Do you play that six degrees of Kevin Bacon, six degrees of separation or movie separation game? I don't know what you call it. I've heard a bunch of different names. Do you play this game where you try to connect two different actors across multiple films to each other by people they've worked with? I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this. Okay, the game works like this. Let's say you're in a car with a bunch of friends and you have like a five-hour trip ahead of you, and you don't want to stare at your dumb phones. You want to actually interact with each other. So you do a car game. And this car game works where two different people pick an actor. Like you quietly envision an actor, somebody else in the car envisions an actor, and then you're like one, two, three, and you both say the name of that actor. And then what you do is you try to find the fastest way. The car works together to try to find the fastest way to connect those two actors to each other via overlapping projects they've done or actors they've worked with who've worked with other actors. I'm still doing a terrible job of explaining the game. Let me try again. Example, here we go. So let's say that we were trying to connect, I need it to be short, so this will work. Uh, let me reverse engineer it. I've almost got it. Okay, I've got it. Let's say we're trying to connect Ryan Reynolds to Kirsten Dunst. And like, okay, these two actors, everybody go. And everybody thinks about it a little for a little while. And what you come up with eventually is all right, Ryan Reynolds was in Deadpool and Wolverine with Channing Tatum. And Channing Tatum was with Kirsten Dunst in the incredibly hard-to-watch Roofman. Ta-da! And you're like, oh, that was fun. And then you pick two more names and you do it again. I think that game is a blast. And if you've never heard of this, you should totally try it because it's way better than staring at your phones with a car full of people when you drive. The reason I like the game, one, because it's interactive, two, because you learn what your friends know, what they like, what they watch, you learn things about each other. And three, because what emerges when you do it is these little pockets of actors, these eras of actors, and you start to sort of taxonomize and categorize people into these different groups as actors in your brain. And I particularly like it when people pick crazy stuff from like across decades, and they're like, all right, we're doing Audrey Hepburn to Timothy Chalomet. Go. You're like, oh, how's that even possible? But then you poke at it a little bit and you realize you know, there really is kind of a chain of custody between all of these performers over all of these decades and all of these eras and Hollywood and TV and filmmaking and all of that. And likewise, there really is a chain of custody that is detectable in the Bible between, I think I've got to say, three or maybe four generations of Christianity in the New Testament before you get beyond the Bible. But they're they're really not as connected as you would think. And, you know, obviously, Generation One is pretty famous. These are all the big names that everybody knows. I I know there are a bunch of you here for you know, for you, this is like your first time being around the Bible. So a lot of these names are brand new. That's awesome, by the way. I mean this is how you pick it up. You just hang out with people and eventually uh the stories start to emerge and the names start to stick. But there are others of you who've been doing this for a long time. There are names in the Bible that just automatically are front of mind, and others where it's like, oh yeah, when you hear them, you're like, ah, it's from somewhere deep in the New Testament. That's right. I have heard of that lady, I have heard of that guy. But generation one is very famous, very I mean, it's like Jesus of Nazareth. He's a pretty big deal in Christianity. You have Peter, then you got John, and you got James. But after Generation One, which I would say includes Mary, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, etc., after generation one, almost all of those disciples go away at the very beginning of Acts. Only a few are still around into the middle of Acts, and then they're all off-screen after that. So once you get into the beginning of Acts, you are definitely into generation two when we meet characters like Stephen and the guy who helped kill Steven, Paul. And then Paul goes out and he kind of builds a little circle of friends and travel companions, and that feels like generation three to me, the guys who become a part of his team and go on the missionary journeys and all of this, especially the first couple missionary journeys. But then it's almost like there's a generation four that happens later once these churches have taken root, and some of these churches are, you know, 10, 15, maybe even north of 15 years old. And you know, that that's a long time. Think about what the world looked like to you in your circle 15 plus years ago. A lot changes, leadership turns over. And so there's this little glimpse of, I guess what we could call generation four at the end of the New Testament, but they're all connected. And if we had just a few more names to play with, we could definitely do a six degrees of separation, six degrees of Kevin Bacon game with all of those names. Well, a bunch of those oft-forgotten, oft-overlooked names of generation four of Christianity that really do, via overlap, connect all the way back to generation one of Christianity. A lot of those names are on display in Philemon and at the end of Colossians. And these names just come and go very quickly in this little letter to Philemon. Check it out. We get a flurry of them right here at the beginning. