SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/13/2017
9:47 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: Restitution
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Philemon
17-18
Message of the
verses: “17 If then you regard me a
partner, accept him as you would me. 18 But if he has wronged you in any way or
owes you anything, charge that to my account;”
Restitution needs to be taken care of as far as the Bible
teaches us: “6 “Speak to the sons of
Israel, ’When a man or woman commits any of the sins of mankind, acting unfaithfully
against the LORD, and that person is guilty, 7 then he shall confess his sins
which he has committed, and he shall make restitution in full for his wrong and add to it one-fifth of it,
and give it to him whom he has wronged. 8 ’But if the man has no relative to
whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution which is made for
the wrong must go to the LORD for the priest, besides the ram of atonement, by which
atonement is made for him (Numbers 5:6-8).”
Now we really don’t know how much Onesimus stole from Philemon, but it
is pretty clear that he had to have taken something in order to finance his
trip, and Philemon may have even gone out and purchased another slave to take
Onesimus’ place, at any rate restitution was in order. The problem is that Onesimus could not have
paid the funds back to Philemon and this is where Paul steps in as seen in our
verses this evening. Paul asks Philemon
that he accept Onesimus as he would have accepted himself. Not sure if this truly goes along with this
but when we sin as believers and Satan accuses us before God, Jesus will stand
up for us because He paid the price for all of our sins.
John MacArthur writes “Never are we more like God than
when we forgive. Never are we more like
Christ than when we pay someone else’s debt so that reconciliation can take
place. Paul’s willingness to suffer the
temporal consequences of Onesimus’s sin mirrors Christ’s willingness to suffer
the eternal consequences of our sin.”
As mentioned we really don’t know what Philemon did, but
I think that it is pretty plain that he forgave Onesimus.
7/13/2017 10:00 PM
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