I sent him with Onesimus, the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here.

So Tychicus and Onesimus would be going together to the church. He called Tychicus a faithful minister, dear brother. Onesimus is called faithful and dear brother.

Paul wrote that “…what is sought in stewards is that one be found faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2)

Faithfulness in that context is about alignment with the truth. Being described as faith is Paul’s endorsement for what its worth. It may be worth a lot in some context, but in other contexts they may not want to see the individual.

## Dear brother

When one Israelite calls another dear brother, no one bats an eyelid because of they can all trace there origin from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with a focus on genealogy. And the “brothers” share both an historical blood covenant with God and blood relation.

So what claim do believers have to being brothers? The simple answer: the blood of Jesus, and connected in a spiritual sense as members of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).

The law says the men of Israel have to gather together a few times a year (Deuteronomy 16:16); similarly the bible says we should also maintain the practice of regular gathering (Hebrews 10:25).

Jesus prayed that we may be one as he and the father are one (John 17:21-22), and having the same Spirit and the same Lord (Ephesians 4:4-6) creates a brotherhood, a closed-nit that cannot be easily explained.

That we are brothers does not prevent conflict, we see tribes in Israel coming against one tribe that seems to be moving away from the path of truth. We see that in the book of Judges (Judges 19-21).

Paul disagreed with Barnabas about going with Mark, and that was not seen as untenable (Acts 15:36-41). And Paul confronted Peter about his tacit rejection of his spiritual brothers because his natural brothers were around (Galatians 2:11-14).

“Dear” is a word about fondness. And we see Paul saying greet one another with an holy kiss (1 Corinthians 16:20). The cultural foundation of that is that the kiss was a common way of greeting close friends and family members in that social situation, basically the closest of close relationships, and most like shared among the same gender.

Paul pushes this further, rebuking a church for taking one another before the judge for redress (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). He said why not rather be wronged or cheated than cause such embarrassment to the church.

That addresses how one Christian should think about the other, fleshing out the reality of what the prayer of Jesus that we me one as He and the Father are one means.

Paul challenged the church and said are there no one wise people among you that could adjudicate between brothers (1 Corinthians 6:5)?

This is clearly taking the concept of a holy nation seriousness, meaning a self-contained set of people who interact with the world, but have a deeper relationship with one another.

Paul is seeing the church as Israel, with its own rules, including marriage rules where there is the commandment not to marry anyone outside of the faith (similar to how Israel was prohibited from marrying outsiders) (1 Corinthians 7:39). That is an objective measure of who you are supposed to marry.

Jesus said that he has not come to bring peace on the earth, but a sword, and that because of him a father will be against his son (Matthew 10:34-36) etc.

That would have been unthinkable for natural Israel at that time where family is everything. Jesus mentioning conflict in the natural family is like a bomb to their worldview.

And Jews persecuted jews even to the death, because they believed in Jesus. But God is creating another family, one that is united in Christ. Paul argued in several places that Christ remove the wall of partition (between Jews and gentiles) and the creation of one new man in Christ (Ephesians 2:14-16).

“From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth” (Acts 17:26) is a reference to the old creation. The new creation is God taking from all nation and merging them into one new man, Christ, second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49), at the same time emerging from one man, the Christ, as members of his body.

While the devil thought he won by sowing the seed of sin, but in Christ God sows the incorruptible seed of righteous and now we have sons of righteousness.

I have used brothers in this piece, but in truth I am talking about about both genders, because in Christ we are told there is no hierarchy of male and female, Jews/gentiles, slaves or free before God (Galatians 3:28).

The point is that there is a spiritual joining with Christ, so much so that the bible says that in the new resurrection there is no marriage because we would be like the angels of God (Matthew 22:30).

We have all been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20), and indwelled by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16), we have become the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). There is so much oneness including having one father, one Lord, one spirit, one baptism, one faith, one salvation in Christ, one cross, and one truth of the gospel (Ephesians 4:4-6).