Philemon

Happy New Year! As we continue with our reading through the Epistles, or letters, of the New Testament, I though I would take a moment to let you know why we are reading them in the order we are.

In the Bible, the Epistles are organized in two main groupings: those written by Paul and those written by others. In the Pauline letters, there are two sub groupings: those written to churches and those written to individuals. Within these three groupings, the letters are placed longest to shortest.

I have no problem with this organizations; however, I though it would be interesting to read these letters in the order they were written to give us a more complete picture of the history of the new church and the issues that they dealt with.

Today we read Philemon. It's an individual letter written by Paul during his first imprisonment in Rome. Ephesians and Colossians were written about the same time & we will get to those in this week. I chose to start with Philemon because it deals with the issue of how to treat a slave. We just got through reading Corinthians, which deals with conflict resolution and how to treat others. So this little letter seemed like a perfect segway. Let's take a look:

Paul writes to Philemon, a fellow believer in Colosse, in regard to the slave Onesimus. Onesimus ran away from Philemon and made his way somehow to Paul. Paul lead him to Christ (vs. 10). Paul and Onesimus have a close relationship. It seems Onesimus has been a great help to Paul and Paul thinks of him as a son. However, Paul does not want to offend his fellow brother in Christ, so he is sending Onesimus back to his owner. Philemon has the right to put Onesimus to death, but Paul asks him to forgive his slave and welcome him back into the household as a brother in Christ.

There are two main points I think we need to focus on here:
1. Paul focused on RELATIONSHIP. Paul did not abuse his authority, nor did he make any demands or commands. Instead, he appealed in love. He asked & he backed up his request with facts and an offer of compensation. Once again Paul modeled the correct behavior of a good leader by putting others first.

2. Paul did not condemn or defend slavery. Slavery was widespread throughout the Roman empire. A lot of times, slavery worked as a welfare system. People who had no way of taking care of themselves could sell themselves to a wealthy person for a period of time. Basically it was a work situation: they exchanged work for room and board. Paul isn't trying to solve any political problems here. Instead, he is working to change the hearts of individuals.

So, I guess both of my points are about relationship. It always seems to come back to that.

Final question: what does this mean for us? I would say that we are to learn that it's all about relationships. Put God first, put others second, put yourself last in everything you do. Our circumstances will always change. There will be times in our lives when we don't like our circumstances and we have no power to change them. Our circumstances don't need to dictate our attitude! Every time I start getting down about my life, I am reminded of the Christians around this world who live under persecution. There is no way out of their circumstance, it is out of their control. Yet, you hear their stories, you see their shining faces. Where does that joy come from? God! Put Him first and let Him change your heart. Then you will find joy regardless of your situation.