Five Things I learned from Philemon

For the past several weeks we have been working through the short letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to his friend and benefactor, Philemon. For those unfamiliar with the letter, the basic setup is that a (presumably young) slave named Onesimus (think, indentured servant) has cheated Philemon his master, likely robbing him of some money and then running away. The young useless slave meets Paul in prison (likely in Rome) and Paul leads him to the Lord, becomes his spiritual father, and disciples the young man so that he is now “useful.” The letter is an example of forgiveness and reconciliation working out in real time, for true repentance means making amends, and Onesimus now needs to go back to the master he has defrauded to continue his service to him. But in the process, Paul writes a personal letter to Philemon and persuades him to forgive this man – for as the Old Christmas hymn says, “the slave is our brother.”

So here are my five reflections on what this letter has been teaching me:

1. This letter teaches us that Christian fellowship is far more than coffee and donuts after the service. (And as Doug Wilson once said, it is also not less than coffee and donuts after the service.) Paul and Philemon have a partnership in the gospel – koinonia. That is the Greek word we generally translate as “fellowship”; and as N.T. Wright somewhere once said, it’s the keyword and the central idea in this letter. Paul appeals to the fellowship or partnership he has with his friend Philemon as he makes his appeal for reconciliation (verse 17). But if you look closely, koinonia is more than what we generally think of when we think of fellowship. Paul is talking here about both a shared life and a shared mission, both gospel-rich participation together and gospel-advancing partnership together. We use the language of “business partnership” today and that is close to what Paul means in this letter. Christians are, at least in some sense, business partners in the ministry of the gospel. We want to be diligent workers together in the venture of grace. I was struck by the business language in this book and we need to remember that mission is embedded in the very idea of fellowship as we advance the gospel in our community life.

And on the topic of business…

2. This letter teaches us all over about business ethics. Should you treat a Christian employee the same way as a non-Christian employee? The letter of Philemon is a resounding YES – the grace of Christ sends the slave back to work. Christianity is not a free ride. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Wow. And yet, if you look a little closer, the answer is also NO! For now, the slave is our brother. The Christian employee is your brother. This is the profound paradox of Philemon. We need to treat one another very well in the family of God, and that means doing the right thing in the difficult, dirty details. It also means extending the grace of Christ, treating people as you would like to be treated, and prizing Christian relationships – like you would with your own physical brother or sister. The shared family relationships we have together are not to be treated lightly, and they cannot be used as a rationale to take advantage.

For a practical example today, the Christian man who hires a Christian drywaller should not expect to get a discount any more than the drywaller should expect to get a large tip. Things need to be kept straight and cut clean – the terms and conditions matter. But if one of these brothers chooses to give either a discount or a tip then that is their free choice to express free grace- after all, they are brothers. But grace is never to be presumed upon, whether from God or from man (c.f. Romans 6:1).

And that leads to the next point on Christian family life together…

3. This letter gives a compelling picture of spiritual fatherhood. I was gobsmacked that I hadn’t seen how prominent this idea is in the New Testament. Paul all over the place demonstrates spiritual fatherhood – to Onesimus (verse 10), to Timothy (2 Tim. 1:2), to the whole church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:15). Where are the spiritual fathers in Jesus’ Church today? We have many teachers but not many fathers (1 Cor. 4:15).  In fact, most people I talk lately about this have gotten a little squinty-eyed when I tell them that spiritual fatherhood is true fatherhood just like biological fatherhood. It is. And that is because it derives from the same God the Father from who all the families in heaven get their name (Ephesians 3:15). Wrestle with that. Don’t farm out the care of young souls to the youth pastor (solely), we need many fathers and many tough-and-tender men of compassion and grit. (And the same is true of spiritual mothers like too, like Rufus’ dear mother whom Paul says “a mother to me” in Romans 16:13.)

4. This letter is an incredible case study in forgiveness and reconciliation. Be the mediator. Write letters to the people who can’t seem to get along in your life and call out the best in others. Follow Paul’s example of persuasion, and his encouraging tone – he is confident in Philemon’s obedience (verse 21).. Have the hard conversations. Offer sincere apologies. Truly forgive. Seek unity in Christian life together.

5. This letter demonstrates the right kind of gospel-negotiation. Paul is a wheeler and dealer of grace. He is a slick negotiator of mercy. He knows just what to say and just how to say it, and there is a lot for us here to learn in this thing of influence, persuasion, leverage, dare I say “manipulation,” all with the goal of growth, love, and transformed relationship. These are dangers tools to employ and when we use them we run the risk of either a self-inflicted injury or a real mess in the garage, yet some of the best tools in your garage are the dangerous ones. When it comes to Christians and speech our temptation is to use only one kind of tool for every job. A guy on Facebook named Michael Foster recently wrote that God has given us many tools: ‪”soft answers‬, ‪sharp rebukes, ‪encouragement, ‪fearful warnings, ‪sarcastic mocking, ‪disturbing metaphors, ‪rhetorical questions, ‪calls to action.” To that list, I would add persuasive appeals of rhetoric. We have a lot of tools in the tool belt and we need to learn to use them with skill.