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother. Okay, well, we know those two. Paul is Paul. Timothy is his protege, his most trusted assistant. He picked up Timothy on the first missionary journey. And Timothy apparently, I mean, the way Paul's phrasing this is a co-author of the letter we've been studying, Philemon. I know I'm talking about Paul all the time, but I mean, Timothy's kind of listed there. Now, the rest of the letter gives the impression that this really is very personal between Paul and Philemon. So maybe Timothy is a heavily participating scribe, and that's why he's lightly credited. So we got those two. Then it says to Philemon, who we've talked about a ton already this season, our dear friend and fellow worker, to Affia, our sister, to Archipus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home. Now, historically, those last two names are associated with Philemon's household, but I don't know if we can really say that for sure from the text, right? To Philemon, our dear friend and fellow worker, to Apha our sister, and Archipus, our fellow soldier. So there's nothing that says Affia is your wife, Archipus is your kid, but it's a private household letter to Philemon. So who would they be? I mean, I have to, I the best guess would be wife and son, though. Maybe Archipus is a brother who lives under the same household. The historic tradition speculates, going back to pretty early Christian speculation, that that is a reference to a wife and a kid. Whatever the case, we don't really know more about them, other than those are really flattering titles that are being thrown about here. Clearly, this affia is a part of the house church in Colossae. Clearly, she's important and a person of high reputation. Clearly, if we're going to read this with shrewd lenses on, Paul thinks it would be prudent to address her on the front end in order to achieve a good outcome in what the letter is requesting. But like so many of these characters who just get passing mentions mostly in the letter section of the New Testament, we don't have a lot of extra biblical tradition around her. I mean, we have none. Why did I say that? We have no extra biblical tradition surrounding her until way, way, way, way, way, way, way after the fact, so ludicrously after the fact that there's nothing to it. So that's what we know about her. A lot of speculation there. Archipus gets a couple of mentions. He has his name thrown out in flattering terms at the end of Colossians, the Twinsey book of Philemon. I've read you a bunch of this before. You know, Tychicus says hello. And then it says, I'm sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. Okay, what are the circumstances? Well, prison for our last couple days of conversation. He's coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here. At the very end, it says, Tell Archipus, see to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord. So there's your other Archipus mention. He's a fellow soldier, he's a worker, he's a doer, he's a guy who gets after it. And both he and Affia, as well as Philemon, apparently all meet in this church that is in their home. So that's what we got. There is some later tradition surrounding Archipus, and I do mean way later tradition that has him as a bishop in Laodicea, which would, I mean, that would be a pretty big deal. I don't know what the tradition is behind that. Maybe it's reliable, maybe it's not, but it is definitely later. Okay, and then we've got Colossians 4.10. My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. That's kind of cool. Again, you know, there's that little moment where you're like, oh, remember Mark and Paul used to be in a big fight because Mark quit on him in the middle of the first missionary journey. And here Mark's getting a nice mention. This indicates that Mark and Barnabas and Paul all patched things up. Mark is there helping out Paul while he's in jail. And we know from church tradition that Mark was working with Peter as well and was probably composing the gospel of Mark while he was sitting there with Paul in jail. And you can still, once again, go to that jail. It's in a church right there, just in downtown Rome. You can still see it. Kind of cool. Maybe when you go to that place, you're seeing where Colossians and Philemon was written, and maybe also parts of Mark were written right there. Yeah, fun. But Aristarchus is not just helping out. Apparently, he is a prisoner as well. I don't know what Aristarchus did to run afoul of the law, but what I do know is that this Aristarchus cat, he liked to mix it up. He was right there in the midst of the big riot in Ephesus in Acts 19. He traveled with Paul on