Book of Philemon - Vs. 1-3 | Parenthetical on Slavery

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Well, good morning, everybody.

A couple of things before we get started, I thought I'd throw out, well, first of all, sorry, my voice is a little raspy today.

Not sure what that's about.

A couple of neat things I didn't mention last week, just before we start really diving in

here is, number one, well, two neat coincidences in us doing this book at this

particular time.

I was telling Ash maybe two or three weeks ago, you know, why am I

picking the books I've picked so far, including this one and so on and so forth?

Well, back when Dave and I realized we were going to be doing Sunday School and I didn't really know how to do

that, I was like, well, I guess I'll, you know, I'll pick books based

on the ones that I would pick if I wanted to do a study myself, which, of course, in many cases, so far

in every case, is a book that I've never given its due, you know, just to put simply.

And a couple, I mean, Obadiah, Zephaniah, I'm not sure if I ever even looked

at those until I did the Bible in a Year a couple of years ago.

So, you know, just some of those minor prophets.

But Philemon was certainly in there as well.

It's just one that, you know, you've read it, you've maybe even heard other people read it, but how often do you study it kind of

deal.

So for my own personal benefit, I was like, I'll just, that'll be

how I pick the books.

But then, so I have like, you know, I made like the short list of books I wanted to tackle.

I knew I would want to tackle at some point.

But as far as the order goes, I just kind of, I just would kind of pick and choose based on what I was up for

as we move forward.

And so technically, like 18 months ago, Philemon was on that list.

Well, then, all right, so fast forward a little bit more.

We did Obadiah first, then we did Malachi.

I started Zephaniah.

And as soon as I started Zephaniah, I was like, you know what, I really should probably take a break from some of these minor prophets.

It's just kind of a grind going through those, as you guys now know.

And I was like, you know what, Philemon would be a good kind of breath of fresh air, you know, after having done

three minor prophets back to back to back.

And so I made the decision to do Philemon next back in about August, maybe September when I was still at

the beginning of Zephaniah.

So I was like, when I get Zephaniah done, we'll do that.

All right, so fast forward again.

We began the book technically last week, which I had been anticipating for a few weeks prior.

And the two neat coincidences were, number one, I had no idea

at the time I had already decided to do this, that dad would be doing Colossians.

What's neat about that is that, as we know, Paul wrote four prison epistles,

Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon.

Colossians and Philemon were written possibly within days apart of each other, if not on the same day.

They were written while Paul was in the exact same location.

Colossians is to the church that Philemon was a member of.

And there are also some interesting parallels, as we established last week, kind of the underlying theme behind this whole

book as we go through it is forgiveness.

Well, that is also covered in Colossians as well.

That was certainly something on Paul's mind when he wrote all of these.

It's in Ephesians as well.

So for whatever reason, while Paul, being chained to the prison walls in

Rome, had forgiveness on his mind.

And that theme, it permeates Philemon, but it also is tackled,

covered within Colossians and Ephesians as well.

So that's kind of neat.

So that's a neat coincidence.

We'll be doing these two books in parallel, Philemon and Colossians.

That wasn't planned, but there you go.

So that's neat.

The second coincidence is that it turns out, you know, I decided I want to do Philemon

even before I dug in and had a good grasp of kind of

the topics that are covered in it and that main theme of forgiveness.

And as it turns out, it's a great time.

It's great timing for me to be hearing this myself.

So that being the main topic of forgiveness and things of that sort.

And so the Lord certainly worked all of that out in his providence, which is always neat.

To see.

With that being said, let's go ahead and turn to Philemon.

And let's go ahead and let's see here.

I think what I'll do is I'm just going to open up with the first few verses.

And then next week, we probably won't get beyond the opening

verses today.

But starting next week, we'll probably read through the whole thing.

Well, let's go ahead and do it now.

I think it's good to establish just the context, all of us to have a good idea of what

is here, what's on the horizon, and things like that.

Then we'll break it down.

So let's read it together.

The Epistle of Philemon says,.

As Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, and to Philemon, our dearly

beloved and fellow laborer, and to our beloved Aphia and Archippus,

our fellow soldier, and to the church in thy house, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord

Jesus Christ, I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and

faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and toward all saints, that the

communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is

in you in Christ Jesus, for we have great joy and consolation in thy love because the bowels of the saints

are refreshed by thee, brother.

