Colossians 4 — Devoted to Prayer, Gracious in Speech

Today’s Passage: Colossians 4

We have come to the last page of the letter, and it is worth pausing to feel how far Paul has carried us. He began among the heights, with a Christ who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, the head of the body, the peacemaker who reconciled all things by the blood of His cross. From those towering truths he brought us down into the ordinary rooms of a Christian life, into the putting off of the old self and the putting on of the new, into homes and marriages and daily work. And now, in this closing chapter, the great supremacy of Christ comes to rest exactly where it was always meant to land. It lands in a company of people who pray, who watch their words, who labor for the gospel, and who are known to one another by name. The letter that climbed to the summit ends at the family table, and that is no descent at all. It is the whole point.

As you read, hold this: The letter that lifts Christ to the heights comes to rest in a praying, gracious, working fellowship.

Colossians 4:1 (BSB)

¹ Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

This single verse belongs with the household instructions that closed the previous chapter, and it lands like a hand laid on the shoulder of the powerful. Paul has just told slaves to work heartily as for the Lord. Now he turns to the men who held authority over them and refuses to leave that authority unaccountable. Give your slaves what is right and fair, he says, and the reason he gives is the quiet undoing of every abuse. You also have a Master in heaven. The man at the top of the earthly household is not at the top of anything. Above him stands One to whom he must render account, One who shows no favoritism between the man with power and the man beneath it. The gospel does not merely comfort the lowly. It humbles the mighty by reminding them Whose servants they are.

Colossians 4:2–4 (BSB)

² Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, ³ as you pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. ⁴ Pray that I may declare it clearly, as I should.

Here is the heartbeat of the whole closing chapter, and it is prayer. Notice the three notes Paul strikes together. Devotion, that steady persistence that does not give up when the answer is slow. Watchfulness, the alertness of one who has not dozed off at his post but keeps his eyes open for what God is doing. And thankfulness, that grateful spirit which has run like a golden thread through this entire letter. Prayer, in Paul’s hands, is not a frantic scramble in a crisis. It is a settled and continual leaning of the whole soul upon God.

Then the great apostle, who has just unfolded the cosmic majesty of Christ, asks these ordinary believers in a fading valley town to pray for him. And listen to what he asks. Not for comfort, not for freedom, not for the chain to fall from his wrist, but for a door. Pray that God may open to us a door for the word. He is thinking not of his own ease but of the gospel’s advance, and he is convinced that even a prison can become a pulpit if God opens the door. The chains, he says almost in passing, are for the mystery of Christ, and his one longing is to declare that mystery clearly, as he should. A man in fetters, praying to speak well of Jesus. That is the picture Paul leaves us of himself.

Colossians 4:5–6 (BSB)

⁵ Act wisely toward outsiders, redeeming the time. ⁶ Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Paul turns now from prayer within the church to the watching world outside it, and his counsel is full of wisdom and warmth. Act wisely toward outsiders, he says, toward those who do not yet believe, and redeem the time, buying up every opportunity as a wise merchant buys up goods before the market closes. The Christian’s conduct before a watching world is never a small thing. It either commends the gospel or contradicts it.

And then Paul touches the tongue, which so often undoes us. Let your speech always be gracious. Let it carry the very grace by which you were saved, so that it warms and does not wound, gives and does not merely take. And let it be seasoned with salt (ἅλας) halas, pronounced HAH-lahs. Strong's G217, salt. When Paul says our speech should be seasoned with salt, he reaches for a word every household in the ancient world understood in their bones. Halas is simply salt, and in a time before refrigeration salt was not a luxury but a necessity, doing two things at once that make the image so rich. Salt preserves, holding back rot and decay, keeping meat wholesome through the long weeks. And salt flavors, drawing out the goodness of a dish so that what was flat becomes worth tasting. Paul asks that our words do both. Speech seasoned with halas keeps a conversation from spoiling into gossip or cruelty or empty noise, and at the same time it gives that conversation savor, a certain wholesome tang that makes the listener glad to have heard it. It is the opposite of the insipid, and equally the opposite of the corrupt. And there is a further echo worth hearing, for the Lord Jesus had already told His followers, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). What the disciple is, his words are to be. A gracious tongue, salted and ready, is one of the humblest and most powerful witnesses a believer carries into a watching world. , which is to say let it have savor and bite and preserving strength, not the bland flatness of empty talk nor the sourness of a harsh word. The aim of it all is beautifully practical. So that you may know how to answer everyone. Not a single formula recited at every door, but a seasoned readiness that meets each person where they stand and gives the fitting word to that soul at that moment. This is the speech of a Christian who has thought long about others and loved them before ever opening his mouth.

Colossians 4:7–9 (BSB)

⁷ Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a beloved brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. ⁸ I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about us, and that he may encourage your hearts. ⁹ With him I am sending Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here.

Now the letter turns to the two men who would carry it, and Paul cannot name them without warmth. Tychicus is a beloved brother, a faithful minister, a fellow servant, and he is being sent for a tender reason, that the church may know how Paul fares and that their hearts may be encouraged. A letter can teach, but a friend arriving in person, able to answer the anxious questions and speak the comfort a page cannot, is a gift of another kind. Paul knows the church has been worried for their imprisoned teacher, and he sends a living voice to steady them.

