To Encourage You

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

One of the things membership in the family of God does to a person is immediately change who they are in relationship to other people and God Himself.  We see this in the opening verses of the letter to Philemon above.  First, as the apostle Paul writes this letter from a prison cell, he identifies Himself as “a prisoner for Jesus Christ.”  He doesn’t view himself as a victim, regardless of his circumstances. He knows that God is his Father and that Jesus is both his Lord, and the Lord of heaven and earth. He knows that no matter what happens to him, up to and including being held in a Roman prison, it is all under the sovereign control of God, so that in any situation in which he finds himself, he is in that situation for Christ Jesus.  It’s God’s call on his life. He was in prison for a reason, a purpose for which Jesus had called him. It was a perspective that those not in a relationship with Jesus can never have. It’s knowledge that transforms everything. 

And then Paul calls Timothy “our brother” and Apphia, “our sister.”  As believers, Paul wants us to know that we are in a vast family. We are inextricably linked to one another in a relationship with all other believers as children of God and thereby united to one another in an eternal and intimate relationship of brotherly love.  As Jesus told His followers, some of whom would experience desertion and persecution by their own blood relatives, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands” (Mark 10:29). Later in the letter Paul calls Onesimus, who was Philemon’s runaway slave (and slaves in the Roman world were not even considered to be persons. They were considered as property), both his own child in the Lord (Philemon 10) as well as Philemon’s “beloved brother” in the Lord (Philemon 16).  What an incredible change in status and relationship this was for Onesimus, who had been led to Christ by Paul.  It was “in Christ” that Onesimus had been raised spiritually from his place in the lowest class in society to a place of equality with his earthly master, for it is only in Christ that we understand that “He who is both their (i.e., any earthly master’s) Master and yours (i.e., any slave’s Master) is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him” (Ephesians 6:9).

And then Paul calls Archippus “our fellow soldier.”  Here we see our affiliation with all other believers in the vast army of God. We are called by Him into a battle against all the forces of evil, not in a physical battle of jihad, but in a spiritual battle of prayer and of taking the good news of the gospel to the ends of the earth, for it’s only the gospel that has the power to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:15) and who are “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). 

Finally, Paul calls Philemon “our beloved fellow worker.”  With this title he reminds us that we are all in this together. We are to be helping one another, encouraging one another, praying for one another, and all the other “one anothers” that the Bible is filled with.  Paul would have us to know that in “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).  At salvation, the Lord gifts us each with spiritual gifts and “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7).  We have been told that “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:10-11).

What wonderful relationships God has given us. What wonderful callings.  It’s all something our Lord would have us to be mindful of and rejoice in as we live the life of the redeemed.