Wherefore, though, I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient,

yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such a one as Paul the aged,

and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom

I have begotten in my bonds, which is in times past was to thee unprofitable,

but now profitable to thee and to me, whom I have sent thee.

Thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels, whom I would have retained with me, that

in my stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel, but without thy mind would I do nothing,

that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.

For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever, not now as a

servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in

the flesh and in the Lord.

If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.

If he hath wronged thee, or owe thee aught, put that on mine account.

I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it, albeit I do not say to thee how thou

owest unto me even thine own self besides.

Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord, refresh my bowels in the Lord.

Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more

than I say.

But withal, prepare me also a lodging, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.

There, salute thee, Epraphus, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, Marcus,

Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Be with your spirit.

So that's the whole book.

I mean, you guys can see just in a quick glance the very careful approach that Paul is

taking.

Let's break this down a little bit and take a closer look at the salutation first, and then we'll move on from there.

So, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, and to Philemon, our dearly

beloved and fellow laborer.

Now, we have somewhat of a typical kind of greeting here, or intro from Paul,

though there are a couple of things worth noting.

So first of all, you note that Paul doesn't make a point here to

include his apostolic authority the way he

normally does at the beginning of a letter.

I mean, you can just turn to just about any of his other epistles.

Romans 1 .1 says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and he goes from

there.

Ephesians 1 .1, he opens it up by saying, Paul, an

apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints, which are at Ephesus.

And then Colossians 1 .1 as well, he opens it up, Paul, an

apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God in Timothy, our brother.

In his letter to Philemon, he simply opens it up, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

He doesn't mention his apostleship.

He doesn't throw in the normal qualifiers that he would.

And one of the reasons is because it wasn't necessary to do that like it normally would be.

Normally, in those other contexts, what is he doing?

He's writing to a church body.

And so he knows that this is going to be read for a full congregation to hear.

And he wants all of them to have an understanding of where the power is coming from.

It's from his apostleship, but from that, it's coming directly from God,

by the will of God, as he puts it.

So the apostleship, it's not just some cool title.

It's actually a mandate of authority given to him, imparted to him by

God.

He doesn't include that at the beginning of Philemon.

Well, it's because what he's doing here is he's addressing a very close friend.

And what he's going to be doing is he's going to be addressing this friend particularly

compassionately and tenderly.

He's going to make a point to be as kind and loving and as crystal

clear in his message, as brief as this letter is, the clarity, he's going to be very

intentional with it, as we will see.

I mean, we already did see just reading through it.

Some of the things that he pointed out, he commended Philemon for his spirit,

his character, the things that he does for the saints and for his church, he commends him.

But then he lets him know, but I have another issue that I need to bring up, and I need you to understand how serious this

is.

Serious in regard to you now have a brother.

You now have a brother.

And so Paul was very careful here.

So he left off kind of the more authoritative intro that he would normally have.

But it's because it simply wasn't necessary.

Now, think about it from Philemon's perspective for just a second.

He's fully aware of Paul's authority.

So Paul didn't have to include his title here, not only because

it wasn't necessary because of who he is addressing, but also because

Philemon is more than aware of his authority.

Some couple, maybe three years prior to this, Paul is the one that led Philemon to the Lord.

So Philemon was just a wealthy, well -to -do guy before

Paul came along.

He still is, by the way, at this particular time, but now he is saved.

He is a part of the body of Christ and plays a significant role in one of the first

local churches ever established ever in history.

And so he is well aware of Paul's authority, and this was the very apostle that witnessed to him.

He's the very apostle that helped him plant the church at Colossae that

Philemon was a member of, and he's receiving a direct letter from him.

That could have been a little bit creepy, a little bit scary perhaps.

He may have had no idea what the context would be or whether he was about to get rebuked or whatever it may be.

Who knows?

Another interesting thought is they are friends.

There's nothing to say that Paul hadn't written to him before, but this particular letter was inspired.

And so either Philemon was receiving this, and maybe

they had had some previous correspondence, but this had a particular gravity to it that he wasn't prepared for, or perhaps this was

something he wasn't expecting at all, and maybe he was a little bit like, whoa, this is addressed to me from the apostle Paul in

Rome, and who knows what he was feeling when he received this letter.

Paul tells us in verse 1 that at this time he was a prisoner.