And walking beside Tychicus comes a name that should make us marvel. Onesimus, called here our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. This is the runaway slave of the letter to Philemon, a man who had fled his master in this very town, met Christ through Paul in prison, and is now sent home no longer as a fugitive but as a brother. The word beloved falls on him as freely as it falls on Tychicus. That is what the supremacy of Christ does when it reaches all the way down into a broken life. It does not merely pardon. It re-names, and it seats the former runaway at the family table as kin.

Colossians 4:10–14 (BSB)

¹⁰ My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you greetings, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas. You have already received instructions about him: If he comes to you, welcome him. ¹¹ Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. ¹² Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in the full will of God. ¹³ For I testify about him that he goes to great pains for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. ¹⁴ Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas send you greetings.

Do not hurry past this little company of names, for it is one of the loveliest windows in the whole New Testament into what the gospel actually builds. Christ is supreme over all creation, and this is what His supremacy gathers around a chained apostle in Rome. A handful of ordinary, faithful people. There is Aristarchus, sharing the imprisonment. There is Mark, and Paul takes care to smooth his welcome, for this is the young man who had once abandoned a mission and become the reason Paul and Barnabas parted in anger. Now he is restored, commended, useful again, a quiet reminder that the gospel writes second chapters for those who stumbled in the first. There is Jesus called Justus, and Paul notes with feeling that these three are the only Jews among his fellow workers just now, and that they have been a comfort to him. Even an apostle needed the comfort of friends who stood by him.

Then comes Epaphras, and Paul lingers over him, for Epaphras is the Colossians’ own son, the man who first carried the gospel into their valley. Hear what Paul says of him. He is always wrestling (ἀγωνίζομαι) agōnizomai, pronounced ah-go-NID-zo-my. Strong's G75, to contend, strive, struggle, exert oneself to the utmost. Paul says that Epaphras is always wrestling in prayer for the Colossians, and the word he uses is one that carried the sweat of the arena in it. Agōnizomai is where our English word agonize is born, and it was the ordinary Greek term for the striving of an athlete straining for the prize, or a soldier laboring in the thick of the fight. It means to contend, to struggle, to exert oneself to the very limit of one’s strength. Paul lays that strenuous word over the quiet work of intercession, and in doing so he tells us something we are slow to believe. Real prayer is labor. It is not a drowsy afterthought murmured on the edge of sleep but a wrestling, a pouring out of effort on behalf of others as costly as anything an athlete spends in a race. Epaphras is not merely thinking kind thoughts about his distant church. He is straining for them before the throne of God, praying that they may stand mature and fully assured. And notice the tie back to prayer where the chapter began. The devotion Paul asked of the whole church in verse two, he now shows us embodied in one man on his knees. This is what it looks like to devote yourself to prayer. It looks like Epaphras, wrestling. in prayer for you. He goes to great pains for you and for the neighboring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis. Here is a pastor’s heart laid bare, a man far from home who cannot stop laboring for the church he loves, and the labor he pours out is the labor of prayer. And there is Luke, the beloved physician, whose careful pen would one day give us a Gospel and the book of Acts. Last of all, without a word of blame, comes Demas, whose name Paul sets down plainly among the faithful, though in a later and lonelier letter Paul would write that Demas had deserted him, having loved this present world (2 Timothy 4:10). It is a sober thing to see his name here among the workers, and it reminds us that standing today is no guarantee of standing tomorrow, and that every one of us needs the very prayer Epaphras was pouring out.

Colossians 4:15–17 (BSB)

¹⁵ Greet the brothers in Laodicea, as well as Nympha and the church that meets at her house. ¹⁶ After this letter has been read among you, make sure that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. ¹⁷ Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.”

The greetings widen now to take in the neighboring town, for the church has never been a single congregation only but a fellowship of congregations who belong to one another across the miles. Paul sends his love to the brothers in Laodicea, and to Nympha, in whose house a church gathered, for in these early years believers met not in grand buildings but in the homes of ordinary hosts who opened their doors. Then Paul gives a simple instruction that quietly tells us how Scripture began to spread. When this letter has been read among you, pass it on and read it in Laodicea, and read theirs in turn. The precious words were traded from hand to hand and read aloud from town to town, and this is part of how the church came to treasure and gather the letters we now hold as our own.

And last there is a word for one man in particular, Archippus, and it is a word every servant of God should take to heart. See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord. It is a gentle charge with iron in it. God had given Archippus a work to do, and Paul urges him not merely to begin it but to finish it. Many can start well. The Lord looks for those who will see the task through to the end, and this small sentence, sent to a single man in a small town, still calls to anyone entrusted with any work for Christ. Finish what He gave you to do.

Colossians 4:18 (BSB)

¹⁸ This greeting is in my own hand—Paul. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

Paul takes the pen from his scribe now and writes the last words himself, and you can almost see the cramped hand of a prisoner forming the letters. This greeting is in my own hand, he says, signing the letter as his own. Then come three short strokes, and they gather up the whole letter into a single closing breath. Remember my chains. He does not ask for pity, but he asks not to be forgotten, that the church might pray for him and take courage from a man who suffered for the very gospel he had just preached to them. And then the final word, the word this whole soaring letter has been about from its first line to its last. Grace be with you. After all the heights of the supremacy of Christ, after the household and the workers and the wrestling in prayer, Paul lays down his pen on that one word. Grace. It is where the gospel begins, and it is where, chains and all, the gospel rests.