Colossians 1:6-8 - He is a faithful minister of Christ

1:6

 This word of truth had come to the Colossians. But not just to them, the gospel was spreading throughout the world, and was bearing fruit throughout the world. At the time that meant effectively the Roman Empire, now we see that it has reached almost the whole world. The gospel is a world conquering message. Today people talk about being on the right or the wrong side of history, the only way to be on the right side of history is to follow Christ. For every other kingdom will fall. The Colossians experienced for themselves the fruitfulness of the gospel, but this was nothing unusual. Wherever the gospel goes it bears fruit. Where NIV has “truly understood God’s grace”, ESV and others have “understood the grace of God in truth”. Truth here has the sense of absolute reliability, rather than as a logical deduction. We can, indeed must, base our lives on the grace of God.

1:7,8

The gospel message is from God, it is His idea and not man made. That being said, the messengers are also important. The apostles were clearly significant, but so were other messengers. Epaphras is singled out here because he took the gospel to Colossae, and he worked with Paul. Philemon 23 tells us that he was also imprisoned with Paul at one point. Being a faithful messenger of the gospel has never been easy. He is mentioned again in this letter, in Col 4:12,13. Epaphras had also given a good report to Paul about the Colossians, namely their “love in the Spirit”. This love was not sentimental, nor humanistic, but a Spirit inspired love.