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Date Posted:13:49:22 07/06/07 Fri In reply to:
's message, "A lesson for all" on 13:45:12 07/06/07 Fri
>We are going to begin this morning a study of a brand
>new book in the New Testament, the book of Philemon.
>And I want you to turn to it, it's just very brief,
>one chapter, 25 verses, a lesson on forgiveness. The
>little book of Philemon, for those of you who are
>wandering around in the index of your Bible, is tucked
>between Titus and Hebrews.
>
>Of all of the human qualities that make men in any
>sense like God, none is more divine than forgiveness.
>God is a God of forgiveness. In fact, in Exodus
>chapter 34 God identifies Himself in that way. Verse 6
>says, "Then the Lord passed by in front of Him and
>proclaimed," this is the Lord speaking of Himself,
>"The Lord, the Lord God compassionate and gracious,
>slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and
>truth who keeps loving kindness for thousands who
>forgives iniquity, transgression and sin." He says I
>am the God of forgiveness. That is who I am.
>
>Solomon said, "It is a man's glory to overlook a
>transgression," Proverbs 19:11. Man is never more like
>God than when he forgives because God is never more
>like God than when He forgives.
>
>Now the theme of forgiveness is obviously throughout
>the Scripture emphasized. But there are some high
>points where we see the forgiveness of God in bold
>relief. One of them may be the most familiar is the
>story of the prodigal son from Luke 15. I'm only going
>to refer to it because I know you know the story well.
>A father who had two sons and one of the sons was
>weary of being in the father's house and wanted to go
>and live on his own and take all of his inheritance.
>And he did that, left the house, wasted all his
>substance in sin. And then when he reached the low
>point of life, wanted to come back and be only a
>servant in his father's house because being a servant
>in the father's house would be better than being what
>he had become. That son was not unlike many sons,
>greedy, anxious to get his hands on wealth he had not
>earned, so humanly foolish in the way that he spent it
>on fast living with those who exploited him and left
>him in misery when his money ran out. But slowly he
>came to his senses because he was dying of hunger in a
>pig sty that really mirrored his life. Then came the
>awakening. He said, "My father's servants live far
>better than I and I will arise and go to my father."
>
>It seems in the story of the prodigal son that the
>young man did not expect forgiveness. He only expected
>some kind of mild tolerance. All he wanted was the
>chance to say to his father, "I've been a bum and I
>just...I'm not worthy to be your son any longer but
>could you just make me a slave? I know I forfeited
>ever being a son, but could I just be a slave? All I
>really want is a roof over my head and all I want is a
>little better food than pig slop." And so he started
>on the road back. And it is then that Jesus teaches us
>how to forgive.
>
>The father didn't even wait for the son to get there.
>He ran to the son when he saw him in the distance. His
>words were not unkind. The Bible says he fell on his
>neck and kissed him repeatedly. And so Jesus tells us
>what the heart of forgiveness is like, it is eager,
>not reluctant, it doesn't even wait for the sinner to
>arrive. In fact, when you see him coming far away, you
>run to meet him and you embrace him and kiss him. And
>when he starts to say he's sorry, you hardly listen to
>that, you don't even give him time to finish, you just
>embrace him, love him, put him in your best outfit,
>put a ring on his finger, get the best meat out of
>freezer, cook up the best meal you can put together,
>start the music, rejoice with your friends and proudly
>invite everybody to come to the celebration of your
>son that has come back. That's how God forgives.
>That's how He wants us to forgive.
>
>The Lord warns us also from that story of the prodigal
>son that such forgiveness will be unappreciated, such
>forgiveness will be misunderstood. You say, "How is
>that?" Well you do remember, don't you, that the son
>who never went anywhere didn't appreciate this at all
>and was angry with his father for being so forgiving.
>And there are a lot of sort of "in the house" children
>who will pout and call you a fool for such stupid
>forgiveness and tell you you ought to send him back to
>the pig sty where he belongs. But the forgiving father
>can only say that he loves and he will always love
>even the one who has no deserving for forgiveness.
