Philippians 2:26-28 For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that you had heard that he had been sick.… The word "not regarding" means Epaphroditus had risked his life as the gambler does his stake. He had played with it as in a game of chance. The same word in later days, and possibly with a direct reference to this passage, has given a name to an inferior, and though sometimes a disorderly, yet a self-forgetful class of church officers, who from Constantine's time onwards were set apart as attendants on the sick and dying. They were men who hazarded their lives in times of plague and contagious sickness, like the παράβολοι, or bestiarii, who exposed themselves to the risk of death in conflict with the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. It was in some such way as this that Epaphroditus staked his life in faithfully representing the Philippian Church in carrying out the mission with which he had been entrusted. (J. Hutchinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.WEB: since he longed for you all, and was very troubled, because you had heard that he was sick. |
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