02 Philemon: How to Be a Hero (Philemon 1:12-25)

Krisan Marotta: Good morning. This is Krisan Marotta. Thank you for joining me for the Wednesday in the Word podcast. Today we're finishing Paul's Letter to Philemon. This is the second talk of two on Paul's Letter to Philemon. As usual, you'll find lecture notes for today's talk on the website. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Philemon2. We're looking at the second half of Paul's Letter to Philemon today. This is a private letter written by the Apostle Paul to a man named Philemon. Last time we looked at the background, we talked about who Paul was, who Philemon was, and who Anesimus is. They're the principal characters in this letter. And let me just review those briefly before we finish up the letter and talk about the significance of it. Paul wrote this letter to Philemon during his first Roman imprisonment, probably around 60 to 62 AD. He sent this letter along with the letter to Ephesians and the letter to Colossians by a man named Tychicus. And traveling with Ticicus is Anesimus, who is a runaway slave. He belonged to Philemon and he ran away, and Paul is sending him back. So this letter is an appeal to Philemon to open his heart, to be open handed, open hearted, and to take the right action with regards to Anesimus. Paul opened the letter, which we looked at last week, telling Philemon how grateful Paul is for the evidence of faith that he sees in Philemon's life. Paul says that the evidence he has seen in Philemon's life so far suggests that Philemon is genuinely seeking after the things of God, and he's grateful for that, and he prays that that maturity of faith would again be manifest in evidence in Philemon's life as he responds to this test. So he prayed that Philemon's faith would continue to make a difference in his life, especially as he considers the request Paul is making of him to free Anesimus and have mercy on him. Paul claims that he has a God-given authority as an apostle to say, in this situation, this is the right thing to do, and therefore you should do it. He could command Philemon to respond a certain way, to show Anesimus mercy, to free him. He says, I have the authority to do that as an apostle. Instead of doing that, he's appealing to Philemon to act mercifully because of his faith, because of his understanding of the gospel, and that's I think what he means by love's sake. So we looked at all of that in verses one through eleven. We're going to pick up in verse twelve today. Let's look at twelve through sixteen. This is the heart of his appeal. I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. So the hymn here is Anesimus, the IS Paul. I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. But I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord? Sorting out the pronouns the I is Paul, the you is Philemon, and the him generally is Anesimus. In verse thirteen he says it would be understandable and reasonable for me to allow Anesimus to stay with me, to be my companion, to support me during this imprisonment. Knowing how much you, Philemon, love me and respect me and regard me, I know it would be like you to send him to me to minister to me in that way anyway, and I could have kept him. But I didn't want to presume on the purposes of God, because God's purpose in having him run away might just be that you could have him back as a brother. When Anesimus ran away, he was not a believer. He connected with Paul somehow in Rome. That's not recorded in scripture. We don't know how the two met, but during that connection, Anesimus has become a believer. And Paul's saying he might just have run away so that you could have him back as a brother in the faith. Before he was just a slave to you, but maybe God had him run away so that he could become a brother to you instead. Paul is saying I'm not presuming that he ran to me in order to serve me and be my beloved brother, because maybe God intends him to serve you and be your companion and beloved brother. So I'm sending him back my Roman law, he's rightfully yours. And then he goes on in seventeen. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand, I will repay it, to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. That I, Paul, I write this with my own hand. Paul typically dictated his letters to a scribe. Scholars speculate that his eyes were never quite right after being blinded on the road to Damascus when he was converted, so he often used a scribe to write for him. But here he's saying I've picked up the pen and I am writing with my own hand to make this a contract, to make this a promisory note, I will repay the debt. He's making a legal contract to repay whatever debt Anesimus owes Philemon. And there are different theories about what Anesimus might owe Philemon. The one that makes the most sense to me is that Anesimus stole something from Philemon's household to finance his journey. Maybe he took money from the cash box or a silver or gold statue or idol or something that he could exchange that he could sell to buy food and to pay for his passage to run away. So if he stole something to run away, then he would owe that restitution to Philemon, and Paul is promising to repay