Charles Ellicott Commentary Colossians 4:10

"Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments; if he come unto you, receive him)," — Colossians 4:10 (ASV)

Aristarchus my fellowprisoner.—Apparently a Jew, one “of the circumcision.” But he is “of Thessalonica,” and is first named (Acts 19:22) as dragged with Gaius into the theatre during the tumult at Ephesus; from there he accompanied St. Paul (Acts 20:4), at least as far as Asia, on his journey to Jerusalem. When, after two years’ captivity, the Apostle starts from Caesarea on his voyage to Rome, Aristarchus is again named by St. Luke as being with us (Acts 27:2).

From this fact, and from his being called here my fellow-prisoner (a name which there seems no adequate reason to consider as metaphorical), it would appear that, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, Aristarchus really shared his captivity. It is certainly not a little curious that in the Epistle to Philemon (Philemon 1:23–24), sent at the same time, it is Epaphras who is called “the fellow-prisoner,” while Aristarchus is simply classed among fellow-labourers.

This variation is interesting to us as one of the characteristic marks of independence and genuineness in the Epistles; but it can only be accounted for by mere conjecture, such as that of their alternately sharing the Apostle’s captivity.

Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas.—The notices of John Mark in the New Testament are full of interest. This is the first notice of him since the day when St. Paul rejected him from his function of “ministration,” because on the former journey he had “deserted” them at Perga, and had not gone with them to the work (Acts 15:38). Then he had gone with Barnabas to Cyprus, to take part in an easier work, nearer home and under the kindly guardianship of his uncle.

Now the formal charge to the Colossian Church to receive him—a kind of letter of commendation (2 Corinthians 3:1)—evidently shows that they had known of him as under St. Paul’s displeasure, and were now to learn that he had seen reason to restore him to his confidence. In the Epistle to Philemon Mark is named, as of course (Philemon 1:24), among his fellow-labourers.

In St. Paul’s last Epistle, written almost with a dying hand (2 Timothy 4:11), there is a touch of peculiar pathos in the charge which he, left alone in prison with his old companion St. Luke, gives to Timothy to bring Mark, as now being very serviceable for the “ministration” from which he had once rejected him. Evidently St. Paul’s old rebuke had done its work, and, if Mark did join him in his last hours, he probably thanked him for nothing so much as for the loving sternness of days gone by. Before this, if (as seems likely) he is the Marcus, my son of 1 Peter 5:13, he was with St. Peter, and must be identified with St. Mark the Evangelist, subsequently, as tradition has it, bishop and martyr at Alexandria.