Following Jesus: People, People Everywhere “If I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 2:16 Philemon 1-3 For the last quarter of our study on discipleship, let’s look at an interesting, insightful relationship between a disciple-maker and his disciple: the Apostle Paul and Philemon, whose book carries the same name. Philemon is one of those books you will miss if you thumb through your Bible too fast.. Yet it has a powerful message not only for “the church in [Philemon’s] house” (v.1), but also for the church today. Philemon shows us what it means to follow Christ when it comes to forgiveness and reconciliation among people. Somebody once said that he could be really happy if it weren’t for people. People have a way of messing our lives up. The problem is, you and I are people too, and there are so many people running around that we keep running into them wherever we go. In fact, Onesimus found out that even when you run away from some people, you run into other people. You know what I’m talking about. You change jobs to get away from troublesome people, and you run smack into other bad-news people on your new job. Same thing often happens when people change churches. Since we humans are here to stay, we had better learn how to relate to each other. Fortunately, we have God’s word to guide us. Relationships are one of the most important topics in the Bible, particularly in Paul’s letters to various churches where people of all sorts were rubbing shoulders. Philemon was evidently a prominent person in the church at Colossae (Archippus [Philemon 2} is also mentioned in Colossians 4:17). Apphia was probably Philemon’s wife. Onesimus was his servant, actually his slave. From what we can tell, Onesimus stole money from Philemon and ran away. The punishment for a runaway slave in the Roman Empire was death, so Paul had a definite relationship problem on his hands. Paul was a Roman prisoner when he wrote this book, so a lot of folk were being “done wrong” here. Over the next 4 days we’ll see how this all fits together. The old blues song says, “Somebody done done you wrong.” Is that true for you today? Then get to know Philemon, and you’ll learn how to handle that hurt. Posted by David Coleman of The DC Ministry “Sharing The Gospel.”
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 10:16:25 +0000
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