Why Do You Do It?, Philemon, Dr. John B. Carpenter

The Whole Letter of Philemon Read as the Word of the Lord

Philemon, you'll be reading the whole letter, hear the word of the Lord. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker, and Athia, 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.

I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.

For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you.

I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, now he is indeed useful to you and to me.

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 prefer 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.

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.

Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. 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 am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.

Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

Motives Matter: Why Do You Do What You Do?

When I was in Singapore, I was in a large church pastored by an American-Singaporean dual citizen. He was whipping up the people, or maybe whipping the people, to guilt. If you had a VCR, and this was the early 90s, you were selfish, immaterialistic, you should have given that money you spent on the VCR to the church.

Instead, you had to give at least 10 and could never give enough, always more. If you rebuked him for squeezing the people like that, he'd say back, that's what it takes to fund the ministry. A couple of years later, I was in Ethiopia in a remote area, both Mary and I were there, at a church meeting outside, and a man was preaching in Amharic, but a missionary was translating for us.

And again, he was preaching about giving, and again, whipping the people to give even more. As best I recall, manipulating them, threatening them with divine punishment if they held back, and promising them great blessings if they gave a lot.

The people there wanted to build a church building, and they needed the people to give for it. And I protested to the missionary that this is not the way to promote giving, and she responded, if they don't do that, they'll never build the church.

Now, we're not preaching about giving to your relief. How about baptism? When I was 12 in Alabama, people around me decided that it was time I get baptized, and so they scheduled a meeting with the pastor.

I don't remember anything he said, but I got the strong impression that he needed to be baptized. It was my duty, so I did. It meant nothing to me. I did it because I felt I had to. I later got genuinely baptized after I became a genuine believer.

Do motives matter? Does it matter why you do something or only that you do it? Does it matter that the person at the restaurant serving me isn't really wanting to serve me, that she's just doing it for the paycheck or the tip?

If she didn't wake up this morning with just passion, I want to provide food for the hungry people, and she'd do it for free if she could. Well, maybe it doesn't matter to me, but it might matter to her.

What about a teacher? Does it matter if he or she really cares about the students or is only doing the job to get the pay? It might matter to the quality of the teaching. What about for me? Does it matter if I'm only doing this for the money, or maybe if I'm just so egotistical, I just crave having people listening to me for about 45 minutes every Sunday?

Yeah, that matters. What about for you? Does it matter if you're here because you love the Lord, you really want to hear His Word, you want to worship Him, you want to obey Him, you want to be more like Him, you want to know Him, or you just kind of raise, well, this is your grim religious duty that you have to endure once a week again.

Oh, I hope he ends early today. That definitely matters. Indeed, there's not much that matters more than that. So why do you do it? Why do you give or get baptized or go to church? Do you do it because you're threatened with punishment if you don't, or you promise a big payoff if you do, like a slot machine hitting the jackpot?

Or do you do it just because you want to get people off your back so they'll stop nagging you, or you give into the pressure, or you want the money, or the esteem, maybe you want the attention, or maybe if you're here in a gym and a longer than normal service with a longer than normal sermon, maybe you do it out of love.

Philemon’s Salutation: Grace, Peace, and His House Church

Why do you do it? We see here why we should be doing it in Philemon in four parts. First, the salutation. Second, the supplication. Then the suggestion. And finally, the spirit. First, the salutation, from verses one to three.

It looks routine, except that Paul identifies himself not as an apostle, as he usually does, but as a prisoner for Christ Jesus. And that, from the start, reveals the spirit this letter was written in.

Humility, he's not pulling rank, he's not barking out orders, but gently, delicately, respectfully, appealing. Paul is in prison, just like when he wrote Philippians. Now, this is probably written about the same time as Philippians because the situation looks similar.

He's in prison, but he's hopeful to be released soon. Doesn't sound like he's in arduous suffering conditions. Timothy is with him, probably his secretary helping write this. The letter is to a man named Philemon, whom he describes as our, Timothy and Paul's, beloved fellow worker.

Beloved is the affectionate part, he's affectionate toward him, he's respectful toward him. And fellow worker means he's a colleague, meaning that whatever else Philemon did, he was also active in ministry.

Paul also greets Athia, our sister, which is probably Philemon's wife, and Archippus, our fellow soldier, which is probably their son, and calling him a soldier, which means he's probably a zealous, eager, young Christian, like a soldier.