the debt. Well, we're going to talk more about why Paul promises that later. And then in 20, yes, brother, I want some benefit from you, and the Lord refresh my heart in Christ. This verb let me benefit from you is only used in the context of family relationships. So like a parent-child relationship. The idea here is let me receive from you that which a father ought to expect from his son. He's not saying just be nice to me or grant me a favor as your elder. He's making more of an appeal of grant me the honor and favor a son would grant his father. And as we saw last week, Philemon is Paul's spiritual son. Philemon came to faith through Paul's ministry, and Paul is appealing to him to respect that relationship and to treat Anesmas mercifully, not just for Anesimus' sake, but also for Paul's. And that refreshed my heart in Christ, that's the same phrase we saw back in verse seven. In seven he said, For I have come to much joy and comfort in your love because of the hearts of the saints which have been refreshed through you, brother. So that's the same idiom. It's not one we use frequently, refresh my heart. The word translated heart is not actually the word for heart, it's the word for insides or innards, but it was a word they typically use to refer to our inner emotional state, whether our inner state was in turmoil or calm. Refresh just means to relieve or to soothe. So in 17 he says, Philemon, you had compassion on people when they were afraid and in distress, you refreshed, you soothed their spirit, you refreshed their heart, you calmed them down. That is, you acted kindly or generously or open-handedly to them in a way that calmed their anxiety and turmoil. You relieved their distress, whether it was material or emotional, you relieved their distress, and he's appealing for that same thing again. He's saying, Do that same thing for me now. I'm asking you as a father to give me what is due for my son. I'm asking you to relieve my distress. And what would his distress be? The fear that his friend Anesimus is walking back into danger by going back. Anesimus could be beaten or even killed for wanting away. Obviously, that's causing distress and anxiety. And Paul is saying, relieve that anxiety by doing the right thing. Then looking at 21 and 22, confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I'm hoping through your prayers I will be graciously given to you. We're going to talk about that in a minute, but notice in twenty-two he says he's hoping to come to him to visit him in Colossi. Scholars puzzle over this because Paul says elsewhere that his intention was to go to Spain, which is the other direction. But Paul's journeys did not always go according to plan. He intended to visit the church in Rome, but he never made it to Rome, at least as a free man. He did make it to Rome, but as a prisoner, not an evangelist, and it's possible that his original plans have completely changed, and he decided he needed to go back to Asia. He concludes, Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristocus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. He concludes with personal greetings from people that both Paul and Philemon knew. I'm not going to talk about who each of these people are and what we know about them. Rather, I want to focus on really the striking issues that this letter raises. People often use this letter to talk about the evils of slavery or to condemn Paul for not taking a strong stance against slavery. I've heard this letter talk in the context of rallying freedom fighters for a cause or debating the politics of social reform. And there are applications in those areas, but it seems to me that this letter has much more to say to us as individual believers. And I want to spend the rest of our time looking at what we see and what we know about the choices that the principal people in this letter were facing. All three of these men, Paul, Anesimus, and Philemon, assuming Philemon responds with grace, have to be willing to do the right thing regardless of the cost. And that makes them three heroes of the faith, in my opinion. This is not the kind of heroism of war or the kind of heroism displayed in an emergency or an unusual or an exceptional circumstance. This is the kind of heroism believers are called upon to make every day. Every day. This is just doing the right thing in day-to-day, mundane life despite the cost. And we are all often called to make hard choices, to choose to do what is right even when it costs us. Anesimus is willingly and voluntarily going back to Philemon and throwing himself on Philemon's mercy because he believes it's the right thing to do. His priority is to do the right thing no matter the cost to him personally, and that cost is great for him. He could be captured by a slave trader while en route. Upon arriving he could be beaten, he could be jailed, he could have his hand cut off, and he could be executed. If Philemon chooses not to be merciful, life is not going to go well for Anesimus, and yet he's willing to go back and face Philemon because it's the right thing to do. And look at Paul. It is more important to Paul to allow Anesimus to do what is right at the risk of his own life than it