Now who does he say he was a prisoner of in verse 1?

He says he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ, which is really interesting because what he's doing here

is it seems that he's emphasizing a very important doctrinal truth in

pointing that out to us from the human viewpoint.

Who is he actually under the custody of from the human viewpoint?

The Roman Empire.

But Paul couldn't care less about the Roman Empire or the guards at

that prison or the actual prison, the physical prison he's within.

He's actually a prisoner of our Lord, and that is who he is attributing his

custody to, not in some upset way,

but rather in a spirit of thankfulness, which we also glean from Philippians and some of the other prison

epistles as well.

I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ, not of Rome.

They don't have power over my ministry, over my mission.

No, I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

From Paul's viewpoint, he wasn't a prisoner of the Romans at all.

They had, again, no power over his mission.

The only reason that he's a prisoner is because of God's sovereignty.

Again, we get a little flicker of that doctrinal truth through Paul's honesty

and his realization that this is why I'm a prisoner right now.

It's because God ordained it to be so for his purposes, and that's the reality.

So those are a couple of really interesting points just right off the top.

Verse 2,

Philemon, again, was the head of a very strong family unit in Colossae.

Notice that Paul not only addresses Philemon, but his wife and presumably his son.

It doesn't flat out say it's his son, but the context seems to make that clear.

Just about every commentator believes that that is the case as well.

It seems pretty clear that this is the Archippus was part of the family, that being a son.

So this is, you know, he lived in a small town with a tiny church.

In verse 2, as you can see, they were literally meeting in his house.

This was a house church.

And Dad established this in his intro to Colossians because guess what?

The church at Colossae is where Philemon was a member of.

And so it was in his house.

So again, this was a pretty significant figure because to have

ownership of property, of a household, was very

significant at this time within the Roman Empire.

So Philemon was most likely wealthy, a wealthy guy.

And he, after coming to a saving faith because of Paul's witness to

him some years prior, he began to use that wealth to bless the very beginning

of church history, to actually leave quite the mark, quite the stamp on

church history by, again, helping establish one of the first local churches ever and one that

Paul would write to directly in the book of Colossians.

Now, they were meeting in his house.

Now, one more thing in verse 1, though.

You notice in verse 1 that Paul points out that Philemon was a man that was greatly loved by Paul

and that he had literally worked alongside Paul in moving his ministry forward as well.

He said, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborer.

So Philemon wasn't just a significant guy.

He wasn't just opening up his house for believers to come worship.

He was working.

He was doing a lot of work in the ministry alongside Paul at some point in Paul's ministry.

And so when he got saved, he was all in.

It wasn't like, well, I have a house.

I have some land, some available space.

Y 'all can use that as you need.

He was very, very active.

And Paul notates that as well in regard to how much work that he had done with him in the

past.

But this family, so you got Philemon, Archippus, and Aphia.

This was such a significant family that Paul addresses all of them.

And he points out that their son, Archippus, was a hardworking Christian himself.

In verse two, when it says a fellow soldier, Archippus, our fellow soldier.

In Colossians chapter four, verse 17.

You don't have to go there.

I'll just read it really quick.

He mentions him there as well.

So Archippus was directly addressed at the end of Colossians as well.

The son of Philemon, who was in the ministry himself.

And so very significant family.

All of them were involved.

All of them were helping grow the church as a whole as well as their

local church there in Colossae.

So very, very significant family to Paul and to the early church at

large, like I said.

And then, of course, we already mentioned this.

But in verse two, he mentioned that to

the church at their house.

So, number one, we know that it is a house church.

They didn't have the privilege yet of having a separate place of worship.

They were meeting in a house.

But Paul actually says, even though this letter that we just read and that we'll

continue to go through is very personal in nature.

He says, read it to the church.

He says so he's addressing Philemon.

Then he addresses his wife and son and to the church in my house.

Paul understood that the lessons that were at the heart of this

personal letter to Philemon would be very beneficial, not just to him, not just to his family, but to

the church in his house.

And so all of those that were part of the

church at Colossae, all of the Colossians, they would find

benefit in the messages that Paul was about to deliver.

And, of course, when he throws that little thing in there and to the church at thy house, by extension,

that's talking about us as well.

In other words, believers like this is a letter, yes, written to Philemon about a personal situation that was going on.

But it's also for believers.

