.

Or here is another: “That our fellow-worker, Epaphroditus, be requested to journey to Rome, to convey our good will to our brother Paul, and to take him some token of our regard.” I say you would often find entries of this sort, as indeed you find them in the minute-book of every Church in our land. There are one or two or three to whom every Church turns and offers its hack-work and by whose service the more showy life of the Church is made possible. They rarely, if ever, appear on the platform. They carry no banners, there is nothing distinguished about their goings; they just take up a little bit of plain commonplace work and it is thoroughly done. And it has a beauty of its own because it is no hack-work to them at all. They just rejoice in it, and along what to others would be a monotonous road, they find the birds and the flowers of the Kingdom, and the sweet and blessed company of the Lord.

It is the way the Master went.

Shall not the servant tread it still?

But Epaphroditus was more than a worker — he was a fellow-worker. There is much significance in that prefatory word “fellow.” Epaphroditus could work with other people.

It is a beautiful grace. We sometimes say of a horse, “It is no good in a pair, it must be by itself.” We sometimes say there are men who are too angular to work with other men, and they must go alone. Epaphroditus was a grand fellow to work with, and Paul rejoiced in his companionship. He had most genial tendrils of sympathy, and he put them out and tenderly laid hold of others and laboured with them in most genial accord. Surely this is typical of the healthy member of the Church of Christ. It is a good thing to be a worker; it is a better thing to be a fellow-worker; it is best of all to be a fellow-worker in the Lord.

“And fellow-soldier.” What a transformation! Here is the hack become a war-horse. Aye, and that is natural. It is the men who are willing for hack-work who are never found wanting when there is battle in the air. It is just those elements in character that go to fashion a splendid drudge which contribute also to fashion a glorious warrior. It was because Cromwell’s peasants were such brave and splendid men in the obscure road of drudgery, that they responded to the first blast of the bugle and became invincible in arms. Epaphroditus was not far to seek when there was some abuse to fight against in the city of Philippi. He was a knight of the Lord’s table, and he went out redressing human wrongs.

There is one other trait in the portrait of Epaphroditus which is given by his friend the Apostle Paul. Let us mark this exquisite self-forgetfulness. “He longed after you all, and was sore troubled because ye had heard that he was sick.” He had no trouble concerning his own sickness, he was only troubled because other people were troubled about him. Their anxiety concerned him more than his own pain. Is not that a beautiful example of “a heart at leisure from itself”? Epaphroditus got right out of his own trouble to inspect and feel the needs of others; and, because others were careworn about him, he longed after them all that he might set their fears at rest. He never seemed to think about himself, “he hazarded his life” in service. He disregarded it, thought nothing of it, just thought of his mission and went about it in single and prayerful regard. Service of that kind is attended by tremendous power, for life that is sacrificed reappears in the very might of the Almighty God.