Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

There is a man in the New Testament that most people skip right over, and I think he might be one of the most important models we have for understanding what multiplication actually looks like in real life.

His name is Epaphras.

In Colossians 1:3-7, Paul writes,
"We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf."

Here's what I need you to understand about Epaphras. Paul never visited Colossae. He never planted a church there. And yet by the time Paul wrote this letter, there was an established, thriving community of believers in Colossae and in at least two neighboring cities. So who planted them?

Epaphras was probably a Colossian merchant or trader who traveled to Ephesus on business, walked into the Hall of Tyrannus where Paul was teaching, heard the gospel, and believed. And then he did something so ordinary that we almost miss the weight of it. He went home. He did not sign up for a mission trip. He did not enroll in seminary. He did not wait for a title, a platform, or an invitation. He went back to the people he already knew, in the city he already lived in, and he shared what he had received.

And the gospel took root. Churches were born. Communities were changed. All because one ordinary man carried the Word back into the context he already inhabited.

My life's experience has sold me a version of ministry that says you have to go somewhere special, be someone special, or have some special skill before God can use you. And the story of Epaphras dismantles all of it. The Ephesian model was not about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. It was about ordinary people carrying the gospel back into the places they were already going.

You are not Paul.  You do not need to be Paul. 

Paul stayed in one room and taught. The people who changed Asia were the Epaphrases... the ordinary men and women who heard the gospel and carried it home. That is your calling, and if enough of us do it, the math takes care of the rest.

The multiplication model does not require you to go somewhere new. It requires you to be intentional where you already are. Your workplace, your neighborhood, your family gatherings, your Friday night plans... all of it is mission territory if you are willing to carry the gospel into it.

Tomorrow we close this series with the one question that ties everything together.
It is the question Paul left us with, the question every believer has to answer... who is your Colossae?

Write down three to five places you go every week... work, the gym, a coffee shop, a neighbor's house, a family gathering. Next to each one, write the name of at least one person there who does not know Christ. Pray over that list today and ask God to give you boldness and opportunity this week.