the most perilous parts of his later journeys. He travels with him to Rome. He's in jail there. He's a co-worker, and by all accounts, he was absolutely reliable to the end and maybe ended up being the bishop of Thessalonica as well. So that's pretty cool. And he's from Thessalonica. So all of those letters, when you go and read Thessalonians, that's correspondence that in part is born out of Paul's relationship with Aristarchus. Cool, right? I mean, that's just a good, legit generation four name that if you're ever playing Six Degrees of Separation on a long road trip and it's the New Testament edition, you're gonna be really glad you had Aristarchus at your disposal. Okay, we got another one. He comes up in Colossians and Philemon. Uh, our dear friend Luke the Doctor. Okay, that's Luke who wrote Luke and Acts. We've talked about him a lot over the years, but that's not who I want to talk about here. Our dear friend Luke the Doctor and Demas. D-E-M-A-S. I don't know why, but that name is just a bummer to me, right? I'm gonna say it again, but slower and deeper. Demas. I mean, it sounds like some combination of like demons and male anatomy or something. I mean, nothing personal. If your name is Demas, I don't think that about you. I think it sounds cool on you. I just don't think it sounds cool on this guy. And that is a mnemonic device that I use to remember that he turned out to be kind of a turd in Paul's estimation. Demas was pretty cool in the early going. He and Paul were getting along great when Colossians and Philemon were written. He gives a nice shout out to Demas at the end of Philemon as well. He says, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers, who send this guy sends greetings. But then at the end of 2 Timothy, Paul has really harsh words about Demas, and is like, uh Demas is in love with this present world and he deserted me. So Paul feels super let down by Demas. Also, I think Paul took it really personal when people quit. It's two guys who served with Paul for a long time and seemed like decent chaps, but then bailed at some point, and maybe in their brains, their reasons were pretty fair and pretty reasonable. I mean, Paul was abnormally committed to the cause. I mean, he he was all in. If Mark or a demus type were only like 97% in, that might seem like low commitment to a guy like Paul. And by comparison, I suppose it is. By comparison, my commitment is very low compared to Paul. My sacrifice is very low compared to Paul. So I'm not quite prepared to say, and I don't think I'm obligated to believe as a Christian who thinks the Bible is true that Demas is a bad guy. But the last time we hear his name, it is not in a positive light in the New Testament. And then we've got this other guy, Epaphoros. I suppose he's the only other one that I really want to mention here. Epaphorus, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and those at Laodicea and Hieropolis. Remember, those are the two towns that kind of replaced Colossae. So it's pretty benevolent of Epaphras to care about people in all three towns, the two fancy ones and the sort of has been town of Colossae. And then Epaphrus gets that nice shout out at the end of Philemon as well. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. So Epaphrus is in jail, Aristarchus is in jail, Paul is in jail, but then a few other guys, Mark, Barnabas, Luke, Demas, they are by jail, just hanging out near there. And then Philemon, Archipus, and Affia, they are at home, cozy in Colossae. And so there you have it. That's kind of our roster of these little known, but very important, very faithful characters here at the end of the New Testament who are a part of this Lycus Valley circle of really important early Christian leaders who did very sacrificial things and were very forward-thinking. And basically, these are the people who are responsible for Christianity happening there. Epaphras is almost certainly the guy who heard Paul preach in Ephesus and then came back down the road to Colossae and was like, hey, everybody, I just heard the truest, realist thing. You should all hear this, and then you should all become Christians, and then we should have a church here. I I got some ideas for what it's supposed to look like and how we're supposed to do it. And he explained it and people received it. And what do you know? All these years later, at the end of the New Testament, there was still a church going there. Pretty cool. So, in the same way that you can play the six degrees of separation, six degrees of Kevin Bacon game and connect the dots between widely spanning eras of the history of Hollywood. So if you're willing to pinch zoom in on the text here at the end of the New Testament, you can actually probably make those six degrees connections between some of these less well-known but very important characters who are here in maybe generation three or generation four of Christianity, all the way back to the very beginning. Jesus and the 12 disciples. And Paul seems to think they're important enough to mention in the Bible book of Philemon. So I figured they were important enough to deserve an episode, which we have now done. Pressing ahead in Philemon Manana. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.