PT-1 "Intro to Philemon 1-3"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/28/2017 10:23 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  PT-1 Introduction

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Philemon 1-3

            Message of the verses:  “1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved brother and fellow worker, 2 and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

            When letters were written when this letter was written the name of the one who wrote it was at the top of the letter unlike the way we construct a letter as we put our name at the end of the letter.  However even though it is different today than then most of the time when we get a letter in the mail today there is a return address on it to tell us who it came from.

            We know that Paul led Philemon to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but Philemon probably was excited to receive a letter from the apostle Paul, the man who turned the Roman world upside down as he helped spread the gospel to much of the Roman world.  Timothy and Titus were the only two other men who got letters from Paul that are found in the Bible.

            As we look at this first verse we see that Paul describes himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus.”  This is unique as no other letter he wrote that is found in the Word of God that Paul wrote begins this way.  We have written that Paul wrote Ephesians and also Colossians from prison and yet neither of those letters began by saying that he was in prison, only this one.  Many of his letters that he writes he says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, but I think with the content of this letter he did not want to go that route for he wanted Philemon to make his decision about Onesimus on his own with putting any pressure on him.

            Paul considered himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ even though he was in prison in Rome.  It was because of his work in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ that he was in the prison; otherwise he would not have been in prison for even before he left for Rome it was said that he had really done nothing wrong and would have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.   John MacArthur writes “By mentioning his imprisonment, Paul makes a subtle appeal to Philemon.  He sets up his case by saying in effect, ‘If I can face the harder task of being in prison, can you not do the easier one that I’m going ask you.’  Philemon knew all that Pau had suffered for the cause of Christ.  That knowledge was bound to have an effect on his willingness to do what Paul asked him.”

            We now move on to Timothy who was the coauthor of Philemon, but he was with Paul when he wrote the letter.  Paul’s description of Timothy was “our brother” as Timothy knew Philemon.  Paul mentions Timothy first and later mentions others.  Paul mentions Timothy at the beginning of his letters in many of them.  6/28/2017 10:46 PM