SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/28/2017
10:23 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1Introduction
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Philemon 1-3
Message of the
verses: “1 Paul, a prisoner of
Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved brother and
fellow worker, 2 and to Apphia our
sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
When letters were written when this letter was written
the name of the one who wrote it was at the top of the letter unlike the way we
construct a letter as we put our name at the end of the letter. However even though it is different today
than then most of the time when we get a letter in the mail today there is a
return address on it to tell us who it came from.
We know that Paul led Philemon to a saving knowledge of
Jesus Christ, but Philemon probably was excited to receive a letter from the
apostle Paul, the man who turned the Roman world upside down as he helped
spread the gospel to much of the Roman world.
Timothy and Titus were the only two other men who got letters from Paul
that are found in the Bible.
As we look at this first verse we see that Paul describes
himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus.”
This is unique as no other letter he wrote that is found in the Word of
God that Paul wrote begins this way. We
have written that Paul wrote Ephesians and also Colossians from prison and yet neither
of those letters began by saying that he was in prison, only this one. Many of his letters that he writes he says that
he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, but I think with the content of this letter
he did not want to go that route for he wanted Philemon to make his decision about
Onesimus on his own with putting any pressure on him.
Paul considered himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ even
though he was in prison in Rome. It was
because of his work in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ that he was in the
prison, otherwise he would not have been in
prison for even before he left for Rome it was said that he had really
done nothing wrong and would have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. John
MacArthur writes “By mentioning his imprisonment, Paul makes a subtle appear to
Philemon. He sets up his case by saying
in effect, ‘If I can face the harder task of being in prison, can you not do
the easier one that I’m going ask you.
Philemon knew all that Pau had suffered for the cause of Christ. That knowledge was bound to have an effect on
his willingness to do what Paul asked him.”
We now move on to Timothy who was the coauthor of
Philemon, but he was with Paul when he wrote the letter. Paul’s description of Timothy was “our
brother” as Timothy knew Philemon. Paul
mentions Timothy first and later mentions others. Paul mentions Timothy at the beginning of his
letters in many of them. 6/28/2017 10:46
PM
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