Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me.

Tychicus will be delivering the letter to the church in Colossi and provide more information about Paul that may not be prudent to put in the letter.

And we need to differentiate what should be written down and what needs to be said face to face, or verbal communication.

We can assume the letter addresses some of the issues that the church faces.

But we tend to idealize the church at a certain point in history, find fault and point finger at what we regard as church problems in our time and wish for the good ol’ days, so to speak. But as Jesus’ letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3 and as the epistles tell us, the church has always had its challenges.

The church is still being built by Jesus. He has an end in view and uses different tools. But there are certain things that are true in all generation as we can take from the way Paul described Tychicus.

1. Enduring brotherliness

It does matter how far back you look, brotherly love is in the church. We recognize that we have a deeper relationship that goes beyond family or geographic connections.

Jesus prayed to the father that we may be one as he and the father are one (John 17:21).

The book Proverbs spoke of this kind of brotherhood.

A person who has friends may be harmed by them, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

This is not just friendship. People can change their friends, but not their brothers. This brotherhood is not about what you can offer me or how I can control you, it is not how I should impress you or how to judge you.

It's not so much about who would help you in social situations, or patronize your business, it's about a deep connection among believers built on the foundation of truth, on the foundation of Jesus Christ, fueled by the love of Christ himself.

This connection crosses ethnic boundary, or social class. It is about “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3).”

The prayer of Jesus, whether you think so or not, has been answered or is being answered.

Paul called Tychicus dear brother. There are some spiritual brothers that one might say are not dear because of one reason or the other, but they are brothers nonetheless.

2. Faithful ministers

It does not matter which way you slice it, there have been ministers of the word in every generation, people who share the word and faithfully/correctly present the truth on an ongoing basis, whether they have passed through some formal education or not.

They have been separated by God from among their fellow believers to bear the burden of providing spiritual meat for the children of the kingdom.

Jesus said that "Therefore every expert in the law who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and old (Matthew 13:52)." This is Jesus' nod and wink for ministry training, whether formal or informal, but a focus on aptitude and self application, and ability articulation prowess. The “expert in the law” that Jesus mentioned has a learning and teaching mindset, which is good.

And Jesus challenged Nicodemus, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don't understand these things?'" (John 3:10) This means there is an expectation of understanding from teaching ministers. it should go without saying, as Jesus noted.

And Apollos had to be taught properly the way of truth (Acts 18:24-26). The point is that ministers are a recognized class of people in the church, and Paul is recognizing Tychicus as such.

Paul said that the elder should have the ability to teach, among other qualifications (1 Timothy 3:2). NOT the ability to tell stories. At that time in the church it was beginning to be clear that the apostles cannot be everywhere and that men have to step up. They have hands laid on them, representative of devolved authority, recognition and commissioning in churches in a particular location, but those men must have the ability to teach. Those men without exception must have the ability to teach and that becomes the primary way they minister, presenting the word to feed the sheep as Jesus instructed Peter (John 21:15-17).

3. Fellow slaves in the Lord

While the word brother defines our connection to one another,

and minister defines recognition for one brother serving another with the word,

slave of the Lord defines the motivation.

For a slave, there is only one will that would be done, it is the Lord’s, and that presupposes an ongoing relationship with Jesus and a clear recognition of His Lordship.

The Bible says in Philippians 2:13, "God is at work in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." And the slave does the pleasure of the Lord, driven to please Him and Him alone.

Remember Paul has just mentioned things about the slave, the social slaves, and he said we have one master — Jesus, and now he is saying the motivation for the minister has to be being slaves of Jesus. Being slaves of Christ should drive our actions, and message, and our focus should be to serve him alone.