It's also for the brethren to take to heart and to learn the

same lessons that I am about to bring forward to you as well.

And, of course, you can't help but point out something in verse three, the direct

reference to Christ's deity.

It says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Divine grace and peace are not things that God would

impart to humans in conjunction with any creature, any mere

creature.

He's not going to take some creature, some created being,

and in conjunction with that created being, share his attributes,

his grace and his peace.

Rather, here we see that it's the Father and the Son both imparting these things together

as God.

And so the apostles, we could say it over and over again, and it's usually right smack dab at the beginning of all

of their letters, they have no issues whatsoever talking in the

context of the Trinity.

Sometimes if you start digging deep and you think, it just really boggles the mind, how can this really work?

The apostles had zero issue with it.

One of my favorite theologians often says that Peter, he uses Peter as an example, he says he was

an experiential Trinitarian because he was there.

He walked with Jesus physically on earth during his ministry.

He was there at the Mount Transfiguration, and he heard the voice of the Father coming out of heaven.

And he was there when the Spirit was outpoured on everybody, including himself.

So he experienced the Trinity in real time, physical

terms.

And so none of the apostles had any issues talking in Trinitarian terminology.

Paul was certainly no different, and he does so right here.

So we have a proof of the divinity of Christ right there in the intro.

Now, before we move forward into the first section of the book, which starts around verse 4, goes for a few

verses, it's worth pointing out a couple of the common interpretations of this book, or rather

kind of what a lot of commentators believe the book means or what the purpose

of the book is, because it's short.

I mean, you know, it's right in between the

pastoral epistles and Hebrews, and easy to skip over.

There's so much good stuff in the New Testament, so much doctrine.

You have this little letter here.

Well, what's the purpose?

Why is it even here?

So it's worth taking a look at a couple of these things, because oddly, despite its short length and what

seems to be a pretty clear message as far as the overall theme goes,

there's a number of what you might refer to as reductions

that are made.

In other words, a lot of the commentators that you read, they try to reduce this

letter into a singular, almost trivial—I had to put it

in those terms—but almost trivial purpose.

And you'll see what I mean in just a second.

I was listening to, I think it was a MacArthur sermon as he was introducing

Philemon, and he started listing what a lot of the common beliefs of what the

book means are.

Some of these include, number one, a lot of commentators believe that this book is there to demonstrate

the character of Christian love.

In other words, you know, the love that Paul had toward a brother in Christ, and this letter is there to demonstrate

that.

And that is certainly true, but again, is the whole book reduced to only that?

Well, perhaps not.

A lot of commentators believe that the purpose of the book is to reveal the working of God's providence

over families, over individuals, as well as local churches.

And that's true, too.

We'll certainly see God's providence here, something we'll get to as we get to later verses.

But Philemon—I'm sorry, Onesimus, the slave of Philemon, leaves, runs away,

runs to Rome, the biggest city in the world at the time, almost anywhere between 900

,000 to a million people just in Rome.

And who does he run into?

He runs into Paul, where Paul gets to witness to him and then send him back to his master.

And so we certainly get a great dose of God's providence in this as well, but again, can the whole

thing be reduced to only that?

Well, mainly—perhaps not.

A lot of commentators believe that it's to demonstrate proper manners and Christian courtesy.

If you read some commentators, a lot of them just kind of gloss over this one with a few notes on, well, Paul is showing us how to

have courtesy toward the brethren and things of that sort.

Again, we see that, but is that the theme?

Is that the purpose?

Is that the main thing of the book?

A lot believe that it's to demonstrate principles for the maintenance of good Christian relations.

That kind of ties into the last one.

In other words, how to maintain relationships with the brethren, with brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's evident.

A lot of people believe it's to reveal the effective conversion of culture and society.

We'll talk about that again in a second.

But this last one here, and we'll be spending quite a bit of time on this today, perhaps the rest of our time,

because it is important.

The main believed purpose of this book

is kind of an oxymoron, and you guys will see why as we go through it.

But a lot of commentators believe that this book is an attack on the institution of

slavery, and ultimately to tear down slavery.

Now, we're going to spend some time on this because we need to be prepared.

Sometimes you can be taken off guard.

We live in an America that has a very devastating history

in the context of slavery.

And because of that, and because of the fact that we all condemn the type of slavery that

did manifest itself in our country a long time ago, it's obviously a very

tender topic for anybody.