is for Paul to protect him from possible death or beating. I mean, how many of us would counsel anesimus to go back and face that very real possibility? I don't think I could have done it. I don't think I could encourage a friend whom I loved and and cherished to willingly and voluntarily walk back into that kind of danger and yet Paul does it. It would be so tempting to for Paul to say, Oh Anesimus, you don't need to go back, you can stay here. We both know Philemon. We know that Philemon would have probably sent you to me anyway, so just stay here where it's safe. But Paul tells Anesimus to go back, knowing full well what he's risking, and that Philemon is not guaranteed to show mercy, and Paul doesn't even order or command Philemon to show mercy. He appeals to him rather than giving him a command. He's allowing another person to risk his life because of his priorities, and that priority has to be that it's more important to Paul to encourage someone to do the right thing than it is to encourage them to remain safe or secure. That's striking. Paul's generosity is also striking. He is prepared to take Anesimus' debt on himself. So this is a financial debt that he does not have to pay, and yet Paul is willing to pay it if it will help Philemon do the right thing and be merciful to Onesimus. I mean that's an incredible act of generosity, especially since Paul is currently in prison under house arrest without means of earning a living for himself. We don't know what it is that he owes. It could be a hefty amount of gold or silver that Onesimus stole when he ran away, but Paul's willing to pay that back to help Philemon be generous. And it's more important to Paul that these two brothers be reconciled and their souls be right with God than it is for Paul to have whatever financial gain that money would have afforded him. Now look at the sacrifice he's expecting of Philemon. Giving up a slave is an expensive proposition. Now we we're not going to debate, of course it's the right thing to do, that's the whole basis of this letter, but the work still needs to be done, and now you either have to pay your former slave to do it or pay someone else to do it. Or I suppose you could take another slave, but as a believer, I don't think Philemon would have done that. There's no real way to know the extent of what this would cost Philemon because we don't have a slave economy. I don't know how much a slave would be worth in our terms today, but it could be several years worth of labor depending on his age. It would be the equivalent of now having to pay someone's salary for 10, 20, 30 years, who knows? True, it is the right thing for Philemon to do, but it is going to cost him. Now Paul doesn't explicitly ask Philemon to free Anesimus, but he sure hints at it. Remember in verse 21 he says, Having confidence of your obedience, I write to you since I know that you will do even more than what I say. Well what would the even more than what I say mean? He's asking Philemon to show Anesimus mercy, to take him back with compassion, and even more would be to set him free. Now freedom probably meant that he would stay in Philemon's household as a and now an employee, if you will, or a member of the household, because freed slaves didn't always have an easy life. Sometimes they couldn't get work, sometimes they lacked the literacy or the skills they needed to have a job, and just turning them on the streets would not necessarily have been the best thing, it might have been the more loving thing to keep him in the household as a free man where he would have work and food on the table. But anyway, he says that in 21 and 117, if then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me. Well, Philemon would receive Paul as a free man, as a fellow believer, as a brother in the Lord and a spiritual father. I think that's how he wants Philemon to receive Anesimus as a brother in the Lord, not a slave, to free him and treat him as an equal before God. So he wants Philemon to do the right thing, and that right thing is to free him and treat him as a brother. Notice in 18 and 19, but if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, I'm writing this with my own hand, I will repay it, not to mention that you owe to me even your own self. That's an interesting phrase, not to mention that you owe to me your own life. I think Paul's pointing out how different man's law and God's law are. We act according to human law and think we've done the right thing, but Paul says, look at God's law. Life is complex. How do you put value on things? We often allow our value to be dictated by our culture. We we say this job is better than that job, or that kind of education is worth more than this kind of education, this type of beauty is more value than that type of beauty, this body type's better than that, this kind of wealth is to be desired above all others, or fame or prestige or honor is worth more than hidden acts of service or humility and so forth. And in our culture, preaching the gospel is worth nothing. It doesn't translate into any kind of financial reward. You preach someone the gospel, they owe you nothing from the world's perspective. And Paul's saying, I think here, it's