RECENTLY, I HAD the opportunity to guest lecture in a colleague’s ministry class, which I do every year. I tried to impress upon them the importance of learning relationship skills. Lord willing, I told them, they’ll never be asked to leave a congregation they’re serving. But if they are, it won’t be because they didn’t preach well, or even because of their theology. Those can be the surface issues — but underneath the surface, the more likely reason is that they unwittingly stepped on a relational landmine. They’ve offended someone in power and didn’t handle it well. Because of this, my parting shot to them was, Don’t do ministry alone. They will need people they can trust, people with whom they can be honest and who will be honest with them. They will need people to help them faithfully process the inevitable frustrations.

It was a small class, and the students had begun to develop some camaraderie with each other, despite only meeting online from across the many miles between them. That was encouraging to see. Thus, I told them: If there’s someone else on this call that you already feel you can trust, think about holding onto and developing that relationship after the class is over. It’s riskier to try to develop such support relationships in a congregation, particularly when you’re new there and haven’t yet learned where the landmines are. Take advantage of what you already have here, and don’t lose it.

I hope some of them will listen, because no one should do ministry alone.

. . .

AS WE’VE SEEN, Paul himself was surrounded by people he considered to be his partners in the work of the gospel. In his letter to the Colossians, he brings greetings from these co-workers. Three of them were Jews: Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus. The rest, presumably, were Gentiles:

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. (Col 4:12-14, NIV)

Epaphras, of course, needs no introduction. He is himself a Colossian, and the one who brought the gospel to the whole region, planting churches not only in Colossae, but in nearby Laodicea and Hierapolis. The Colossians, no doubt, knew that he was with Paul and would naturally have wanted to hear any news about him. Paul therefore conveys greetings from Epaphras, and assures them that they’re always on his mind. He prays for them constantly, knowing that they are already in Christ and wanting them to become more and more mature in the faith. He’s working hard for you and the other churches near you, Paul tells them. Working hard doing what? He doesn’t say. But Paul would have considered even diligent prayer as gospel work.

Next comes Luke. Just as Colossians is the only place where we learn that Mark was Barnabas’ cousin, so too is it the only place where we read that Luke, Paul’s frequent companion and the author of the third gospel and the book of Acts, was a doctor. Literally translated, Paul describes him as “the beloved physician.” He may even have served as Paul’s personal physician, though this wouldn’t have been his only role.

It’s possible to infer his medical background from his New Testament writings, particularly the book of Acts. For example, when Paul and his companions were shipwrecked on the island of Malta on their way to Rome, they were welcomed by the island’s chief official, a man named Publius, whose father was sick in bed. Luke describes the father as “suffering from fever and dysentery,” possibly having a condition that would later become known as “Malta fever,” caused by a microbe found in goat’s milk. But Luke only observes and records the situation. It’s Paul who prays over the man, lays hands on him, and heals him.

As is still the case today, doctors of Luke’s day tried to take a naturalistic view of illness, as opposed to older and more traditional views of illness as a punishment from the gods. Even the disciples showed that they thought this way when they asked Jesus about a man they encountered who had been born blind; they automatically assumed that his blindness was the result of someone’s sin (John 9:1-2). Doctors, instead, looked for natural causes and natural solutions. But the story from Acts is an interesting mix of the clinical and the miraculous; Luke had a foot in each world as he labored alongside Paul and wrote down what he saw.

Little is known of Demas. At the end of the letter to Philemon, Paul mentions him alongside Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, and Luke, and he is labeled Paul’s “fellow worker” as are the rest (vs. 24). Unfortunately, near the end of 2 Timothy, Paul makes this darkly ambiguous comment: “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim 4:9-10). Paul uses the same verb a few verses later to say how Demas wasn’t the only one to desert him. Only Luke was still with Paul, and Paul asks Timothy to come and to bring Mark with him (vs. 11).

Why did Demas leave Paul in the lurch? It’s possible that Thessalonica was Demas’ hometown, but even so, it’s impossible to know exactly what drew him there. Whatever the reason, Paul writes as if Demas’ priorities have become more worldly, a sad turn for someone Paul once considered a partner in ministry.

. . .

TO MY MIND, these backstories enrich our reading of these verses from Colossians, verses we might otherwise breeze past in our reading. Paul writes from a specific context, surrounded by people with whom he has a specific history. And realistically, the people themselves have something of a checkered history. Onesimus was a runaway slave under a potential death sentence who still needed to be fully reconciled with Philemon, a prominent citizen of Colossae. Mark may have been known for his desertion of Paul, such that Paul needed to reassure the Colossians of his trustworthiness.

And whatever the situation was with Demas, his story is a sobering reminder that even those whom we count as valued partners in ministry can change over time. We need people to partner with us in the work, but we can never take continued faithfulness for granted. Let’s not only look for the support we need, therefore, but strive to give the same faithful support to others.