Colossians 1:7-8

Colossians 1:7-8    You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit (NIV).

   After hearing countless sermons, taking theology classes, and reading many Christian books, I have never heard anyone talk about Epaphras.  Yet he was a faithful minister of Christ, and he is also mentioned in Colossians 4:12 and Philemon 23.  I raise the question: Why be a servant for Christ?  The answer is because of love.
   Different people have different motivations for serving.  Sometimes people serve other people only for money.  Yet if you truly love someone, serving is a way of expressing your love.  I have always been single, yet I have long had the dream of having a wife.  Being single for so many years, sometimes I think about things I want to do if I get married.  For example, I have considered how I would like to surprise a wife on some random day by serving her breakfast in bed.  Strawberries, blueberries, and some unique cereal would be a good menu, assuring I would not burn any of the food.  As a single guy who has had breakfast alone for forty something years, I always thought that would be romantic.  Yet the point is I would be serving my wife; expressing my love.
   In the 2014-2015 school year, I had the privilege of doing college ministry work with a small yet loving group of Christians at Ithaca College, a college where the Christian fellowship is small.  There is a student there, Kristin, who loves Jesus and who loves people.  I am honored to call her my sister-in-Christ and friend.  She has a gift for serving people which is one way she expresses love.  She was willing to serve on the Leadership Team, she would always promptly respond to my emails, she drove students without a car to her church on Sundays, she drove me home from our student worship frequently, and she did many other things.  Yet first and foremost, I saw her greatest service in her gift of listening.  When I would talk on and on with her, she would listen.  If someone in the group had a problem, she would listen.  I remember once when a student announced to the group his parents were divorcing, Kristin was flooded with sympathy.  She cared about that person.  She cares about people because she loves people.  She is one of the great servants for Christ I have met, and in an unlikely place.
   Paul calls Epaphras a faithful minister of Christ.  That student, Kristin, is a faithful minister of Christ.  She has never taken a theology class that I know of, yet she is a faithful minister of Christ who wants to learn more and more from His word.  She is a witness for Jesus.  And that group I served with is filled with loving people, just as there were a bunch of loving people at the church in Colossae.  The love of Jesus was there in Colossae almost two thousand years ago, and it is in our world today, in some unlikely places.
Hunter Irvine