Colossians 4:10-11 Aristarchus my fellow prisoner salutes you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, (touching whom you received commandments… the John Mark of the Acts. He was once the subject of a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas, which issued in the separation of these good men (Acts 15:37-39). On a missionary tour previous to that painful occasion, Mark had left them, perhaps unhandsomely (Acts 13:13); and Paul, to indicate his sense of Mark's conduct, refused to take him with them on a subsequent occasion. Barnabas, being a near kinsman, may have been prejudiced in favour of his relative. What were the commands regarding him which the Colossians had already received it is in vain for us to conjecture. Mark evidently contemplated a journey which would lead him to Colossae, and the Colossians are here enjoined to give him a cordial reception. The apostle thereby intimates the restoration of Mark to his full confidence. The cloud under which his character for zeal had lain seems to have quite passed away. A single error, even in one engaged in the public ministry, is not enough to warrant the entire withdrawal of confidence. But why this mention of Mark in relation to a Church with which he had no special connection? It was at Perga in Pamphylia that Mark left the apostle, and as Colossae was not far away from the sphere of the subsequent labours of the missionaries, Mark's defection and Paul's displeasure could not fail to be generally known. It was beautiful and proper, therefore, that having in the interval seen reason to receive Mark again into favour, the apostle should make this change known, and give the Churches of Phrygia a charge to receive him with due confidence and cordiality as a faithful evangelist for Christ. (J. Spence, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him;) |
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