And the church, the assembly, that's the ecclesia, in your house, meaning that the church in Colossae, or at least part of it, gathered in Philemon's house, which suggests that he has a big house and therefore is apparently wealthy.

So Philemon hosted the church and was a fellow worker with Paul, and so he was likely an elder of the church. Salutations to you, Pastor Philemon, and to your family, and to the whole church. In the salutation, Paul greets him with both grace and peace, but grace was the traditional Greek greeting in the Greek culture, which Philemon was probably from, grace to you and peace.

Shalom was the traditional Jewish greeting, and so Paul combines them together, grace and peace, saluting him with both grace that makes you right with God, because like last week, remember, you can't have the peace of God until you have peace with God.

And both, grace and peace, come from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wants to pray for him before getting down to business, and in the prayer, notice the supplication. Second part, supplication.

Paul’s Prayer for Philemon’s Love, Faith, and Effective Witness

That's the request, what he is asking God for, because that's key. In verse 4, Paul thanks God for Philemon when he remembers to pray for him. Philemon is one of the good guys. Philemon is someone Paul feels happy about, joyful about.

He's at peace with him. He's glad that he has Philemon in the church at Colossae. He thanks God, especially in verse 5, when he hears of Philemon's love and faith toward, notice it's both, toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints.

That's the church members, the Christians, the people in the church, he's over. He thanks God for Philemon's motives, love and faith. So Philemon's not in the ministry, hosting the church, just to be the big man.

He's doing it out of love and faith, not just duty and performance. And that love and faith toward Jesus shows in love and faithfulness for other Christians, that's the saints. Here he's hinting at what is the main purpose of the letter.

He thanks God that Philemon loves and is loyal to the church, loves Jesus and is loyal to the body of Christ, and including all the members of the church, including runaway slaves. Then comes the supplication, the request in verse 6.

He prays for the sharing of your faith. Apparently Philemon shares his faith, probably to outsiders, but also when the church met in his house, he probably was one of the main speakers to the church there.

The word sharing there is a familiar word from Philippians, remember? Koinonia, the fellowship of your faith. Here Paul is praying that that sharing may become effective, or that it may work, that it may be energized.

Sort of like from 2 Thessalonians, remember, a few months ago? That may the word of the Lord run, may it have power. That's what he's praying for Philemon's sharing. May the fellowship of your faith that is effect, that is produce, the full knowledge of every good thing.

In other words, as you Philemon, as you teach, you preach, you witness, you advise, you converse, you dialogue about your faith, may that work, may God use that. Here's the supplication. This is what he's asking, to give full knowledge or revelation of every good thing that we have because of Christ, that we have in us, and it's for the sake of Christ, to glorify him.

We have good things in us, notice that phrase there in verse 5, in us for the sake of Christ. Those good things in us, of course, should come out of us and glorify Christ. He prays that God will give full knowledge of what those good things are, give full knowledge or revelation.

Well, to who? Because that's kind of interesting. He doesn't say give full knowledge to who? Who's getting this knowledge? Now, Philemon is probably naturally going to think, well, to the people he's sharing with because he's, Paul's praying for my sharing.

I'm speaking before the church, then it should be for them, right, that they have full knowledge. God use it to reveal to them, and that's probably partly true, but Paul is leaving another hint of where he's going in this letter.

He wants Philemon, as we'll see, himself to have the knowledge of what good thing that's in him that Christ is leading him to do. He then finishes the prayer in the same way that he began, with encouragement and praise.

In verse 7, I had much joy and comfort from your love, brother. You have refreshed the saints, refreshed them with your sharing. They've encouraged, they're built up by your sharing. Deep down in their hearts, the fellowship of the faith has been renewing for the church members.

It's good for them. He's commending Philemon for being a source of life to the church there that meets in his house. The supplication, then the request, is that Philemon's sharing would produce deep knowledge of the good things Christ has in us and what we should do because of him.

And that supplication is couched before and after an affirmation and just expressions of love and praise. But what good thing should we do? What's this good thing that Paul is hinting at that should be revealed?

Paul’s Appeal for Onesimus: No Longer a Slave, But a Beloved Brother

Well, that he answers in the third part, the suggestion, starting in verse 8. Accordingly, or therefore, because I feel so good about you, I'm so glad to hear about you, I'm comfortable with you. Paul says, because we're so close, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required.

