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of the truest gentleman and highest breeding; a man who never forgot to pray for his friends by name, imploring for them the noblest graces of the Christian life; a man who believed in the efficacy of the prayers of his friends and rejoiced in the hope of again seeing them face to face; and, withal, a man who knew that no true friend will ever avail himself of all of his rights, and, on the other hand, that every true friend will rejoice to grant the other's wishes, that friendship imposes obligations a true friend will gladly meet without being pressed.

And how easy it is also to obtain a graphic conception of Onesimus. Unconverted, longing for freedom, he deserts and defrauds his master and flees from Colossæ to Rome and there joins Paul. In all truthfulness, however, he reports the noble Christian character of the man he has deserted. He attaches himself to the aged prisoner, St. Paul, and makes himself well nigh indispensable as a personal attendant. He is converted and Paul clasps him to his heart as a son begotten in his old age. He confesses he is runaway slave who has wronged his master. Paul's heart is broken at the thought of separation, but urges it as a Christian duty for him to return to his master. He is a free man in Christ Jesus, selfsacrifice has become his new law, so he makes the supreme oblation and goes back to his life of bondage.

The picture of the character, position, and personality of Philemon is equally striking and complete;

but perhaps that has been already sufficiently sketched so that we need not redraw it.

When I contemplate all these things, and consider also how much I have written about this friendship of Paul and Philemon, and then turn to the letter itself and see how brief it is-only twenty-five verses, less than a single page in an ordinary-sized Bible-I am simply astounded that even the Apostle Paul could pack so much in so small space. And though I have written so much about what he wrote so little, yet not all its depths have been plumbed, not all its hights scaled, nor its beauty limned, nor its riches garnered. Nor can these things ever be done for this letter is more than a letter, it is a section of the very heart of him whose heart blended two master passions,-love for Jesus Christ, and love for his friends.

CHAPTER XV

Tychicus-Minister of Christ and Messenger of St. Paul

Our knowledge of the career of Tychicus is based upon the following passages:-Acts 20:4, Eph. 6:21-22, Col. 4:7-9, 2nd Tim. 4:12, and Titus 3:12.

T

HIS friend of St. Paul's is named in five books of the New Testament: Acts, Ephesians, Colossians, 2nd Timothy, and Titus. In every instance he is either journeying with Paul or on a journey or about to commence one as his messenger.

I

Who Tychicus Was

He was a native of Asia Minor and probably a citizen of Ephesus. We infer the latter fact as he is first mentioned along with Trophimus as an inhabitant of Asia; and later we are told that Trophimus was an Ephesian, hence it is fair to conclude that Tychicus was also, and that the two men were converted by the preaching of Paul during his

three years' pastorate in their home city. In Paul's letters to the Ephesians and Colossians he speaks of Tychicus as a "faithful minister in the Lord," so it is evident that soon after his conversion he began to devote all his time to evangelistic work. When we are first introduced to him we find him as one of the seven friends of Paul who are accompanying him back to Asia after his second mission to Europe, as he was turning his face once more, and for the last time, toward Jerusalem.

This presupposes that Tychicus had left Ephesus with Paul, or joined him a little later, and labored with him in his second tour of Macedonia and Greece. Quite a large party of friends accompanied Paul all the way on that long, foreboding, final trip to Jerusalem. Trophimus was of their number, but whether Tychicus went all the way or not we are unable to say.

II

Tychicus as a Trusted Messenger

Tychicus appears three times in the letters of Paul as his trusted messenger; and this is his one eminent service to Christ and Christianity of which we have any record. His personal relation to Paul was one of love and unswerving devotion and loyalty; his outward relation, that of traveling over seas and continents ever carrying the Apostle's dispatches to distant parts of the kingdom of Christ over which the Apostle was, so to speak, a kind of vice-gerent.

1

The First Mission of Tychicus

Tychicus did not accompany Paul to Rome-only Luke and Aristarchus having done so far as we know-but he did join him there sometime after his arrival. The fidelity of those of Paul's friends who underwent the fatigue and expense of the long journey from the East to Rome, and the courage which inspired them to do this and attach themselves inseparably to the cause and person of an Imperial prisoner, has never been sufficiently recognized. And Tychicus was among the number of that small, heroic, immortal band.

The circumstances leading to his first mission for Paul were as follows: Epaphras, the pastor of the Colossian church, came to Rome to consult the Apostle about the disturbing doctrines which were troubling his flock. A runaway slave from Colossae, Onesimus, had also recently joined the Apostle and had been converted by him. Paul determined at once to write a letter to the Colossian church, and also to return Onesimus to his master. Tychicus appears to have been the Apostle's amanuensis in this instance. As this letter had to be sent by some trusted messenger, it seemed to Paul a good opportunity to dispatch by the same hand a kind of circular letter to the churches in the province of Asia, and particularly to the city of Ephesus where he had preached so long while effecting the conquest of "all Asia" through the agency of his lieutenants,

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