Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon Figures

Meet the Cast

Paul

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Paul (But Were Afraid to Ask)Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon actually throw out tons of biographical details about Paul—quite a bit more than any of...

Jesus

Paul never actually met Jesus while he was alive. But that doesn't stop him from becoming the foremost authority on his life and death. Go figure.Not Another GospelPaul's Jesus is pretty different...

The Galatians

The Epistle to the Galatians isn't addressed to one single church or city. It was actually meant for a whole mess of churches that were all located in the northern region of Galatia (which would be...

The Philippians

Two thousand years ago, Philippi was a "leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony" (Acts 16:12). Which is just another way of saying it was a totally important place in Greece. L...

Philemon and Onesimus

Paul's letter to Philemon is addressed to Philemon (duh), but it also pretty heavily concerns his runaway slave, Onesimus. Hey, it's his freedom hanging in the balance, so we'll forgive Onesimus fo...

Cephas

Though Paul calls this fellow Christian Cephas, he's probably better known to us as Peter. As in Simon Peter (John 1:42). Jesus' right-hand man. Yeah, that guy.Cephas and the other original apostle...

Timothy

Timothy comes up quite a bit in Paul's letters. We first meet him in Acts, where he gets introduced to Paul and then promptly circumcised (Acts 16:1-3). No, Paul's not going back on his whole "no c...

James

This guy, who Paul calls "the Lord's brother" (Galatians 1:19), seems to be the head honcho at the church in Jerusalem. It's pretty clear that Paul doesn't have much love for James either. He doesn...

Barnabas

Barnabas was one of Paul's main traveling companions. He's mentioned a ton in Acts of the Apostles, so head over there for the full story. Barnabas is the one who first vouches for Paul in Jerusale...

Titus

Another one of Paul's cohorts, Titus is on hand to help Paul out in a jam. When he makes his way to Jerusalem to let the apostles there know that Gentile Christians don't need to be circumcised, he...

John

John, one of the original disciples of Jesus, is briefly mentioned as one of the "acknowledged pillars" (Galatians 2:9) in the Jerusalem church, but he's not important enough to get Paul all riled...

Epaphroditus

Another travelling disciple of Jesus, Paul sends Epaphroditus to visit with the Philippians while he's occupied in jail. Paul calls him "my brother and co-worker and fellow solider" (Philippians 2:...

Euodia and Syntyche

These two ladies in Philippi are engaged in some kind of smack down. Paul would really like them to bury the hatchet because they've "struggled beside [him] in the work of the gospel" (Philippians...

Apphia and Archippus

This gal and guy are the co-recipients of Paul's letter to Philemon (1:2). Some legends say that these two are Philemon's wife and son, but no one is actually sure. As the title of the epistle sugg...

Clement

Clement gets a brief shout out in Philippians 4:3 as a "co-worker" in the gospel whose name is "in the book of life." Sounds pretty darn good. Just don't confuse him with the later and way more imp...

Epaphras, Mark, Aristides, Demas, and Luke

Paul describes these guys as "my fellow prisoners in Christ Jesus […and] my fellow workers" (Philemon 1:23-24). Whether or not they're all behind bars or just visiting with Paul isn't clear. In a...