>
>From that story we learn how God forgives...eagerly,
>totally, lavishly. And is it any wonder on the basis
>of that that when Jesus taught us to pray the best
>words that He could think of for us who have so great
>a need to be forgiven were the words "Forgive us our
>trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
>us"? Those words really put our feet to the fire. They
>tell us that God's forgiveness of us is based on our
>forgiveness of others. James put it this way in
>chapter 2 verse 13, "There will be judgment without
>mercy for those who have not been merciful
>themselves." Or to take it in a positive note, the
>Beatitudes say, "Blessed are the merciful for they
>shall obtain mercy." You want mercy? Give it. You want
>forgiveness? Give it and forgive like God for you are
>never more like God than when you forgive.
>
>Listen again to the words of Jesus in His disciples
>prayer of Matthew. Matthew says it this way, "Forgive
>us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors."
>And then he says, "For if you forgive men their
>transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive
>you, but if you do not forgive men then your Father
>will not forgive your transgressions." You don't
>forgive, you don't get forgiven.
>
>Now when Paul was in his first Roman imprisonment he
>wrote several letters, namely Ephesians, Colossians,
>Philippians. We call those "the prison epistles"
>because they were written from prison, an imprisonment
>from which Paul was later released and then later on
>another imprisonment in which he had been martyred.
>But the first imprisonment in Rome was the location at
>which Paul wrote these well-known epistles.
>Particularly Ephesians and Colossians interest us
>because they are tied in to this little letter of
>Philemon. In both Ephesians and Colossians there is a
>major emphasis on the matter of forgiveness. I want to
>show that to you so take your Bible for just a moment
>and look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32. And here the
>Apostle Paul says to the Ephesian believers, and of
>course this was a circular letter that went all over
>Asia Minor. But he says to all of them and to us, "Be
>kind to one another, tender hearted...here's the same
>principle...forgiving each other just as God in Christ
>also has forgiven you."
>
>In Colossians chapter 3, this letter written to the
>church at Colossae and also circulated to the church
>at Laodicea and no doubt others, chapter 3 verse 13.
>He says, "We are to bearing with one another and
>forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against
>anyone just as the Lord forgave you, so also should
>you."
>
>Now if you pull all of these together you get the very
>clear idea that God is a forgiving God and you are to
>be forgiving people. That's basic. In fact, God has
>forgiven you, so you should forgive. That's one
>principle. The other one is God will forgive you if
>you do forgive.
>
>And so, on the one hand the Scripture says God has
>forgiven you therefore forgive, and on the other hand
>the Scripture says if you don't forgive God won't
>forgive you and you will have violated the
>relationship, the fellowship that you could enjoy with
>God.
>
>The Lord has forgiven all of us all of our sins and
>therefore Paul says we should forgive each other. And
>if we don't, we're going to be chastened by God.
>That's plain and simple the message.
>
>Now, this principle is given very clear perspective in
>Matthew 18 and I want to take you there and we'll
>going to do all of this to get us right in to
>Philemon. I want to show in Matthew 18 how this
>principle is illustrated in a parable. And you're
>familiar with it if you were in our study of Matthew.
>Matthew 18, Peter says to the Lord, "If somebody sins
>against me...verse 21...and I forgive him, how many
>times do I do that? Seven?" The rabbi said three so
>Peter thought he was being very generous. Jesus said
>in verse 22 of Matthew 18, "I do not say to you up to
>seven times but up to seventy times seven." In other
>words, you forgive as many times as someone sins
>against you. Just keep on endlessly forgiving.
>
>And then He tells a parable that makes the point. And
>it's a parable that depicts God and the sinner. The
>king in the parable is God. The man who owes the big
>debt is the sinner. "The Kingdom of Heaven
>then...verse 23...may be compared to a certain
>king...that's God...who wished to settle accounts with
>his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them there
>was brought to him one who owed him 10 thousand
>talents." That's an unpayable debt, massive debt he
>could never pay. "Since he didn't have the means to
>repay his lord commanded him to be sold along with his
>wife and children and all that he had and repayment to
>be made." The debt was too much to pay but if all
>these people were sold into slavery at least the king
>could get something. The man had obviously defrauded
>him. Probably one of those servants who was a tax
>collector and who had charge over great sums of money
>and had defrauded the king and now had lost it all and
>had no means to pay. And he said, "Well, if I can't
>get what I owe, I'll get what I can. So sell all of
>his family into slavery and at least give me that."