In other words, I could order you to do it, what you should do because it's required. I could order you to do it. I could just demand that you do this. I could pull rank. I'm an apostle. I speak for Jesus, right?

Paul could do that. Or he could say, this is the right thing to do. It's required. Morality requires you to do it. You are in sin if you do not obey this. You must do it. I don't care how you think about it.

You absolutely must do it. He could put it that way. And Paul is saying, I could do it like that. And he said, I'm bold enough to do that. If you don't believe me, read my letters to the Corinthians. You know, if you don't believe Paul is capable of putting his foot down and saying, you're going to do this, read Corinthians.

You'll see he does that. But Paul says, I won't. I'm not doing that with you. Why? Why not just get the result he wants? It's just results. He could just demand it. You know, if you need money to send missionaries, say what you have to say to pry the money out of people's wallets.

If you want to build a church building, you know, threaten them with judgment for not giving enough. Promise them prosperity, forgiving. If you don't, the church just won't be built. Don't you know? And just the result that counts.

If you think someone should be baptized, you pressure them to do it. Why doesn't Paul just tell him to do what he wants him to do? Why? Because motives matter. Here comes the heart of the issue, which is the issue with the heart in verse nine.

Yet for love's sake, I prefer because of love to appeal to you. I could demand it. I have the right to do it, both the authority and the moral right. But for love's sake, I'm going to appeal and literally because of love.

Now, love for who? I think Paul means both of his love for Philemon because I love you, Philemon, I'm going to appeal to you and that Philemon would do the good thing out of love. Not because he's ordered to, because he's demanded you have to do it or manipulated to do it, cajoled, pressured, threatened, bribed.

He wants Philemon to be motivated by love. First love for God, above all love for Paul, love for him, do what is required. I prefer, he says, this is my preference. I'll order it if I have to, but I prefer, I'd rather you do what is required out of love.

I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus. Notice that's the second time he mentions he's a prisoner in this letter. Kind of like, you know, I'm in need here. You're a rich man Colossi, I'm, and do it out of love for, and here's where it gets shocking to Philemon.

Now, imagine the first time he reads this letter. It gets this letter from Paul, his friend, and the apostle he respects so much. He gets to this point in Philemon, up to now Philemon's going, sure, whatever.

Here he hears a name he didn't expect. Up to now, probably Philemon is thinking, I'll do anything for you, Paul. You can count on me. Just name it. I'm there. And Paul writes, I appeal to you for, oh, it's for someone else.

Who's it going to be? For who? My child. Which one? For Timothy? Sure, I'll do it. I like Timothy. Good guy. For Luke? Oh yeah, sure. He's a doctor. Good to have around. For Apophroditus? I'll be glad to do whatever I can.

Who? My child Anesimus. What? That dirty scoundrel? That lousy, no good, very bad servant who ran away and stole from me? For him? What to do about Anesimus? Now, we have to read between the lines kind of here, but we can gather some facts about him.

First, in verse 16, we see that he was a slave, or maybe your translation puts it bond servant. I'm not sure what's supposed to be the difference. He was Philemon's slave. He was a bad slave. His name literally means useful, which is a good name for a slave.

It may suggest that he was born as a slave, since that sounds kind of like the name you would give, that a slave owner would give to a slave, wanting him to grow up to be useful. But he didn't. In verse 11, Paul plays on his name, saying formally, he was useless to you.

Mr. Useful was actually useless. So he was an unsatisfactory slave. And then he apparently ran away. And in the process, verse 19 implies that he stole from Philemon. Maybe he took money, or maybe something valuable from the house, like a les miserables.

How do you say that word? Les mis, you know, silver candlesticks. He was apparently caught and put in prison. And there, amazingly, he meets Paul. Paul is in prison for Jesus, and Nesimus is in prison for running away in theft.

Remember from Philippians 1 that Paul shared the gospel with all the Roman guards he was chained to in the prison, and he apparently did the same thing with his fellow prisoners. And one of those prisoners happened to be the runaway slave of Paul's friend and co-worker from Colossae, Philemon.

So Paul shared the gospel with him, and he believed. He is born again. And so Paul declares in verse 11, again playing on his name, now he, that's Nesimus, is indeed useful to you and to me. Mr. Useful is now living up to his name because he's a new creature.

It appears that the Romans are taking Nesimus back to Philemon so that Philemon could decide what to do with him. What are you going to do with him? Put him back in slavery? Maybe lash him? Maybe kill him?

