Trophimus the Invalid

Narrator: Chris Genthree
Duration: 4min
2 Timothy 4:20  •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 8
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
"Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." What a suggestive clause! The Apostle of the Gentiles, endowed with the gift of healing, and who had healed so many, leaves his friend behind him sick. When in the island of Melita, he healed the father-in-law of Publius, the chief man of the island; but here we find he has to leave Trophimus at Miletum sick. There was a needs-be for this (1 Pet. 1:66Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: (1 Peter 1:6)). God in His governmental dealings sometimes lays His hand on His children. The Father finds it needful at times to put forth His hand in wholesome discipline. It is often very good, very salutary, very necessary to be left in the condition of Trophimus at; Miletum. Nature does not like it, but we may be assured it is helpful. Trophimus had a lesson to learn on a sickbed at Miletum which he could not learn anywhere else, not even as Paul's companion in travel. The solitude, the prostration, the helplessness of a sickbed, are often most profitable to the soul. The Spirit of God makes use of such things to teach us some of our most sanctifying lessons. Very often it happens that a time of bodily illness is made the season of much solemn review and self-judgment in the presence of God.
It is instructive to contrast the position of Trophimus in Acts 21:2929(For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) (Acts 21:29), with his position in 2 Tim. 4:2020Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. (2 Timothy 4:20). In the former, we see him on the streets of Jerusalem in company with Paul; in the latter, we see him in the retirement of a sick chamber at Miletum. Now it was his presence with Paul that roused all the bitter prejudices of the Jews, who imagined that Paul had brought him into the temple. A Jew and an Ephesian in company was quite in harmony with Paul's gospel, but not at all so with Jewish prejudice. At Ephesus, Paul and Trophimus might have walked in company without exciting any suspicion—not so in Jerusalem. For a Jew and a Gentile to be seen together in Jerusalem was regarded as an open insult to Jewish dignity. It was a throwing down of the middle wall of partition, and boldly walking across the ruins. For this the Jews were not prepared. They gazed upon the two companions with an eye of dark suspicion. And the strange companionship fanned that flame which so speedily burst forth with terrible vehemence around the beloved Apostle of the Gentiles.
And one is disposed to ask why these two friends should be found in the streets of Jerusalem. Those streets were evidently not Paul's appointed sphere of labor. "Far hence unto the Gentiles" was to him the Master's word. But Paul would go to Jerusalem, and when there he could never refuse to walk in company with the Ephesian. He was too honest for that. He could not, like Peter, "stand aloof" from his Gentile brother for fear of the Jews. But then, the ceremonies of the temple and the company of Trophimus could never be harmonized. Here was the difficulty. If the institutions of the temple were to be honored and maintained, then why this companionship and fellowship with an uncircumcised stranger? If Paul and Trophimus were both enrolled as fellow citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, then why acknowledge in principle the old system of things, dividing them?
These reflections throw a peculiar interest around the name of Trophimus. It is deeply interesting and instructive just to look at the three passages in which his name occurs. First, we find Trophimus as one of a band of companions who accompanied Paul into Asia (Acts 20:44And there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. (Acts 20:4)). Then we find him in company with the Apostle in the city of Jerusalem (Acts 21:2929(For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) (Acts 21:29)). And last, we find him laid on a sickbed at Miletum. Here the curtain drops upon him. Here, he is seen as an invalid at Miletum, and Paul is now a prisoner at Rome. But both could with undimmed eye look forward to that bright and blessed world above, to which they were both hastening onward, and where they are now safely housed with Christ whom they loved and served here.