Ver. 24. and its result. +But+ (though I thus allude to external uncertainties) +I feel sure, in the Lord+, in the light of union and communion with Him, +that I too in person shall speedily arrive+, in the track of this my messenger and forerunner.
Ver. 25. +But I count[5] it obligatory+ (anagkaion), and not merely a matter for hopes and personal satisfaction, +to send to you+, as I now do, in charge of this Letter, another person, +Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier+, a man who has toiled and contended at my very side for the Lord and against the Enemy, +while he is+ also +your missionary and ministrant[6] for my need+. Yes, I feel that I ought
Ver. 26. to send him, and to send him now; +since he has been suffering from home-sickness for[7] all of you+, (all, without exception; his affection knows no party or partiality,) +and from the distraction+ (adêmonôn) of over-wrought feeling, because you have heard that he
Ver. 27. fell ill[8] (êsthenêse). +And+ so it was; +for he did fall ill, almost fatally+ (paraplêsion thanatô). +But our+ (ho) +God pitied him+, sparing him the grief of broken hopes and purposes in the Lord's work on earth, and the grief of being a cause of tears to you; +and not only him but also me, that I might not have[9] sorrow upon sorrow+. For had he died, I should have had a sore bereavement, and the sad consciousness that you, in a loving effort for my benefit, had lost a beloved friend; and all this added to, heaped upon (epi c. acc.), the antecedent pain of my captivity and the trials which it involves.
Ver. 28. +With the more earnestness therefore I have sent him,[10] that seeing him you may be glad again, and that I may feel less sorrow+, finding my imprisonment, and also my loss of this dear friend's company, softened to my heart by the thought of your joy in
Ver. 29. welcoming him back. +Receive him therefore in the Lord+, in all the union and sympathy due to your common share in Him, +with all gladness, and+
Ver. 30. +hold in high value such men as he is; because on account of Christ's work he was at death's very door,[11] playing+ as it were the +gambler with his life,[12] that he might+ (lit., "may") +supply your lack+, do the service which you could not do, and so complete your loving purposes, in regard +of the ministration+ you designed +for me+.
Our present section illustrates well the inexhaustible variety of Scripture. That pregnant Christian thinker, the late Dr John Ker, has some good sentences on this subject: "What varieties are in the Bible, side by side! The Book of Ruth, with its pastoral quiet after the wars of the Judges, like an innocent child which has crept between the ranks of hostile armies; the intense devotion of the Psalms after the speculative discussions of Job, and before the practical wisdom of Proverbs; the gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness of the Song of Solomon, as sharply divided as the eastern morning which leaps from the night, or, as an old Greek might have said, silver-footed Thetis rising from the bed of old Tithonus; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle pinion, with Jeremiah's dovelike plaint; the cloudlike obscurities of Ezekiel, to be solved, as one might expect, by piercing light from the sky; and the perplexities of Daniel, to be opened by the movements of the nations."[13]
What a variety lies before us here!
"Into the heaven of heavens we have presumed,
And drawn empyreal air";