Play

As a congregation, many of us having reading through the Bible in Two Years, and every two months we pause to check in with how we are doing and I preach from a passage we have been reading over the past two months. This morning we’ll be looking at Paul’s letter to Philemon, while beginning in Colossians 4:7-9:

Colossians 4:7-9 - Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. ⁸ I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. ⁹ He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.

This passage seems like a meaningless roll call, but hidden in these greetings is an incredible story of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Where is it hidden? Let’s begin at the beginning. We find that there is a man named Tychicus, who has brought this letter to the Colossians and is coming to encourage their hearts, Paul says. But he’s not alone. Verse 9 tells us that he is coming with a man named Onesimus, who Paul calls “our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you.” Sounds like a good guy, right? So, who is this Onesimus? Picture the setting – the Christians at Colossae hear that a letter from Paul has arrived, so they gather together in one of their house churches to hear the letter read aloud. And who should they see standing next to Tychicus, the founder of the church and the messenger who has brought the letter, but Onesimus. Who is Onesimus? Onesimus had been a slave in the community, a non-Christian man who was working for a Christian man named Philemon. But he had run away, stealing some of Philemon’s money as he went. And now here he is, standing in front of you, returning along with the founder of your church, sent by Paul! You would all know the cultural laws, which command that a runaway slave was to be punished by death if they were ever caught, in order to deter other slaves from doing the same. And now here was a runaway slave returning willingly to his master, to the town he has left. What would the church do?

Well, Paul has a plan. You can tell from the way he describes Onesimus – “our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you” – that he’s up to something. Well, there’s more. You see, Paul sent two other letters to Colossae along with this one. One, as we learn from v. 16, is intended for the Laodiceans, which we do not have a copy of. The second is a personal letter to Philemon, the owner of the returned slave, Onesimus, which we do have – it’s located in your Bible between Paul’s letter to Titus and the letter to the Hebrews. So you can imagine, after reading this letter to the Colossian church, they likely would have pulled out Paul’s letter to Philemon and read that as well. Let’s read Philemon:

Philemon 1:1-25 - Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, ² to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home: ³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, ⁵ because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. ⁶ I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. ⁷ Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints. ⁸ Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, ⁹ yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul-- an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus-- ¹⁰ I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. ¹¹ Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me. ¹² I am sending him-- who is my very heart-- back to you. ¹³ I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. ¹⁴ But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced. ¹⁵ Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good-- ¹⁶ no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord. ¹⁷ So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. ¹⁸ If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. ¹⁹ I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back-- not to mention that you owe me your very self. ²⁰ I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. ²¹ Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. ²² And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. ²³ Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. ²⁴ And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers. ²⁵ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

So Paul includes along with the letter to the whole church a letter to this man Philemon about how to handle Onesimus, a runaway slave who has become a Christian and has now returned. The first thing I need to do is to give you an understanding of slavery in those days. The important thing to realize is that slavery in the 1^st century Middle East was nothing like the slavery in the New World that was declared illegal during the days of Lincoln. The slavery of the 19^th century, as you know, was race-based, life-long chattel slavery established through kidnapping. There was nothing redeemable about it; it was simply one race and culture deliberately persecuting another against their will for the sake of economic gain.

In the 1^st century, just about every free man owned slaves, and it was just as natural as owning a TV or car today. In those days, people who were in debt would often sell themselves into slavery in order to pay off those debts. Slaves were paid, could buy their freedom, and were not usually slaves for life. For Paul to command the abolishment of slavery would have made no sense in that culture, since it was not the enslavement of a whole culture against their will. However, slaves were at the bottom of the social ladder, and as I mentioned earlier, a runaway slave could expect to be killed if found as a deterrent to other slaves.

So let’s get back to the letter. Paul begins by praising Philemon for all he has heard about him. He then gets to the heart of the matter. He wants Philemon to do him a favor regarding his runaway slave Onesimus. What he is asking is counter-cultural and risky – after all, if word got out that an escaped slave came back and was not put to death, what would stop other slaves from running away as well?