As others have said, this letter stands out by how small it is, and also how non-doctrinal it is. Yet when you see some of what is going on here it is striking that this little, personal letter is packed full of gospel truth – but it’s gospel truth applied to life, business, and community. And that’s the best way to do theology. That’s the goal of grace – grace that goes all the way to your fingertips and grace that is felt around the dinner table when that repentant brother, formerly a useless putz, is now embraced back again at our table fellowship.

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty-Five

This is the final post in a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Revelation 5:12, 13
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and power to be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.

Merry Christmas!

This is such a fitting text for a Christmas morning. This hymn of praise is from all the host of heaven, directed to Jesus for He is the one who is worthy of all praise.

Notice how this song of praise is really a stacking up of superlatives: power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing. All of these words are meant to make this praise as exuberant and as full as possible. The host of heaven attributed these same words first to God on the throne in chapter four, and now they are directed to Jesus here in chapter 5 of Revelation. Jesus is God. The Messiah of Israel is the God before time.

Jesus is worthy of all our glory, for He subjected himself to sin and death and bore the full penalty of our sin. At Christmas we remember the incarnation, where that all began – where Christ condescended to be with us and to purchase us by His own blood.

This Christmas day, as you rejoice in the goodness of God, do not miss the best gift of all – the everlasting freedom that we have received through the shed blood of Jesus.

We will praise His name forevermore.

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty-Four

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Romans 8:31, 33, 34 KJV:
If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us.

Romans eight is perhaps the most comforting and encouraging chapter in all the Bible. And these verses are among the best of the entire chapter. The logic is simple and beautiful: if Jesus has justified you (declared you righteous), though you are a sinner, then who can stand against, or even speak against, what He has done?

If Jesus has placed His very own white garments on your blood-bought soul, then who can remove them?

If Jesus has declared in the loudest volume that you are now His own, then who can shout any louder?

If Jesus, every single day, is interceding for you before God the Father as your advocate and representative, then what other help do you need for your soul?

The glory of the good news of the salvation we have in Christ shines so brightly here. And yet sadly, the vast majority of Christians have not reflected long and hard enough here. We have forgotten the overwhelming sufficiency of Christ for all we need in life. We look for salvation in “the higher Christian life.” Or we look for salvation in a purity code or perhaps, for example, a particular business approach or dating approach. We look to Mary and the saints. We look for salvation in our teetotalism or other cheap definitions of holiness that all transfer the burden of salvation onto us and off of Christ.

But Christ has risen. And He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

As John Bunyan discovered when plagued with a guilty conscience, seeking to have a cleansed heart and to be righteous: “your righteousness is in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father.” And if He is seated there then nobody can say otherwise.

Today is a good day to rest in the finished work of Christ. Sit back. Enjoy Him. Receive Him. Rejoice that His work on your behalf is sufficient – you can’t contribute anything, so don’t keep trying to.

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty-Three

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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1 Corinthians 15:54b-57 KJV:

…then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵ O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

My wife lost a dear friend a few years ago, just as the Christmas season was approaching. It was an utter tragedy. She was a young lady in her early twenties – killed instantly in a head-on collision.

For many, Christmas is not a time of joy but rather an acute time of loss – a time of remembering loved ones now gone.

The great song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was forged in a season of loss and tragedy. The writer of the poem, Henry Longfellow, has lost his wife of 18 years and his son had recently left to serve in battle. Yet the message of the song is glorious – that Christmas itself is the hope of the world in the midst of loss. That is because baby Jesus came to die; and in His death He overcame death. Death died in the death of Christ. But for Jesus to die He needed a body. And Christmas – the incarnation – is the time when Jesus took on flesh and came on a rescue mission to overcome death in death.

He has pulled all the sting out of it.

He has conquered it.

And for those who trust in Him, He will give everlasting life.

My wife’s dear friend will be raised on the last day. She had a rock solid faith in Christ. And all those who trust in Jesus will dwell with Him, in the light of His presence, and in the company of the redeemed – forevermore.

The incarnation is the hope of the world, for it is the beginning of the death of death.