>
>"The slave therefore...verse 26...falling down
>prostrated himself before him saying, Have patience
>with me and I'll repay you everything." He had a right
>heart, he had a willing spirit even though he couldn't
>have done it, his intention was right. "The lord of
>that slave felt compassion and released him and
>forgave him the debt." That's God and the sinner. When
>the sinner comes before God and is convicted about his
>unpayable debt, he's convicted about his sin and God
>tells him you have no means to pay me, you should be
>sent to hell, you should pay whatever you can pay even
>though you could never pay me what you owe me. And
>that's what hell is, by the way, it's spending forever
>paying what you could pay which never does pay the
>debt you fully owe because you've affronted God so
>greatly as one who rejected His Son.
>
>But this king is compassionate and when he sees the
>man's willingness, he forgives him the debt. Now here
>comes the point. "The slave went out," he had just
>been forgiven, "he found his fellow slaves who owed
>him a hundred denarii, one of them," that's a hundred
>days wages, not a major debt. "He seized him, began to
>choke him, saying, Pay back what you owe." And the
>people who would be listening to Jesus tell the story
>at this point would be absolutely outraged. "So his
>fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him
>saying, Have patience with me and I'll repay you. He
>was unwilling, however, but when...threw him in a
>prison until he should pay back what he owed."
>
>This is unthinkable. Here is a man who has been
>forgiven a massive debt who turns right around and
>won't forgive somebody a small debt. "When his fellow
>slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved
>and came and reported to their lord all that had
>happened. Then summoning him his lord said to him, You
>wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you
>asked me. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow
>slave even as I had mercy on you?" And there's that
>principle. You want mercy from God, you show mercy.
>You want forgiveness from God, you be forgiving. "And
>his lord moved with anger handed him over to the
>torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.
>So shall My heavenly Father also do to you if each of
>you does not forgive his brother from your heart."
>
>Boy, what a story! What a story! That parable is so
>severe that there are many people who conclude that
>the principle Jesus teaches couldn't possibly apply to
>a Christian. But it does. Because the man who wouldn't
>forgive the slave was a forgiven man, that is God had
>already forgiven him, he is a child of God. But what
>it tells us is that the Lord will sometimes deal very
>harshly with His own children who will not forgive
>someone else, whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and
>every son He scourges, Hebrews 12 says. And one of the
>reasons He disciplines and scourges us and makes life
>very trying and difficult is because we have an
>unforgiving heart towards someone. Christians then are
>to forgive. That is the principle taught in Scripture,
>that is the principle illustrating the character of
>God in the parable of the prodigal son, and that is
>the principle illustrated in this parable to be true
>of every believer. This is a matter, I think, not only
>of blessing and fellowship with God, but it's also a
>matter of the assurance of salvation.
>
>Thomas Watson wrote many years ago a very interesting
>statement. He said this, "We need not climb up into
>heaven to see whether our sins are forgiven. Let us
>look into our hearts and see if we can forgive others.
>If we can, we need not doubt that God has forgiven
>us."
>
>And so, there is a principle in Scripture and that is
>this, you are never more like God than when you
>forgive. And such forgiveness should come easy because
>you have been forgiven. And if you do not forgive,
>then you'll put yourself in a position to be chastened
>by God severely. Now the priority of forgiveness is
>not only given in Scripture in principle, it's not
>only given in Scripture in parable, but it is given in
>Scripture in personal terms. And it's in the book of
>Philemon. Let's look at it.
>
>Here in the shortest letter of Paul's inspired
>writings is the major issue of forgiveness laid out
>not in principle, not in parable but in a personal
>case. The prodigal son, not a true story. The king and
>the servant, not a true story. Those were simply
>parables fabricated by Christ to make a point. This, a
>true story. Now we're going to see the principle flesh
>out. Let's read the first three verses.