And so oftentimes, we're out there, we're preaching the gospel, we are telling the world about the freedom

that the word brings, and the standards, the moral standards, it's

the basis for all morals, and so on and so forth.

And then you have some atheists come up and ask the question, well, why

doesn't the Bible condemn slavery?

And you say, and some unfortunately ignorant Christian may say, well, I'm a New Testament Christian,

which please don't ever do that.

If the Old Testament is ever attacked, the answer is not by saying, well, I'm a New Testament Christian.

You just compromised everything by saying that.

But if you were unfortunate enough to say that, the response would be, oh, it's not condemned in the New Testament either.

And then they're really caught off guard, and it's deer in the headlights.

It's like, wait, the New Testament doesn't condemn slavery?

And so a lot of commentators try to argue that this right here is an

attack on slavery.

But that's not the case.

So we need to go through this.

We need to talk about it a little bit.

So it's a little bit of an odd topic, perhaps, you know, to spend time on

it.

Now, I want to say this really quick.

Paul doesn't even like he doesn't even address it.

He talks about it as if this is just reality.

So it's not like it's a topic, per se, that Paul is trying to talk about here.

However, we can talk about it because slavery is a big part of the

context of this whole book.

And so by talking about it, we won't be taken off guard when some know -it -all tries to

pull a fast one on us or something like that.

And so, you know, the overall theme of this book is forgiveness.

But we're going to be talking about slavery for just a minute.

And I think, again, for us to grasp the historical context of Paul and

his writing here, I think it's very important.

I think it's imperative to have a ready defense for our faith in this particular area, which is why I would

spend time on it.

Now, one thing is for absolutely sure, without a question, is that the

principles that Paul and all of the apostles and Jesus himself,

all of the principles that they taught would have a massive reforming impact

and effect upon the horrific abuses of slavery.

But not just slavery, which is the amazing thing.

We want to talk about slavery like it's the pinnacle of evil.

And it's up there, at least the form of it in which we are most familiar with.

However, what's amazing about the principles taught by Jesus, the apostles, and so forth, is

that those principles will absolutely eradicate the abuses of not

only an institution like slavery, which is very odd to us, but the

abuses of any institution at all across the board.

And we'll see that.

So one thing is for sure that we can say is that the principles that Paul is sharing here

are an attack on any abuse that would be made in the

relationship between a slave and a slave owner.

So that's important to remember for sure.

But we have to note, especially given the popularity of this particular take,

that the book of Philemon is an attack on the institution of slavery, we have to note that there is absolutely no

place in Scripture where an effort is made to abolish slavery.

The principles are given to us to ensure that it's not abused and

to even give us the foundation to abolish it.

But there's never a full -on attack on slavery itself.

Now, we're going to be talking through this.

Even at first glance, you can think, well, gosh, that's still a little bit troublesome, though, because what if some guy comes up

and is like, the Bible doesn't condemn it, and I just have to be like, I know.

Well, again, it's an absolute cheat of an argument to make

because it robs the Bible, as well as any other work of antiquity, its

history, its historical context.

And you'll see what I'm talking about in just a second.

But there's no place in Scripture that makes an effort to abolish slavery, the institution.

None of the prophets in the Old Testament, none of the apostles, none of the preachers between the Old and New Testaments ever attacked

slavery, the institution.

Now, before I go any further, though, I do think it's of great importance that we give ourselves a few

reminders and some qualifiers as well.

In order for Christians in general to have any kind of conversation about slavery

in any kind of objective way, in other words, separate from

the baggage of our history, I'm not making light of it.

I'm not saying we don't need to think about that.

That's not the point.

The point is, if you want to be a fair historian, you have to

take a higher level view of slavery as it worked over time.

You can't look at only the antebellum South and say, that's how it worked for all of human

history in every civilization on every continent.

It simply wouldn't be fair, and you would not be able to be an objective historian

or biblionarian if you were going to talk about it.

So you have to remember a few things here.

It's very easy to generalize slavery and totally remove it out of

every historical context, for Americans especially.

But you've got to be careful not to do it, and I'll explain why.

We have to distinguish between slavery, number one, as it was regulated and governed in

the Mosaic time period.

The Mosaic economy, and differentiate that with the way slavery worked in the New

Testament under the Roman Empire.