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty-Two

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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1 Cor 15:20-22, 51-53 KJV:

²⁰ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. ²¹ For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

⁵¹ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

Our strong individualism often makes it hard for us to appreciate the way God works with us through our ancestors, through their fathers. To borrow an over-used image from our culture, we are not all unique, separate snowflakes. Rather, we are small leaves growing off the end of a great and mighty tree – a family tree.

And that family tree is dead.

In Adam all die. When our first father, Adam, disobeyed God, we all disobeyed “in” him, for he was our head – our representative leader. We are mysteriously and organically united to him. And if the fountain head of the river is toxic it contaminates everything downstream. The natural state of man is corruption, sin, and death.

But if we are “in” Christ then we have a new head – a new representative leader. His family tree is alive – and alive forevermore. Instead of a poisonous stream, Christ is the first of all who would be resurrected to life – he is the first fruit that comes in on the first day of an abundant harvest – a harvest that will take ages to gather up.

The essence of the Christian gospel is that Jesus has come to take the place of Adam as our representative head. When Adam failed by eating the fruit of the tree, Jesus conquered by dying on a tree. And in Him we have access to the tree of life (Rev 22:2). At the second advent of Jesus – his second coming – all those united to him by faith will rise from their graves to meet him. The grave will not hold us down.

So whose family tree are you in? The old Adam or the new?

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty-One

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Job 19:25-26 KJV:
I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

These words were written thousands of years ago by Job, a righteous man who God allowed Satan to test with economic loss, the loss of his family, and severe sores in his body. Job was a wealthy man and he lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. As an interesting side note, some scholars are inclined to see Job as actually an ancient king. According to Genesis 36, “Jobab Ben Zeriah” was the kin of Edom (33-35). The dating seems to work and certainly the king would be a wealthy man.

The whole theology of Job is based on one concept: the retribution principle. If God has brought blessing into your life then it is because you have been righteous. And if God has brought evil into your life, it’s because you have been unrighteous. (As another aside, this is essentially the principle on which the book of proverbs operates.) Job is meant to be read alongside Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as Jewish wisdom literature – sometimes (like Jesus) the righteous have evil brought onto them under the sovereign purposes of God.

Job’s friends (“friends”) spend the majority of the book arguing that Job must be experiencing God’s judgment for his wrongdoings; yet Job maintains his righteousness. And more than that, in this verse he looks forward to the day when God will show up to declare his vindication as his Redeemer.

In the incarnation of Jesus, our Redeemer, we find both our righteousness and our vindication. Most all of us are, by default, people-pleasers, who seek the vindication of people rather than the vindication of God. But for those who have placed their hope in Christ, we find that at the most foundational level, nobody can utter a word against us – no man, no angel, no devil. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). “Who can bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33). If we are clothes in the righteous garments of Jesus, and God himself has placed ten in our shoulders, then nobody else can say one single word otherwise.

In many ways the great challenge for Christians is to develop a sensitive conscience towards God and a strong spine towards those who would accuse us of wrongdoing and spoil our freedom in Christ. Ignore the nice police. Don’t let the sensitive brigade look down on you. Let them cavil. God will establish your righteousness, and in fact in the death and resurrection of Christ, He already has. Our duty now is to follow our Redeemer in the freedom of the gospel, to confess when we have done wrong before God and man, and then to refuse to apologize, like Job, when we know we have done the right thing before the face of God, the judge of all the earth.

This Christmas may you know the freedom of the gospel and the vindication that Christ will bring when at last He comes again on that great Day.

Meditations on the Messiah // Twenty

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Revelation 19:6, 11:15, 19:16 KJV:

“Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.”

“The Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever.”

“King of kings, Lord of lords.”

The famous Hallelujah chorus! Legend has it that King George II was so moved by this section of the Messiah that he stood to his feet when he heard it – and everyone else followed along. It is now customary to stand during this part of the piece.

Yet the Scripture behind this movement is unexpected and glorious – the apocalypse that John was given through Jesus. This line “the Kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord an of his Christ” is from Revelation 11:15. It is declared from the host of heaven right before the seventh trumpet is blown, and for those who know the book of Revelation, this is right in the thick of the Great Tribulation – the birth pains as the evil one wages war on the saints and the King pours out His wrath and justice. This suffering is severe, but many Christians around the world have experienced forma if this – and still do even as I wright this today.

The “kingdom of the world” is anything that opposes Jesus Christ. Corrupt regimes. Secularism. Islam. Most universities and their dormitories. Corporate culture. Late-night pub crawling. Red light districts.

All the ungodly facets of this worldly, chaotic order will be subdued in Christ. In fact this is why the verse is in past tense: the kingdom has already been given to Jesus – His kingdom is guaranteed to be established in the future. You might as well start celebrating now!

