1:23 Epaphras, 1 my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you. 1:24 Mark, Aristarchus, 2 Demas 3 and Luke, my colaborers, greet you too. 1:25 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be 4 with your spirit. 5
1 sn Epaphras is probably a shortened form of the name Epaphroditus. This is probably the same individual whom Paul spoke of as “my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier” in Phil 2:25 (see also Phil 4:18). He is also mentioned in Col 1:7 and 4:12, where he is a founder of the church in Colossae (BDAG 360 s.v. ᾿Επαφρᾶς).
2 sn Aristarchus accompanied Paul on his collection-journey when Paul left for Rome in Acts 27:2. He is also mentioned as a fellow prisoner in Col 4:10.
3 sn Demas is most likely the same individual mentioned by the Apostle Paul in 2 Tim 4:10. Apparently, he later on abandoned the faith because of his love of the world.
4 tn Grk “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with your spirit.” The elided verb, normally an optative, has been rendered as “be.”
5 tc Most witnesses, including several excellent ones (א C D1 Ψ 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, several good witnesses (Ì87 A D* 048vid 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa) lack the ἀμήν, rendering the omission the preferred reading.