So you have a couple of contrasts that you need to make there to kind

of set the foundation.

One of the things that we see as the Mosaic law was being given by God, is

that God designed it around the historical context of His people at that

time.

Because what does God do?

He works with His people in time.

He designed it to amend and to improve

what were pre -existing ways of living, pre -existing standards of living.

Think about the people coming out of Egypt after 400 years.

They were chosen people, they were God's people, but they were immersed in paganism.

That was their only point of reference.

They didn't have the law yet.

They may have had the oral traditions passed on from the forefathers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

For 400 years they had that, but they didn't have the law yet.

And so they operated very much off of a pagan grid, or within a pagan grid.

And so when the Mosaic law is being given, what God is doing, is He's not

just absolutely uprooting them and throwing them over here.

What He's doing is He's saying, here are laws to amend and to improve your

standards of living that you're already familiar with in a righteous way.

In other words, here's how to live righteously in

all of these particular areas.

And so you have all these pre -existing kind of pagan views of living.

You had polygamy.

You had the concept of blood avengers at this particular time.

That's like a Viking concept as we know it.

If someone kills a family member, you go avenge their blood by murdering them.

And so God's people had all of these weird, bizarre pagan concepts in their minds, and God

gives them the law to amend all of that and to improve all of that and actually give

them a righteous standard, not a pagan standard.

He gives them a system of laws, again, to give them better standards of living as a people.

And these laws in and of themselves were righteous.

They were good.

They were holy.

They were given by God Himself directly.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament, in the first five books of the Bible, certainly

between Leviticus and Deuteronomy, that is frankly

uncomfortable if you do not give it its due.

And if you don't give the time to put it in its historical

context and the intention behind what was God even talking about?

I mean, the laws are very bizarre.

A lot of them are.

And this is a totally different topic.

Just a quick side note.

A lot of people in arguing with defending marriage

against homosexuality and things of that sort oftentimes refer to Leviticus 18 and talk about

homosexuality as being an abomination.

And then, again, the know -it -alls, the smart alecks, will come back and say, oh, so now do I have to

kill my neighbor because they, you know, sowed the wrong kind of seed in the wrong kind of season?

Because things like that, the bizarre stuff is in the same context.

And then you're totally caught off guard there.

And you're like, well, wait a minute.

So can I cite this verse?

Again, that's a different topic for a different day.

Yeah, go ahead.

Exactly.

Dad says I'm a New Testament Christian.

And so, you know, well, that's actually Dad just gave a hint at

a very important thing to remember.

And that is what parts of the Old Testament law do we

operate by?

What standards and what don't we anymore?

Well, a big hint is, well, what did the apostles reaffirm later?

And the Apostle Paul, not only in Romans 1, but also in 1 Corinthians,

reaffirmed the modern day relevance of that Leviticus

passage.

Not so much the shellfish laws and things of that sort.

But we'll cover that sometime.

But the point being is God was amending all of the bizarre kind

of pagan ways they had been living and actually trying to set them apart.

Not trying, but he was setting them apart.

He was giving them laws so that they could be a peculiar people, a set apart people.

Some of these laws permitted slavery in the Mosaic law.

It permitted slavery, but it also regulated it.

So God gave the checks and balances with the rest of the

standards.

And those regulations, they determined the circumstances under which a slave had to be set

free if the master was abusing his authority

and so on and so forth.

So God gave all of those standards as well.

So you have to understand that there's a tremendous amount of ignorance, and I kind of alluded to this a minute ago,

on the subject of slavery throughout history.

And that's exacerbated by the fact that we have our own dreadful history

with slavery in America.

And so, again, a lot of people around the world, really, but certainly here, they will just assume that the

American experience of slavery was identical to the ancient Hebrew experience, which, of course, was

not the case at all.

The ancient Hebrew form of slavery was very different from the Roman form of slavery, which is the

context of Philemon.

And that, of course, was very different from the American form of slavery that we're so familiar with.

Each of them had very fundamental differences.

And again, you have to recognize what those are if you're going to give the history behind all this

a fair shake.

And understanding all of that, again, I believe is vitally important to this particular book of Philemon.

Why are we talking about all this?

Again, I believe this will play an important role in the study at large.

Now, just a few minutes left.

In the New Testament, so I just kind of talked about the Roman—I'm sorry, the Mosaic Law and the

way slavery worked within that would require much more time to give it what it deserves.

