That You May Know How I Am

When I call Tychicus a "beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord" (Ephesians 6:21), the word for minister is diakonos — one who serves, who waits at table, who carries what is given him. It is no small thing. And when I say he will "make known to you my affairs," and that I send him "that he may comfort your hearts" (Ephesians 6:22), the word for comfort means to come alongside, to strengthen by presence. I did not send him only with news; I sent him to steady them. Then "peace" and "love with faith" and "grace" — these are not decorations at the end of a letter. They are the whole gospel folded small and pressed into their hands.

I send Tychicus on the very same errand to Colossae, in nearly the same breath (Colossians 4:7-8). I speak of the God of all comfort, who comforts us so that we may comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). And that closing blessing — grace to all who love the Lord "in sincerity" (Ephesians 6:24) — is the note I end nearly every letter upon, for grace is where I begin and where I must leave you (Philippians 4:23).

I wrote this in chains, and the Ephesians knew it. A letter tells much, but a letter cannot embrace a frightened church or answer its questions face to face. So I sent a living man, Tychicus, who could tell them how I fared and, more than that, could look them in the eye and hold them up — lest my imprisonment make them lose heart, imagining the gospel defeated because its servant was bound. It is not. I was chained; the word was free.

A reader may ask: why should I linger over such a passage? It is only travel arrangements and a farewell — the business at the bottom of the letter. But look again. Here is a man in prison whose chief concern is not himself but whether their hearts are comforted. Here is love spending itself outward when it has every excuse to curl inward. The greatness of a faith is often tested not in its doctrines but in its endings — in what a man reaches for when the great things have been said. I reached for their peace. Go back and read what I could not stop asking for them, even at the last: peace, love, faith, grace — and ask what your own heart reaches for when the letter is nearly done.