Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Greetings between family give reminders of shared times together, shared passions, and shared effort for a good cause. Epaphras was a prisoner with Paul. He went through all of the struggles of a prisoner and knew how he felt. There is a bond here between fellow inmates.

The rest are close friends to Paul in the area. They work with Paul. At this point, they were likely his emissaries to the general public, as he was in prison or they helped to care for him (like Luke, likely the doctor and author of one of the gospels). They would pass along his encouragement and words, along with their own teachings and truths to those in the city.

Oh, how good it is to have faithful fellow followers of the gospel of Christ.

Lord, thank you for these men who supported Paul. They loved the people he loved too, like Philemon. Thank you for the great friends I have. May I treat them well!