>
>"Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our
>brother to Philemon our beloved brother and fellow
>worker and to Apphia, our sister, and to Archippus,
>our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house;
>grace to you and peace from God our Father and the
>Lord Jesus Christ." Now this is a very typical Pauline
>introduction. It begins with the word "Paul." Ancient
>letters always started with the name of the one
>writing, which makes a lot of sense. You get a long
>letter and you have to fumble through all the pages to
>find out who it's from. Never in ancient times, they
>always started with the name of the man or the woman
>who authored it. It signals then that this is from the
>Apostle Paul. You can imagine that when Philemon got
>this letter and he saw "Paul" his adrenalin started to
>flow. His heart began to beat more rapidly because
>Paul was not only the great Apostle that everybody
>knew about, and Paul was not only the one who had, in
>a sense, founded the very church at Colossae where
>Philemon lived, but Paul had personally led the man to
>Christ. And so Paul identifies himself and certainly
>set Philemon's heart racing.
>
>Paul identifies himself as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
>This is a note to tell us that he is in prison. It's
>the same place from which he wrote Philippians,
>Colossians and Ephesians. This is the fourth of the
>prison epistles, this little letter to an individual
>and the only one of those four written to an
>individual. And Paul says, "I am a prisoner of Jesus
>Christ." He never identifies himself in that way to
>start with in any of his other epistles. Usually he
>wanted to identify himself as an Apostle, as having
>been called by God as a servant of Jesus Christ to lay
>down some authority on them, to emphasize his calling
>and emphasize his authority. He even did that, by the
>way, in his letters to Timothy even though they were
>personal letters that he was writing to one individual
>and even his letter to Titus, in those cases though
>they were personal letters like this one, he still
>mentions his Apostleship because they had to take his
>authority and carry it out in the life of a church
>that needed correction and direction and it needed to
>come through them as an authoritative word from Paul.
>This, however, bears no such necessity. He is not
>laying some authoritative message on the church, he is
>speaking tenderly, personally, warmly, compassionately
>to a friend. And it is an appeal to his heart, an
>appeal to his compassion, to his love, so there's no
>need to refer to his apostolic office or calling or
>authority.
>
>He says "I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus." It's a
>wonderful note because it is the way you would expect
>to react to the Romans. The Romans thought he was a
>prisoner of Rome. They had captured him. They had
>incarcerated him. He was under their authority. But
>from his vantage point he was a prisoner of Jesus
>Christ. He was in prison because Christ put him there,
>not because Rome put him there. And if you ever have
>any questions about that, all you have to do is remind
>yourself of some of the things that he said while he
>was in prison, most namely this one at the end of
>Philippians, "Greet every saint in Christ Jesus, all
>the saints greet you especially those of Caesar's
>household." The Lord had him in prison and while he
>was there he was evangelizing Caesar's household.
>
>On a number of occasions in Ephesians, chapter 4 verse
>1, chapter 6 verse 19 and 20, as well as Colossians
>chapter 4, he refers to himself as a prisoner. But it
>was for preaching Christ and it was for the sake of
>Christ and it was by the will of Christ that he was a
>prisoner. And he is saying this to Philemon, and I
>think it's very wise because what he is really saying
>sort of subtly to Philemon is, "Look, Philemon, if I
>can do this for Christ, can you do for Him what I ask?
>If I can bear the harder task of being in this prison,
>can you do the easier task that I'm going to ask you
>to do, and that is to forgive?" He's very wise, Paul.
>He's very tactful. Because as soon as Philemon hears
>the word "Paul" his love begins to well up. And as
>soon as he reads "a prisoner of Christ Jesus" his eyes
>may fill with tears as he thinks about this beloved
>man that led him to Christ, this great Apostle bearing
>the pain and agony of imprisonment. And as he thinks
>about all that Paul has suffered to bring the gospel
>to people like him, it's bound to have an effect on
>his willingness to do what Paul asks him to do.