true there's no economic value in my teaching you the gospel, in my giving you the words of eternal life. I can't go to a Roman court of law and say, Philemon now owes me X amount of money because I explained the gospel to him. There's no social cultural value in that. But we know better. Culture says there's no value in how God used me in your life to bring you to faith, but we know I have given you something truly valuable. The gift I have given you through God's work in our lives is worth more than all your earthly possessions thousands of times over. Take that into account. I think that's what he means by you owe me even your own self. I taught you the words of life, I explained the gospel to you, you have come to faith, and remember what God says is truly valuable and truly worthwhile, and offer that same gift back to anesimus. When you think tur in terms of whether you will demand repayment from anesimus or not, take that into a calculation that the gospel is worth more than all of that. Now I find this letter totally convicting. How easily is it to disregard and take for granted the spiritual lessons that others have taught me? You know, it's easy to remember the material gifts, the financial gifts, and to be meticulous about am I being repaid alone or being paid back a debt or I did that, did you do like in return, and so on? And yet which one is more truly valuable? We say, well, you owe me this amount, the law says so, and yet there's a higher priority here than the law. What does God require of us? What priorities does God hold? What would he say is most important in a particular situation? Often God asks us to be generous, to be open-handed and open-hearted, and he asks us to let go of things that are ours by right or by law. And we let go of them because compassion and justice and mercy and the words of eternal life in the gospel are really that much more valuable. What am I losing compared to what I already have in Christ? If I lost everything material and financial in this life, what have I lost compared to what I have been freely given in the gospel of Christ Jesus? That's what Paul's trying to get Philemon to see here. You've been given the most valuable and precious thing in all of reality. You've been given the pearl of great price, you've been given eternal life in the kingdom of God. I preached the gospel to you, you understood it, you've been given faith. Now are you going to demand your financial investment back from an Osiphus? Think about the the value of that. What's truly valuable? The gospel is way more valuable. Also, notice the priority Paul puts on voluntary obedience rather than external results. It's more important to Paul that Philemon freely chooses from his own character and His own understanding of faith to show mercy to Anesimus, then it is that Paul guarantee Onesimus received that mercy by commanding it. Paul could have ordered and secured Anesimus' freedom. He could have just said, Look, as an apostle, I command you to free him. Now that you're a believer, you know it's wrong to own slaves. Now that he's a believer, it's doubly wrong for you to own him. And I command you to free him, and it's likely Philemon would have done so. Anesimus would be free, he'd be secure and safe, and he need not even have traveled back to Kaleci. If I look at my life, I think, yeah, I most likely would have demanded it because I focus on results, on outcome, on the appearance. What would it look like to the to the church, to fellow believers, if Philemon failed this test, was stingy and lacked generosity and mercy toward anesimus? I mean, whoa, that would just be a black eye on the church. So I tend to focus on what it looks like to the rest of the world, on the outward appearance and the end result. And it's very tempting to believe that the bottom line, that the end result is the only thing that matters and takes top priority over everything else. And how we get to that end result, well, if we're sloppy and we cut corners and we don't do it quite above board, that doesn't really matter because the outcome is the same. The process we use to achieve it, we think can be sloppy, maybe even morally questionable, as long as we get the result that we think is right in our eyes. And yet Paul's priority is the voluntary choice to obey God because you trust him. He wants Philemon to grow in faith and maturity such that Philemon sees and understands the right thing to do and does it out of his love for and gratitude to God. That's what Paul wants, because that choice is eternal. That choice says something about the nature and the character of our faith, and that's the choice that matters in the end. He wants disciples who willingly obey, not just follow the rules because they have to. If I, as the apostle Paul, make you obey, we may have a church that looks good on the outside, but we're just whitewashed tombs on the inside. I can get a result that is good, but I haven't done you any favors. I haven't done anything to encourage your faith and maturity. You may have outwardly done the right thing, but if you didn't act out of a heart that loves God and seeks the things of God and wants to obey him, then in eternally you've gained