The pater familius, the father of family in Roman society, had the right, the legal right, to decide to do whatever he wanted to do with any member of the household, including, especially, slaves, up to even killing them.

Paul says in verse 12, he's sending Nesimus back. He says, sending my very heart, after praying that he have the knowledge to do the good thing. What is the good thing? Well, it's obvious now, isn't it?

Nesimus is now useful to Paul. He's in prison. He's Paul's very heart. The right thing to do, of course, is to free him and let him go back to Paul. And then why doesn't Paul, if that's, that being the case, then why doesn't Paul just order Philemon to do it?

Because he wants Philemon to do it out of love. Now, out of love, not only for God, for Paul, who could use the help, but for Nesimus, the former useless servant who stole and ran away. Now, in our culture, we don't have much sympathy for Philemon because if there's one thing our culture has taught us, what it believes with absolute certainty is that slavery is evil in all circumstances and only evil people participate in it.

So you see it that way, you think Philemon is just a bad guy for participating in that institution. I'm not the world's greatest expert on slavery, but here comes my fake, humble brag. The fake part is the humility.

I did work for the man who was the world's greatest expert on slavery, and he gave me the task of teaching on it. First, the kind of slavery we see here in the New Testament is different than what we think, we Americans think of as slavery from our history.

First, it was not race-based. Indeed, the very word slavery comes from Slav, referring to Eastern Europeans, because the Romans would launch wars against Eastern Europe and take Eastern Europeans as slaves, Slavs.

But to Americans, slavery has become so interwoven with racism that they see them together. They can't separate in their minds that slavery and racism are actually two different things. And racism, I do agree, I do believe, is always evil.

To regard whole kinds of people as inferior or to be hated because they're that kind, or maybe if it's my kind, to be superior, that's either hatred for that kind of people or it's arrogance about our kind.

And that reveals motives, and what it reveals is bad. But the slavery here, back to slavery, got to separate the two, slavery and racism, the slavery here isn't like that. Probably both Philemon and Anesimus, almost certainly both of them were white.

There's no mention of race here. Probably both of them were white. They lived in what we now call Western Turkey, which was then dominated by Greeks. And so race is not an issue here. We also don't understand today that under some economic conditions, the conditions that most of humanity have lived with through all of history, that some kind of slavery would be inevitable.

Now imagine if there was like 50 unemployment, okay? There's no welfare, no social security, there's no food stamps, there's no SNAP, there's no Section 8 housing, there's nothing from the government.

And there's no food pantries from churches, there's no God's storehouses, there's no casual parishes, there's no kind of charities providing for the poor. Now imagine that most of the land belongs just to a few very wealthy powerful people, so you aren't going to be able to get a plot of land and grow food for yourself.

That was the common situation for most people for most of history. So what do you do? Well you're going to starve, and you're going to be desperate. But then someone offers you a deal. You come live on my property.

Now it's just a shack in their backyard, but it's better than nothing. And you will get food if you do whatever I tell you to do. You do the work I tell you to do, you plant the crops, whatever, take care of my animals, whatever I need to be done.

And that's how slavery starts. And then it becomes backed up by laws. The government enforces it, so that once you've made the deal, you and maybe your children can't get out of it. We saw in Ethiopia where there was no legal slavery anymore.

I don't know how many, it wasn't that abolished that long before we got there, but it had been, it didn't exist legally anymore. But unemployment was very high, and the government couldn't afford to give welfare.

So it's a situation kind of like I just described. When that's the case, you can have many servants, you can pay them very little by our standards. By their standards, you can pay them pretty well, but by our standards, pay them very little because of the law of supply and demand.

There's so many people looking for work, and there's so little jobs. And you give them a room, you give them food, room and board, and they're grateful to have something. And you go to someone's house for social gatherings.

There's always two types of people. There's the host or the guest that you interact with, like yourself, you talk to, you eat and drink with. And then there's always the servants milling around doing their chores.

In Ethiopia, where most people are black, it's not a racial thing. It's just servants. And you could think, well, it's not like slavery because those servants could quit. We had to make it ourselves. You could quit and go out anytime you wanted to.

Sure, but go out where? For what? Where's she going to live? Where's she going to get food from? Nothing. There's nothing there. Now, our situation we're living with now, which we kind of take for granted, where we don't have slaves and only the very wealthy can afford to have servants, like a maid, that's only the result of our widely shared prosperity.