>
>And then Paul throws in, "Paul a prisoner of Christ
>Jesus and Timothy our brother." Timothy is not a
>co-author. Timothy is just a present companion...a
>brother in Christ. Timothy had been with Paul on his
>third missionary journey, Acts chapter 19, he was
>acquainted with the believers in Colossae, probably
>had met Philemon and so this would be a word from
>somebody that Philemon knew. But there are others with
>Paul that Philemon might have known. I mean, there
>was, as far as we can tell if we put it all together,
>in Rome there was Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Aristarchus,
>a fellow prisoner, there was Mark, there was Jesus
>Justus, there was Epaphras, there was Luke and there
>was Demas. Why doesn't he talk about these guys? Why
>doesn't he make some reference to them? Well he does
>at the end of the letter. But at the very beginning of
>the letter he mentions Timothy, all the rest of them
>he mentions at the end of the letter. Why? I believe
>it's because Timothy is often singled out in the
>introductory part of a letter because Paul knew that
>some day he would pass the baton of spiritual
>leadership primarily to the hands of Timothy and he
>wanted to set Timothy in place as one who had the role
>of leader. And so he identified Timothy closely, very
>closely, with himself.
>
>And so it is then from Paul, along with the greetings
>of Timothy, to Philemon, that is the man who is the
>head of a family in Colossae. Colossae was a small
>town. The church there was probably very small. And
>the church met in his house. So we know he was a
>wealthy man. Most of the people in the Roman Empire
>who became Christians were slaves. Some of them were
>freemen, that is slaves prior and now free. Few of
>them were wealthy, not many noble, not many mighty.
>And wherever you had a wealthy person that was
>converted, they had a house. Slaves and freemen didn't
>have such things. Most of the freemen lived in
>apartments, or single rooms and paid a modest sum.
>Wealthy people owned their own homes. So here is a man
>of some means who has the church meeting in his house.
>
>He calls him "our beloved brother and fellow worker,"
>and that means our dear friend. A familiar description
>that Paul uses both of individuals and groups,
>agapetos, the beloved one. Fellow worker, simply again
>a term used by Paul very many times to speak of people
>who worked with him. So here is a man he loved and a
>man who had worked alongside of him. Now this
>friendship probably developed in Ephesus, just as a
>note, because Paul never went to Colossae. When I said
>he was responsible for the founding of the church
>there it was because he founded Ephesus, stayed there
>three years and out of Ephesus all those other
>churches in Asia Minor were planted. No doubt during
>the time Paul was at Ephesus, this man was converted,
>came to know Paul on a personal way even though he
>lived a little distance away in the very small town of
>Colossae. So they had from then on developed a
>friendship. And Paul now is going to put his
>friendship on the line, folks, he really is. This is a
>straight-forward letter. He's going to ask Philemon to
>do something in the area of forgiveness that is
>crucial.
>
>Further, verse 2, addresses the letter to Apphia, our
>sister. That, no doubt, is his wife. I think the King
>James says, "Apphia, our beloved." The better reading
>is "Apphia, our sister," our sister in Christ. And
>again, this is most certainly Philemon's wife and also
>a friend of Paul. Then he says, "And to Archippus, our
>fellow soldier." Most likely this is their son. Their
>son, Archippus, an older son and a noble Christian who
>had come alongside Paul in the spiritual battle
>somewhere, fought valiantly in that war and is
>commended for his spiritual life.
>
>Over in Colossians 4:17 Archippus is mentioned again.
>Philemon is never mentioned anywhere else and neither
>is Apphia. But Archippus is mentioned there as Paul
>writes to the Colossian church. He says to Archippus,
>"Take heed to the ministry which you have received in
>the Lord that you may fulfill it." So this young man
>was in the ministry. We don't know to what to extent
>or in what specifics, but here was a father and a
>mother with a church in their house and a son who was
>in the ministry. He had served, no doubt, in Colossae
>and had served also in Laodicea, as the note at the
>end of the letter to the Colossians indicates. So this
>little family is very important in the life of Paul.
>And with the issue of forgiveness at stake becomes an
>opportunity for Paul to make a very important point
>the Holy Spirit wants him to make.
>
>The end of verse 2, "The church in your house." Now
>Paul wanted the letter read there. It was a private
>letter but he wanted it read so that the whole church
>would hold Philemon accountable for this and so that
>they would all learn the lesson of forgiveness and so
>they would all know how to treat the forgiven man.