nothing. And that's what Paul's after. He doesn't want people who just go through the motions. He wants mature disciples of the faith. He wants people who understand the things of God, who love the things of God, and seek after the things of God such that they willingly obey him. Because if they act, or we or you, if you act out of an understanding of the gospel, if you act out of your love for God and your love for the people of God, if you act out of a desire to do right, then your action is to your credit. It speaks about the volume of your faith, that very thing that Paul prayed for and rejoiced over at the beginning of the letter, when in the opening he said in verse 5, Because I hear of your love and of your faith which you have toward the Lord and 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 Jesus. That's the heart of this letter. I've heard how your faith is making a difference in your life, how you have acted generously and compassionately and with love toward Jesus and the saints, and I pray that you would continue to act that way because of your understanding of the faith. If you act out of your love for God, your action then confirms and matures your faith and moves you one step farther along this journey toward maturity and sanctification. And to Paul, that is so valuable gaining that faith and maturity that he is willing and Anesimus is willing to risk his life to give Philemon the opportunity to willingly do the right thing. That's heroic. Notice the absence in this letter of any condemnation of the institution of slavery. There's no righteous indignation over the fact that Philemon had a slave at all. I have to admit, if I was writing this, I'd probably come swooping down from my high horse demanding to know what is Philemon thinking anyway, and how could he possibly be so stupid as to own slaves, pointing my finger at him, maybe the whole Roman Empire while I'm at it, and talking about how evil slavery is. That's not the perspective Paul takes here, even though I suspect if we asked him, Paul would have said, of course, slavery is one of the greatest evils mankind has ever committed. Why doesn't he condemn slavery here? Because Paul has no expectation that any bit of human society or any human institution is going to be morally pure and fine and upstanding apart from the grace of God. We are sinful people, we do sinful things, we create sinful cultures, and we create sinful societies. We are corrupt and tainted from the core of our being, we are marked prisoners of sin and death, and apart from the grace of God, that's who we are. So getting on my high horse and selectively picking one of the myriad of evils in this life and pouring out my wrath on that one thing is not gonna make me righteous, nor is it gonna change the evil because we are evil people. Maybe we don't own slaves today, but the same evil that created the desire to enslave others, it lives in our hearts today. What is gonna make a change? What is going to help? Individuals coming to faith and then willingly acting out of that faith to do the right thing. That's how society changes. Maybe it won't be a revolution or a cultural upheaval or happen overnight, but look at history. How did slavery come to an end in the Roman world? Eventually it did end, and what brought slavery down in the Roman Empire was enough citizens becoming believers and realizing it was wrong. Bit by bit, year by year, slavery in the Roman Empire crumbled as the weight of Christian belief came to bear on it. As more and more people were converted, the culture shifted to a general knowledge that this is wrong and we ought not to be doing it. People came to see that slavery made no sense in light of the gospel. And that's how society changes. It's not righteous wrath and indignation and swooping causes and programs and legislation changing the world. That usually doesn't change anything. But encouraging others to faith such that more individuals come to know and love the Lord, and then their faith becomes the thing that they act on. As Paul says in one six, their faith may become effective in a way that they willingly and voluntarily do the right thing, that changes society. You change society by saving the individuals that are in it. That's going to make a difference. It would make a difference in Philemon's life, in Anesimus' life, and who knows how many others would be affected by their examples. So what can we learn here? Well, these are the things that struck me in this letter. First, it seems to me that we need to value the right thing so highly that we are willing to pay the cost, whatever it is. That's one of the examples these heroes of the faith give give us. Whether it's financial cost, personal prestige, material gain, or perhaps even our very lives, we ought to value following God and doing what he says is right over and above everything else, including outward appearance and sometimes maybe even the end result, getting or guaranteeing the end result. We have to do what is right and trust that God will bring about the result he wants. Second, biblical Christianity is not about reforming society and its institutions. It's not about social justice and social causes or racial