ts. It was the first church established in Europe. Ten years
had elapsed since then, possibly more. Paul is now a prisoner in Rome,
not suffering the extremest rigour of imprisonment, but still a prisoner
in his own hired house, accessible to his friends and able to do work
for God, but still in the custody of soldiers, chained and waiting till
the tardy steps of Roman law should come up to him, or perhaps till the
caprice of Nero should deign to hear his cause. In that imprisonment we
have his letters to the Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and
Philemon, which latter three are closely connected in time, the two
former in subject, and the two latter in destination. This letter stands
apart from those to the great Asiatic churches.

Its tone and general cast are unlike those of most of his letters. It
contains no doctrinal discussions and no rebukes of evil, but is an
outpouring of happy love and confidence. Like all Paul's epistles it
begins with salutations, and like most of them with prayer, but from the
very beginning is a long gush of love. These early verses seem to me
very beautiful if we regard them either as a revelation of the personal
character of the Apostle, or as a picture of the relation between
teacher and taught in its most blessed and undisturbed form, or as a
lovely ideal of friendship and love in any relation, hallowed and
solemnised by Christian feeling.

Verses one and two contain the apostolic greeting. In it we note the
senders. Timothy is associated with Paul, according to his custom in all
his letters even when he goes on immediately to speak in the singular.
He ever sought to hide his own supremacy and to bring his friends into
prominence. He was a great, lowly soul, who had no pride in the dignity
of his position but felt the weight of its responsibility and would fain
have had it shared. He calls Timothy and himself the slaves of Christ.
He regarded it as his highest honour to be Christ's born servant, bound
to absolute submission to the all-worthy Lord who had died to win him.
It is to be noted that there is no reference here to apostolic
authority, and the contrast is very remarkable in this respect with the
Epistle to the Galatians, where with scornful emphasis he asserts it as
bestowed 'not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ
and God the Father.' In this designation of himself, we have already the
first trace of the intimate and loving relationship in which Paul sto