>
>Now I need to note for you that when you go back in
>ancient times most churches would have met in a home,
>if they were not meeting outdoors. Church buildings
>didn't start until the third century. They were
>meeting in homes. This was very typical. Still there
>are places in the world where churches even today
>still meet in homes. There's nothing necessarily
>sacred about that, but church buildings didn't really
>develop until about the third century. The oldest
>known church has been found in eastern Syria in a
>place called Dura Europos(?) and they believe it dates
>around 232 A.D. That would be in the third century. So
>at this time before church buildings were built as
>such they were meeting in homes and here was a house
>church in his house.
>
>In verse 3 we find the standard greeting. I'm not
>going to spend a lot of time on it. He says, "Grace to
>you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
>Christ." There is the typical standard Christian
>greeting. Grace, the means of salvation; peace, the
>result of salvation. And may I also note, I can't
>resist saying, that when it says "from God our Father
>and the Lord Jesus Christ," the union of those two
>together would be blasphemous if Jesus were a man or
>an angel...can you understand that? This must be
>understood as an affirmation of the deity of Jesus
>Christ. If Jesus were a man, to make that kind of
>combination would be blasphemous. If Jesus were an
>angel, to make that kind of combination would be
>blasphemous, for it is saying that grace which saves
>and peace which is the result of it comes as its
>source from God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and
>therefore they must be divine, both. And thus does
>Paul introduce his letter...the only one of his prison
>letters to an individual.
>
>Now there has been much written about the purpose of
>this letter. And I don't want to spend a lot of time
>on it but I want to give you a little feel for how
>this letter has been approached. Some think the
>purpose of this letter is to demonstrate the nature of
>Christian love, and certainly that is present here.
>Some suggest that the purpose is to reveal the working
>of God's providence, and certainly there is that
>element. Some suggest it is an example of proper
>manners and Christian courtesy. There are no commands,
>there is nothing offensive, just the pleadings of
>love. And certainly that's true. Some think its
>purpose is to give principles for the maintenance of
>good Christian relations. In fact I was talking to a
>man recently who is writing a book on Philemon and
>that's the approach he's taking. Some suggest that the
>purpose of the letter is to reveal the effect of
>conversion on culture and society. Some believe and
>many believe this that it's an attack on the
>institution of slavery and the purpose of Philemon was
>to tear down slavery. Well certainly the principles of
>Philemon will have an effect upon the abuses of
>slavish relationships, no question about that.
>
>But it must be noted, because this last one is the
>most popular approach, seemingly, that no place in
>Scripture is there any effort ever made to abolish
>slavery. And at no time did any prophets or preachers
>or teachers or apostles of the New Testament ever
>attack slavery. But any call to righteous living, any
>call to holy love, will eliminate the abuses that are
>any social system. In fact, quite the contrary, there
>are throughout the New Testament many many texts where
>slavery becomes a model of Christian principle,
>slavery becomes a picture, as it were, as we are
>related to God as His slaves and His servants. And
>repeatedly whether Ephesians 6 or Colossians 4 or 1
>Timothy 6:1 and 2, or 1 Peter 2:18, slaves are told to
>be obedient, submissive, loyal and faithful to their
>masters no matter how they act, and masters are told
>to treat their slaves with love and equity and
>kindness and fairness no matter what they might do. So
>while nothing attacks the institution of slavery,
>everything in Christian principle attacks the abuses
>of any social system, including slavery. Slavery was
>so much a part of the Roman Empire, the whole society
>was built on it. And by the time of Christ slavery
>wasn't necessarily what we think it is today, it had
>been modified. There had been some laws passed and in
>very many cases slaves were treated very well. In
>fact, if you read of the ancient literature around the
>time of Christ you will find that most writers will
>say a man was better off a slave than he was a runaway
>slave, very often better off a slave than he was even
>a freeman because as a slave he was assured of care
>and food and a place to sleep. And if he had a good
>and kind master, life was very prosperous for him.