reconciliation and so on. It's about persuading individuals to come to faith in God. I think that's one of the mistakes our modern church is making. We tend to focus these days on reforming society, and that shouldn't be our primary goal. Our primary goal is not fixing the culture, it is reaching individuals and offering them the gospel and seeing them come to faith. If enough people come to faith, then the culture will change. Third, the politics of biblical Christianity is the politics of personal heroism. I think the way to make an impact on society is by living your life day to day, doing the right thing, even when it costs. So I don't necessarily seek to change laws, organize boycotts, pressure the government to legislate morality. I don't wag my finger and pour out my wrath on the evil institutions that exist in our culture. I don't seek the right result from evil hearts. Rather, I seek to offer those evil hearts the gospel and the same forgiveness and mercy that I have found in the cross of Christ. So the quote unquote politics I need to engage in is the politics of heroic obedience, just like Paul, Philemon, and Anesimus. The more society is leavened by people making heroic choices, the more will get their attention if they're going to listen at all. One other note, I think this is a detailed and specific situation. Paul knows the principal players involved personally. He must have had some ability to predict how Philemon's going to react and some guesses as to the choices he would make he would make based on his knowledge of their characters and their walk with God. I think it would be a mistake to think that God requires a big sacrifice for the sake of making a big sacrifice. It's not that Paul and Anesimus sat around and said, What really big impressive thing can I do for God today? I know I can go back to Philemon and risk death and torture. That would impress God. That is a foolish choice, not a righteous choice. There's no value in grandstanding, in parading a spectacular act of sacrifice just for the spectacle of it. Notice that Paul and Esimus and Philemon are responding to a specific situation in which they found themselves. And if it weren't for this letter, we would never know about it. This is behind the scenes, quietly trying to do what's right. They're not doing it for show, they're not doing it for spectacle. It's just the situation they find themselves in in this line, and they are being encouraged to act rightly in that circumstance. They are striving to be obedient in a particular circumstance that they find themselves in. So if you're not in a situation where you're called to make a hard choice, where you're called to do the right thing when it costs you, then don't do it. At some point in your Christian life, you will probably be called to face a hard choice. You don't need to manufacture it, you don't need to create it, you just have to live your life in quiet obedience and you will run smack into it. So I don't think this is quite parallel to say the Nazis coming to your drawer and asking if you're hiding a Jew. In that situation, the particular people, the Nazis, are unknown to me. I have no expectations of any allegiance to or obedience to God's laws. I have no reason to expect that they will show mercy as Paul expects Philemon to show mercy. It just seems part of God's goal for us in this life is that we become wise. And wisdom involves being able to take in the full scope and complexity of a situation and to decipher which is the right path. We're not particularly rule-driven, there's no formula that applies to all situations. God expects wisdom, and wisdom is complex. It may look different in different situations. Now it is true that from God's perspective, there is a right thing to do in each situation, but we don't necessarily get there by mindlessly applying a set of rules. We have to become wise and do what wisdom dictates. If Paul knew that Philemon was guaranteed to be brutal and cruel, and maybe he was pagan or a non believer and he would be a brutal, cruel slave master, would he have asked Anesimus to go back? I think not. But that would be a different situation, and Paul would have written a different letter, I think. He didn't speak to that situation, he spoke to the one he found themselves in, so we can only guess. The situation we have before us is one in which all the principal players are making a claim to faith, and that certainly influenced Paul's choice. So in the end, I think what he's calling us to is to live a life of obedience, to courageously and heroically seek to do the right thing in whatever situation we find ourselves in, despite what that costs us. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but seeks to show you how we figured that out. Would you do me a favor if you've been listening to this podcast? Please take a few minutes to leave a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews really do help. Every five reviews helps people find the podcast, and I'd appreciate your support. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend Reggie Coats of Heartfeltmusic.org. I'm Krisan Marotta, and you can hear more and listen to previous episodes on wednesdayintheword.com.