And by the way, the Bible, even in the Old Testament, mitigated slavery. It softened it, it regulated it so that it could never grow large like it did in the Roman Empire or even in the American South.

And it planted the seeds for its eventual demise. First, man-stealing, that is going out and catching people, kidnapping and then making them slaves, that was illegal in Exodus chapter 21. And it's punished with death.

Not only was actively, you know, you being the one to actively go out and abduct the slaves and punish with death, the kidnappers punished with death. If you just had a slave who someone else had went out and captured to make a slave, you know, if you had a slave who originally wasn't slaved that way by man-stealing, you were punished with death, even if you weren't the one who did it.

Maybe you think you bought that slave fair and square at the slave market, but someone else abducted him. Still, you deserve to die according to God's law. And by the way, many of the American slaves were caught that way.

So the only people, the conclusion is the only people in Israel who were slaves, they weren't abducted and made slaves against their will, they were either people who were in debt and sold themselves off to pay the debt, because it's the only thing they had, the only option left, or they were prisoners of war who would have been killed otherwise.

Now, in Israel, slaves were normally to be freed every seven years as an exception, unless they want to stay with a wife they're married to or something like that, but most of them are freed every seven years, and so there wouldn't be intergenerational slavery.

In other words, your family wouldn't be just slaves forever. Then, every 50 years, the year of Jubilee, the land ownership was supposed to return back to the original owners, the debts would be cleared, and then, absolutely, all slaves were free.

So if your family had fallen on hard times and had to sell their land, it was in debt, and maybe some of the members of your family had sold themselves as slaves, if that is the case, well, about once every generation, they could get their land back, they're freed from their slavery, and they could start over.

So the poorest were allowed to basically have reset. Now, further, there were laws in Israel, God's laws, protecting slaves, like if a slave owner permanently damaged a slave, like knocking out a tooth, or like from the roots, if you remember that, chopping off part of the foot.

If a slave owner did that to a slave, the slave was free. No other society in ancient history had laws like that to soften and curtail slavery, and, of course, that's because Israel's laws were inspired by God.

And then, finally, the seed that ended slavery was planted in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, love your neighbor as yourself, which the Lord Jesus said was the second greatest commandment, and like the first, we're supposed to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul.

You can't do that and keep your neighbor as a slave, can you? We also tend to think, confusing us about slavery, that things have always gotten better, chronological snobbery, that there's always progress, and so we can't understand that there was a kind of ancient slavery, like we see here, or indentured servitude, being a bond servant, that was actually better, at least more understandable, more humane, than what grew up in this country, that part of our society, and not really long ago, historically speaking, part of our society was actually getting worse.

John Wesley, writing to William Wilberforce, Wilberforce led the campaign to first end the slave trade and then slavery itself in Britain and the British-controlled territories, John Wesley said to him that American slavery was, quote, the vilest that ever saw the sun.

So slavery had gotten worse, it's race-based, it's perpetual, it's treating human beings like property with no rights whatsoever, no future, no hope, and that obscures our ability to understand Fleeman's position here, because our instinct is to think, well, it's obvious what the good thing is, free Onesimus and repent, Fleeman forever holding him as a slave, but it wasn't so obvious.

Yet still, after all that, the mitigation, the understanding of the context, the taking race out of it, taking off our American glasses to which we see slavery, putting aside the chronological snobbery, still, still, the good thing is that Fleeman will release Onesimus and send him back to Paul.

That's what Paul is suggesting throughout this letter, but why not just say it? Why not just say it, Paul? Say, Fleeman, let him go, because Paul is more interested in his heart than his performance. He wants him to love and forgive Onesimus.

We want you to be generous from the heart, not just to pay a tithe, like it's a bill, and we then try to squeeze more money out of you with guilt or promises of a big payoff. If you're a believer in Jesus, we want you to be baptized.

Jesus commands his followers to be baptized. We want you to be baptized not because we lean on you or we threaten you with damnation if you don't, or we promise you that this is the magic ritual that saves you if you do it.

No, we want you to do it because of love, for love's sake, because you love the Lord, and so you want to do what he commands. You're not thinking, well, I'm saved by grace, so I don't have to. You're thinking, he saved me by grace, so yes, I'll do whatever he wants me to do.