Indeed, that is the jubilant spirit that we need to maintain through the year. A spirit of quiet triumphalism that our God omnipotent reigneth and even as the forces of evil set themselves up against our Lord and King we know that the victory is already secured for He has died and risen again. Christmas time is a good time to start thinking this way.

By His birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus the Christ is turning this sin-stained world upside- down and inside-out.

And nobody will stop Him.

Meditations on the Messiah // Nineteen

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Psalm 2:1-4, 9 KJV:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

We rarely discuss the laughter of God. What makes God laugh? This psalm says that He laughs at His enemies as they seek to resist and usurp His rule. In fact, the NET says it like this: “The one enthroned in heaven laughs in disgust; the Lord taunts them” (2:4). Why? Because the Lord is set against arrogance in man. He brings down their lofty pride. And like proud people you interact with at times, He is not emotionally detached; when the wicked and powerful oppose Jesus, the King whom God has set in His “holy hill,” God is not impressed. He goes after them in His justice. And that justice has a fierce edge – it taunts and laughs.

Many Christians today have lost their swagger. We have forgotten we are on the winning team.

Of course, the Lord Jesus tells us to love our enemies and not to seek vengeance (Matt 5:43ff.; Rom 12:19); but we cannot loose our confidence that God will deal with these fools – and that He will be exalted as He pulls the arrogant down.

The corrupt governments.

The false TV preachers.

The playground bullies.

The devil himself.

So swagger.

We have been so busy simpering that we need to “keep Christ in Christmas” that we have forgotten that “Merry Christmas” is a battle cry. It is an acknowledgment that the King has come and He sits enthroned, and that joy and merriment is the appropriate response to His coming. There is a reason many secularists hate the phrase. Having a truly “Merry Christmas” in the presence of Christ our Lord is akin to what this psalm summons people to do: “kiss the Son” (v. 12). Acknowledge Jesus as Lord and worship Him as King; pay your homage to Him; kiss Him. For this Prince of Peace is at the same time a taunt to His enemies and a “refuge for all who take shelter in Him” (12).

So find your courage by resting your hope in the nail-pierced hands of our gracious-but-always-laughing King who brings down the proud and exalts the humble.

And Merry Christmas!

Meditations on the Messiah // Eighteen

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Romans 10:15 KJV:
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

Romans 10:18 KJV:
Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world.

In ancient times, before cell phones and email, the best way to get a message out was to have a runner, a messenger, to deliver it. The image we find in these verses is a messenger running home to the town after a great victory in battle has been won. He proclaims good news and glad tidings.

Paul picks up this image in Romans 10 to speak of the preachers of the gospel. God has shown up. He has visited His people. He was won a great battle. Now people need to declare the news.

There is such a simplicity to his thought: how will people trust in Christ if they have never heard of Him? They need a messenger – a herald.

The commission for us, as Christians, is to take the message of salvation in Christ to the ends of the earth. But note that the way we go is as messengers with good news running back to the town – we don’t need to “win” we just need to declare the truth. We don’t need to overly fixated on the approach – the first thing is to just spit it out like an errand-boy. We don’t need to be personally offended if the news is not received – we just need to speak of what we have seen – that Christ has won a great victory.

This Christmas we need to go and tell of what Christ has done for us. Simple.

Meditations on the Messiah // Seventeen

This is a series of daily, devotional posts that work through the Scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. The musical numbers that correspond to these passages of Scripture are linked below through Spotify. So give this a read and then a listen.

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Psalm 68:18 KJV:
Thou art gone up on high, Thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for Thine enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them.

Psalm 68:11 KJV:
The Lord gave the word: great was the company of the preachers.

I am struck by the passages that Jennings chose for Handel. Psalm 68 is a royal song of enthronement. It rejoices in the victory of God’s king over his enemies – and everyone is exuberant because of it from the greatest to least, the adults and the children, the men and the women. In fact, other translations of Scripture show that in verse 11 (in bold above) the “preachers” are the women. When the king returns from war with his enemies subdued, the women of the town rejoice.

We don’t often think of the incarnation of little baby Jesus as being a militant act. But it is. It is an invasion of enemy territory. It is an infiltration – a gracious infiltration. But an infiltration nonetheless.

But who are these enemies?

We are.

When God rules and conquered His enemies the “gifts” that He gave to serve His people are us – His enemies. Ephesians 4 quotes this psalm to show that the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastor-Teachers are in fact the gifts of Christ to His church – to build it up. You are the Christmas gift.

But don’t forget the context.

These gifts are former enemies. They are defectors from Satan’s camp. What a glorious defection! May more and more enemies like me be subdued and then fit for service in the King’s army!