>Slaves by the time of Christ could be fully educated
>in every discipline, many of them in fact went into
>medical professions. Slaves could take the benefit of
>owning their own property and developing their own
>economics and their own economy. Slaves could leave
>their estates to their own children. So by the time of
>Christ slavery had moved away from many of the earlier
>abuses though those abuses still in some cases did
>occur. And we'll see that even in the book of James
>where some Christians who must have been as slaves or
>servants were treated in a very unkind and physically
>abusive way. But slavery was changing and the
>Christian gospel coming into that world and the
>Christian preachers were not about to change the focus
>on to a social issue from a spiritual one, you can
>only imagine that if Jesus and the Apostles had begun
>to attack slavery what would have happened in the
>Roman Empire. Sixty million slaves revolting would
>have been an unbelievable situation. Society would
>have been thrown in to such chaos and disarray and
>even you can imagine that when such a rebellion would
>have begun, slaves would have been crushed and
>massacred savagely.
>
>So, there was some reason in the changing mood of the
>Roman Empire to see some hope for abolishing slavery,
>and that hope would come through changed hearts. The
>seeds of the end of slavery were sewn in the Roman
>Empire by the Christian gospel and eventually slavery
>died. Just as every where in the world slavery has
>died when the Christian gospel came. It certainly was
>true in America eventually. Christianity, you see,
>introduces a new relationship between a man and a man,
>a relationship in which external differences don't
>matter and we are one in Christ, Jew or Gentile, slave
>or free, there's neither Greek nor Jew, said Paul,
>circumcision or uncirumcision, barbarian or Scythian,
>slave or free man. This does not attack the
>institution of slavery. In fact, it does the very
>opposite of that. It tells a slave to go back to his
>master and be the kind of slave he ought to be to a
>faithful and loving master.
>
>Its theme then is forgiveness, that is its message,
>that is its intent. The story behind the letter makes
>that absolutely clear. Let me read you the story and
>we're going to make just a few comments on it. Verse
>4, "I thank my God always, always making mention of
>you in my prayers because I hear of your love and of
>the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and
>toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship
>of your faith may become effective through the
>knowledge of every good thing which is in you for
>Christ's sake. For I have come to have much joy and
>comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints
>have been refreshed through you, brother. Therefore
>though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you
>to do that which is proper, yet for love's sake I
>rather appeal to you since I am such a person as Paul
>the aged and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I
>appeal to you for my child whom I have begotten in my
>imprisonment, Onesimus, who formerly was useless to
>you but now is useful both to you and to me. And I
>have sent him back to you in person, that is sending
>my very heart, whom I wish to keep with me that in
>your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment
>for the gospel. But without your consent I didn't want
>to do anything that your goodness should not be as it
>were by compulsion but of your own free will. For
>perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a
>while that you should have him back forever, no longer
>as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother,
>especially to me, but how much more to you both in the
>flesh and in the Lord. If then you regard me a
>partner, accept him as you would me, but if he has
>wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge
>that to my account." We'll stop there.
>
>This is an incredible story. Philemon was led to
>Christ by Paul. Probably during Paul's three years in
>Ephesus, as I said, though he lived in Colossae, he
>met Paul. He had a slave and the slave's name was
>Onesimus. And the relationship of these two people,
>Philemon and Onesimus, is really the context of this
>call to forgiveness. The story is fascinating.
>
>Years had passed since Philemon's conversion. Paul is
>now a prisoner in Rome. Philemon is active in ministry
>in his church. He's got the church meeting in his
>house. He's busy serving, refreshing the brethren by
>his usefulness. His slave, Onesimus, not a believer,
>probably felt the heat of a believing family. Apphia,
>his wife, having been converted and Archippus their
>son, Onesimus decided that he would be better off to
>run away even though his family that he was employed
>by was a good family and so he ran away. As the text
>indicates, when he ran away he took some money, he
>stole from his master.
>
>Now slavery was changing but it wasn't changing so
>much that a slave could steal, wasn't changing so much
>that a slave could run away. Some would tell us that
>in some places the death penalty for such activity was
>still in place and that slave could lose his life.
>Others would say the punishment was a severe
>imprisonment, or even physical corporal punishment.
>Onesimus had committed by all Roman law a crime, a
>felony, a major crime and had left and tried to hide.
