‘Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honour, because for the work of Christ he came nigh to death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.'
So he calls on the Philippian church to receive Epaphroditus joyfully ‘in the Lord' (i.e. because he is a true servant of the Lord, or because they are all one in the Lord), and hold him in honour on the grounds that, far from being a quitter, he had had a near death experience, willingly gambling his life his life for the work of Christ, in order that he might provide the service to Paul that they were unable to offer. It is doubtful if ‘lacking in your service towards me' directly refers simply to their giving, for that was indeed a service that they had provided through Epaphroditus. It is far more likely that he is referring to the service that Epaphroditus had performed for him once he was in Rome, something which necessarily those who were far away could not provide however much they may have wished to do so.