7 Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. 8 I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. 9 He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here. (Colossians 4:7-9)
Tychicus and Onesimus delivered this letter from Paul in Rome to the church in Colossae. I wonder if they knew what they were carrying. Most often this is the case: when we think that what we are doing isn't significant, only to discover much later that it was monumental.
When I was sixteen years old, John Lennon died. I just so happened to work on the same isle as Joey, who had recently experienced a radical life change as a result of becoming a believer in Christ. The job that I had in M & M grocery store was to fill the shelf with baby food. It was a laborious and long job by God's design. Joey, on the other hand, worked the opposite side of the isle stocking health and beauty aid. The context lent itself to a long conversation which is what happened.
I am positive that Joey had no idea how deep that experience would go into my heart. I have thanked the Lord many times over the last thirty-seven years for that day, for it was that day that my journey toward becoming a follower of Jesus Christ began. We never know the significance of an insignificant moment. Heaven will render much with regard to how the seeming insignificant deserves more investment of our lives.
Tychicus was from Thessalonica. He was one of a group of young men who were trained in the faith by the Apostle Paul. This organic training involved taking people along on journeys and teaching them. It was an intense, personalized training with the apostle Paul himself.
As we learn in the book written to Philemon, Onesimus was a runaway slave from Colossae. Somehow he found his way to Rome and met the Apostle Paul who probably led him to faith in Christ. Yet another story which at the time seemed to be lacking in design but has produced results that are lasting for eternity.
Colossians 4:7-9 accentuates the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man which are likened to two ropes going through two holes in the ceiling and over a pulley above. If one were to support himself by them, he must cling to them both. If one clings only to one and not the other, well, down he goes.
Life is full of seeming contradictions which sometimes cannot be reconciled by the puny human mind. With childlike faith, we cling to both ropes, fully confident that in eternity we will see that both strands of truth are, after all, of one.
