Although neither Paul nor Timothy had visited the church in Colosse, they had, during their earlier travels, met individual Colossians such as Epaphras, Philemon, Archippus, and Apphia who, after their conversion, had returned with the gospel to their native city. So Philemon was a friend and fellow believer. But this letter does not present doctrine or give commands; instead, it is a request on behalf of another believer. Paul chose to introduce himself in this letter as being in prison for preaching the Good News about Christ Jesus. This is the only one of Paul’s letters where he used such an introduction.While in prison, Paul had led a man by the name of Onesimus to the Lord. So he asked Philemon to forgive his runaway slave who had become a Christian and, even going beyond forgiveness, to accept Onesimus as a brother. As Christians, we should forgive as we have been forgiven. True forgiveness means that we treat the one we’ve forgiven as we would want to be treated. Is there someone you say you have forgiven, but who still needs your kindness?
Carrying on that thought - the love Philemon had shown to the believer and to Paul ought to be extended to include another. This was indeed boldly asking a favor—in the Roman Empire, a master had the right to kill a disobedient slave. In any other situation, Onesimus’s action of running away would have signed his death warrant. But Onesimus had met Paul, and Paul knew Philemon, so Paul mediated because of their common brotherhood in Christ.
Philemon probably had been angered that his slave had disappeared (in Roman times, it was like losing a piece of valuable property). Thus, Paul first explained that his appeal was on behalf of someone who had become his son during Paul’s imprisonment—that is, someone Paul had led to Christ from prison. Philemon would be dealing with a fellow believer.
Onesimus’s name in Greek means “useful.” The name was a common name for slaves and is found in many ancient inscriptions. A nameless slave might be given this name with the hope that he would live up to it in serving his master. Although Paul would have liked to keep Onesimus with him, he was sending Onesimus back to Philemon along with Paul’s own heart, so that he might prove useful once again.
Paul asked that Philemon accept Onesimus not only as a forgiven runaway servant, but also as a brother in Christ. This verse suggests that Onesimus himself would deliver this letter to Philemon, so Philemon would need to make his decision as he stood face-to-face with his slave.
Paul was willing to give away his very heart, a part of himself, in order to return Onesimus permanently to Philemon. Onesimus had become part of Paul’s ministry team. This was a sacrifice on Paul’s part, for Onesimus apparently could have helped Paul on Philemon’s behalf.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
The question of the day is this - how do you respond to people who have wronged you? How do you respond to people who have stolen from you, lied about you, spread gossip about you? How do you respond to people who talk like believers but act like unbelievers?
The Bible says we live on a broken planet because of sin. The Bible tells us “All have sinned.” That means me and it means you, it means the pope, it means everybody. Nobody bats a thousand. Nobody’s perfect. In fact I’ve never met anybody who’s claimed to be perfect. We don’t measure up to our own standards, much less God’s. The Bible says, “All fall short.” We all fall short of that level of perfection. All have sinned. The Bible says “There’s not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.” The Bible says, “If we say we have not sinned we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” The Bible says “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?” In other words we have an amazing ability to lie to ourselves.
You lie to yourself all the time. And the thing is, you believe it. You say things to yourself. We have an ability to con ourselves. Because nobody’s perfect, because we all sin, we all blow it, we all make mistakes, we’re all fundamentally selfish – you don’t think about me, you think about yourself. I don’t think about you, I think about me. What’s best for me? Because of that we have conflict and we have division.
The Amplified version of James 4:1-2 tells us real clearly this: “What leads to strife and discord and feuds? How do conflicts and quarrels and fighting originate among you? They arise from your own selfish and sinful desires [circle that] that have always been at war inside of you. [In other words there’s a war in you before there’s a war in the world.] You’re jealous and you covet what others have. You burn with envy and anger and you aren’t able to obtain the gratification you seek. So you fight and you war and you do not have because you don’t ask God.”
So the cause of conflict is selfishness and sinfulness. The cure for conflict is reconciliation. As I said, “reconciliation” is just a big word that means, “making peace.” It’s taking former enemies and turning them into friends.
How do you do that? To sse if anyone is reading today's blog, shoot me an email, and I'll email you the steps you and I need to take.
Let me leave you with this statement today: it is always more rewarding to restore a relationship than it is to resent it the rest of your life. It is always more rewarding to restore a relationship. That doesn’t mean you’re getting back together with somebody you divorced ten years ago. I’m not saying that. But I am saying restoring a relationship than to resent it the rest of your life. If you don’t have reconciliation, every time you think of that relationship, it’s going to poke you with pain the rest of your life. That’d dumb. You can go through life having people who will poke you with pain every time you just think about them. Stuff that happened ten twenty years ago. Every time you think about them it pokes you with pain. You’ve got to learn how to let it go. So you can get on with your life. You let it go through the steps of reconciliation.
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