By Evangelist John BJ Hall
Music is a part of my ministry, however, there is one thing everyone is glad that I don’t do… play the piano. As a child I took 4 years of piano lessons. But today, I can’t play two notes together and make harmony. In my case the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
There are two people in the New Testament who probably wish they were not. Philippians 4:2 (NASB) “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.”
The name Euodia means “sweet scent.” Syntyche means “That speaks or dialogues.” It appears that these women were not living up to their names. Apparently Euodia was being a stinker and Syntyche was not talking things out.
It truly is sad that the only thing we know about these women is that they didn’t get along. It was to such an extreme that Paul had to address them individually “I urge you…” lest they think that one was more responsible than the other.
Paul asked another individual to intervene. The translation calls him yokefellow. We will call him Suzugos, for that is the Greek word translated yokefellow. In the same way that Barnabas was “son of encouragement.” Suzugos was a yokefellow. He evidently was someone who had the ministry of reconciliation.
Too often in the church Euodia and Syntyche are alive and well. Churches fight and split over the silliest things. There was a church in northeastern Oklahoma that split because two deacons had an argument over which one was to paint what part of a wall in the “fellowship hall.” Literally two “servants,” deacons, split the fellowship of the church over paint. They did not live up to the name of their calling.
May each of us strive to be like Suzugos in the life of the church. Let us yoke the church together in love and harmony.
Jesus said, in the closing days of His earthly ministry, “34A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:31-35 (NASB)