Aristarchus
July 20th, 2012
Jim Parratt(Castlehill, Bearsden) and former President of SBLPA
Often, I have been intrigued by Paul’s friends. So many are mentioned in God’s word, with character sketches about almost all of them. They read like mini obituaries. For example, we know quite a lot about Barnabas, Silas, Priscilla and Aquila, Mark, Timothy, Luke, Epaphras, Epaphroditus (good for a series of sermons?) but almost nothing about Aristarchus, although he is ‘mentioned’ rather more than some of these, on five occasions in fact. A man in the background. So, what can this man teach us about being one of the Lord’s ‘background people’? A kind of ‘heavenly third man’.
Let us see first what we can learn about him from scripture. There are five references (Acts 19:29; 20:4; 27:2; Colossians 4:10, 11 and Philemon 24 and 25). We learn that he was a Jewish believer from Thessalonica in Macedonia. Was it there that he first heard the gospel? And was it from Paul himself? If so, how and when? Easy to speculate. He then became a key person in the Thessalonian church . We know this because he was entrusted, as an official delegate, to carry aid to the church in Jerusalem. So, he was an early Christian against poverty (Acts 20:4). In other words, he was a trustworthy, reliable man. Then, he was a fellow traveller with Paul on many of his journeys. He was always ‘just there’, travelling with Paul on his final journey to Jerusalem, getting caught up in mob violence in Ephesus (Acts 19:20). And he was with Paul again on the long and dangerous sea journey to Rome. (Acts 27:4). Probably as Paul’s voluntary slave, because such a position would enhance Paul’s ‘importance’ in the eyes of the centurion; Paul would not then simply be a penniless traveller without a servant. He then ends up with Paul in prison in Rome – a fellow ‘prisoner of war’ (Col. 4:10), volunteering (again!) to share Paul’s confinement and helping as a companion, a ‘fellow worker’ with the apostle (Col 4:11). What kind of work was this I wonder?
So, he is a companion, a comforter, a faithful reliable fellow worker and a team member. And that is important.
Whatever happens to Andy Murray at Wimbledon this year (I am writing as he anticipates his next round match) he always emphasizes the importance of his team; without them, he says, he just could not function. Paul indeed favoured teamwork on all his church planting missionary journeys, sometimes with just one man (Barnabas or Silas), more often with more. And Aristarchus was a member of that team; he is never mentioned alone. Yet always in the background, which never seemed to bother him.
So, what can we learn from him? First, although he was never in the foreground, never an ‘up front’ man, he was always there, always ‘on the spot’. Maybe in the Thessalonian church he was previously a key individual; away from that church he was just ‘there’ – ‘good and reliable’ Aristarchus, to misquote Guys and Dolls. As we get older, perhaps after years in leadership positions of one kind or another, and with the joy and privilege of preaching God’s wonderful word, it is not easy, for most of us, to take a back seat, to become a ‘background’ boy (or girl). Yet, that is what we are mostly called to be – a companion, a fellow traveller, a volunteer servant, a team member. Not up front any more perhaps, certainly not ‘criticizing from the back benches’, but just ‘there’ for people, people who like Paul are going through testing situations. And, in our churches there are so many of these. Lord, make me an Aristarchus!
What happened to him at the end? We know no more of him but tradition has it that he became bishop of Apamea, in Asia Minor near to Colossae. His work, like ours, never completed until the Lord calls home.