>
>Some times when a slave ran away and was caught, they
>would put an "F", burn an "F" into his head, F for
>fugitivus, fugitive. Some of them that we know in
>history were crucified. Some were tortured. Running
>away was a serious offense. He ran where I suppose you
>would think he would run, he ran to Rome because that
>was the biggest city. The estimate is the population
>was about 870 thousand at this time and he thought he
>could hide himself in the underworld of Rome and try
>to survive. We talk about street people today. We talk
>about the homeless. He would be one of them. He would
>be living in the underground, sleeping in back alleys,
>holes in the ground.
>
>One study of the Sacred Treasury of the Romans for the
>years 81 to 49, that would be B.C., included taxes for
>manumission. Manumission means the releasing of
>slaves. Slavery was changing so fast that people were
>releasing their slaves. Every time they released a
>slave, five percent of the value of that slave had to
>be paid to the government. In finding this ancient
>study of the years 81 to 49 and using the amount of
>money that is recorded in the records, the conclusion
>is that in that year 30-year period five hundred
>thousand slaves were freed...just in that 30-year
>period. The records of Augustus Caesar show that when
>masters died typically slaves were freed wholesale. If
>a master died, all his slaves were free. This became
>such a problem, you've got 500 thousand slaves and
>they all are moving toward the cities that they had
>been freed, you've got people dying and freeing all
>their slaves and the number is so great that the
>government made a law and in the time of Caesar
>Augustus the law was that when a man died he could
>never free more than a certain percentage of his
>slaves. If he had five, he could free one. If he had
>ten, he could free two. Why? Because there was a glut
>of homeless unemployed running all over the place in
>the Roman Empire. Even though slaves had gained most
>of the rights of freemen, even though they could be
>educated in all fields, even though they had better
>living conditions than the freemen when they stayed in
>the place where they were employed by their master,
>they had better food and better clothes, they were
>treated better, they were part of a family, they were
>used to teach the children, provide medical care for
>the children, they took care of the finances, they
>were allowed to marry, they were allowed to own
>property, they could develop their own life, they were
>allowed in every religion, still many of them ran. The
>dream of freedom. And they ended up in a worse
>situation. Who knows what kind of mess Onesimus was
>in? And by the amazing providence of God, think of it,
>in a city of somewhere around 870 thousand, or nearly
>a million people, he ran in to the Apostle Paul.
>
>Now you've got to imagine that he had some personal
>needs, right? And maybe he knew that Paul was
>preaching there and he wanted to hear this man preach.
>Even though Paul was a prisoner he must have had some
>access, such an imprisonment. It may have taken
>different forms which gave Paul not only access to his
>friends which are shown having some relation to him,
>but even to unbelievers. Paul persuaded Onesimus to
>become a Christian and he was converted. His life was
>transformed.
>
>Not only that, he became a help to Paul. It tells us,
>as we noted, in the text that he became a very
>encouraging servant to Paul in his confinement. Maybe
>he cooked meals for him and brought them, to give him
>proper nourishment. Maybe he provided information to
>him. We don't know. But as much as Paul loved him and
>as much as Paul wanted to keep him, Paul knew there
>was something that had to be settled. He was a
>criminal, this man. And the relationship between
>Onesimus and Philemon was not right. And you know
>Philemon was still holding this bitterness against a
>very close friend, for Onesimus even though a slave
>would have been a household slave and a very close
>companion. Onesimus was at fault. Philemon was a good
>Christian master. Philemon had been greatly wronged by
>Onesimus because financially he had stolen from him
>and also losing your employee like that would mean
>you'd have to hire someone else and you'd have to pay
>another price for another one. So Paul knew he had to
>go back. He had to go back with an attitude of
>repentance and he had to go back and ask Philemon for
>forgiveness.
>
>And the opportunity posed itself to send him back.
>Why? Paul had finished Colossians and he had finished
>Ephesians and he was going to send them back to those
>two churches with a man named Tychicus. So it was just
>the perfect opportunity to send Philemon his runaway
>slave.
>
>In Colossians chapter 4, just a note, as to all my
>affairs, he says, Tychicus, our beloved brother and
>faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord
>will bring you information. And then verse 9, "And
>with him, Onesimus." So he's sending Tychicus with
>these two letters and with Onesimus.
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