For love's sake, Fleeman, because you love Jesus, because you love Paul, because you love the church, which now includes Onesimus, free Onesimus. That's Paul's suggestion, just a suggestion, because he wants Fleeman to do it out of love.

Notice how delicate he is. In verse 13, I would have been glad to keep him with me, which I could use the help. Remember from Philippians 1, how many people that Paul had sent away to serve the church?

He was in need. He's in prison by himself, but he sends people away. He says here, I would have liked to have kept Onesimus. He's useful. Then the second half of verse 13, he really bears down on the suggestion he, that is Onesimus, might serve me on your account.

I know you would serve me if you could, but he can be your delegate. He can serve me in place of you when I really need help during my imprisonment for the gospel, he says. Third time he brings that up.

Paul is laying it on thick now, isn't he? In case Fleeman forgot that Paul's in prison for preaching Jesus. But in verse 14, I preferred more than just what I wanted. I wanted to keep him, but I preferred my preference out of love for you, Fleeman, even over my own needs and comfort.

My preference was to do nothing without your consent. Although it should be Fleeman's free choice. In order that, and this is the reason that Paul doesn't just decide Onesimus should stay with him and impose that decision onto Fleeman, giving him no choice about it.

In order that, the reason your goodness, that's the good thing that's in him because of Christ. Remember, Paul prayed that he would know what it is. Your goodness might not be by compulsion, by our manipulation or guilt, but of your own accord.

Your giving might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. Your baptism might not be because you're threatened with damnation if you don't get it, but because you from your heart love Jesus. The suggestion is to free him.

Not a command, in order to give Fleeman the opportunity to do the good thing freely of his own accord. After all, in verse 15, for this, that is this freely from his heart, out of love, for the sake of love, just doing good, for this reason is perhaps why, this is interesting in verse 15, there's a why, there's a reason, the ultimate reason why all this happened, that he, that's Onesimus, was parted from you, Fleeman, for a while, why he ran away.

We might think, well, he ran away because he made the decision to run away. He was a bad, useless servant. He stole and ran away, acted of his own free will. But Paul says here, there's an ultimate reason behind it.

There's a deeper reason that it happened, that God intended it. Like Joseph to his brothers, you intended to do evil, but God intended it for good. Paul is here saying to Fleeman, yeah, Onesimus intended to do evil, to steal and run away, but God had an intention behind it.

What God intended, God, in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11, works all things, including the decisions of slaves to run away and steal, works all things according to the counsel of his will, God's purpose.

What was God's purpose behind Onesimus stealing and running away? Well, Paul says in verses 15 and 16, that you may have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.

Otherwise, so that he's converted, so that he's born again, so that he's made a brother with the man that he stole and ran away from. And Paul says, now he's my brother too. So, still suggesting, not commanding, in those two paragraphs from verses 17 to 22.

If you consider me, Fleeman, you consider me your partner, right? If you do, your partner, sharer, from koinonia, kind of like koinonia, there was such a word, receive him as you would receive me. Well, now the suggestion is plainer now, isn't it?

He would think of holding Paul as a slave. Still a suggestion. If he's wronged you, if Onesimus has wronged you, if he owes you anything, charge it to me, Paul says. I will repay it. He even says, Paul, I'm writing this with my own hand, probably is legal proof.

It's in his own handwriting. I will repay it. Of course, in verse 19, he says, but I won't mention how you owe me even your own self, which he just mentioned, but he won't mention that. You know, that thing he just mentioned, he's not going to mention that, that part about how you owe me escaping eternal damnation and having eternal life.

I'm not going to mention how you owe me that, Fleeman. I would subtract what he owes you, whatever it is, he stole the silver candlesticks or whatever it was from you, subtract that price of that from my account where you owe me everything with a smile.

Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you. It was up to now, it's been you getting all the benefit from me. Now it's time that I get a little return, hint, hint. Refresh my heart in Christ, he says, by doing the good thing.

Paul is confident that he will. Sure, you'll do the good thing. You'll do even more. So get the guest room ready, he says, I want to visit soon. Hoping through your prayers, I'll be released. Prayer is effective.

We don't know exactly what Fleeman did, but we can make a good guess. He obviously didn't ball up the letter and throw it away in a rage. He kept it, apparently shared it with others, the church had it, which suggests that he did the good thing.

In the next generation, the leader of the church at Ephesus, which is the nearby big city, the capital of that region, the leader of the church there was Onesimus. Finally, the spirit of those last three verses.