But there's that.

Contrast that now, it coming directly from God with the checks and balances built in, with the regulations

liberating the slaves when the masters did abuse their power and authority and things of

that sort.

Now contrast that in the New Testament.

You have the Roman Empire, which was pagan from top to bottom, just like the Egyptians were that

the Jews were coming out of, in which God then gave them the law to be like, no,

this is how—this is my standard of living.

Don't live like the pagans.

You remember he even amended the—I mentioned the blood avenger concept.

Remember the passages on what to do about the slayer in Deuteronomy.

So he fixed all of that.

He gave them a holy, righteous, pure law directly from him

for a healthy standard of living, in contrast with the Egyptian way of

doing things.

But then you fast forward to Rome, and here you are, you're back immersed in the paganism yet again.

In the middle of that, of pagan slavery, you have first century Christians like Philemon, like all

of these local churches, like Paul and the apostles, that are out there

preaching the gospel, to which you had slaves being converted for the

first time in history.

You had slave owners being converted for the first time in

history.

And think about this for just a second.

Obviously, that's amazing, but it was also a little bit terrifying

at the same time because you had all of these people getting saved and realizing, oh,

I need to get my act together.

I need to be living by this standard and not by the Roman standard anymore.

Masters were trying to reform themselves.

Slaves were realizing, I need the way in which I need to be living my life.

And yet, the entire institution of slavery was protected by pagan laws in Rome.

So you had conversion happening.

You had the hearts changing.

We had the Roman Empire right there as a massive hurdle that

made just total instantaneous reform a little bit difficult.

You had the entire institution protected by pagan laws that would not permit you to do anything about

it or to reform it in any way.

It would be a lot like us in this room, what is it, like 10 of us, 15 of us maybe,

trying to attack Big Pharma or the military -industrial complex

or Big Ag by ourselves.

That is what it would have been like for the first century Christians to attack the institution of slavery, which

is, again, a great reminder of how ridiculous it is for liberation theologians

and for the liberals and for the people attacking the Bible to attack it the way that they do or to be

upset that the Bible didn't attack it more.

Because God works through His people through time within the

historical context of the time they are living.

And for the apostles to go out with swords and attack the institution of slavery that had

some 60 million slaves within the Roman Empire at this particular time would have been

absolute suicide.

Just like it would be for us to go attack one of the big institutions just with us in the room.

I'm not talking about conservatives in the country.

I'm not talking about Christians.

I'm talking about us in this little room.

That's about the equivalent of what it would have been like for the first century Christians to attack the institution of slavery

at that time.

There was reformation.

There was the principles given to lead to the abolition of

slavery, which is very much how God works if you think about it.

He does not do things the way that we do it.

And this is yet one more example of it.

Now, that's all the time we have for today.

I still have quite a bit more on this particular topic we need to talk about, but I'll give you all a minute to share some thoughts, and then we've got

to keep moving.

But anyways, Dad, did you have a thought?

I have a thought after hearing this.

There's still lots more to cover.

One is, it's interesting if you look at how Paul

approached this institution of slavery.

It's like the big pharma trying to attack something huge.

He did it one person at a time.

So here you have a slave, I guess, hanging on the wall in the dungeon with him.

Is that right?

Well, okay, so not necessarily, because Paul, as you guys know,

he was always friends with his guards, and they would give him freedom.

He could walk around.

He would be in custody.

But he could actually walk around and preach.

So it's believed that he converted Onesimus kind of out in the public square, but as a

slave or as a prisoner.

So he was an individual.

He was a slave.

And he, two things.

One is, what I'm going to believe, and I think it's a lesson to all of us, that

we like to think big picture, like how can I do something huge for God?

At least I like to think that.

But I think probably all of us think that, right?

But really what God wants us to do is do the next individual thing that he brings to our

path, which is one person who may be a slave.

And you're going to think, well, that's not even worth me talking to.

He's a slave.

He has no dignity.

He's not paid to be.

And yet, this is who God brought.

He dealt with that one person, which created the entire book of the Bible, which deals with this whole

subject of slavery on a much larger level than it did in the past.

If he had just been worried about the big picture.

We're all in the wrong at the time.

So that's a lesson to us, is to never do this small, small

thing.

You know, talking to one individual is huge.

You've got to bring that individual in your path.

And you say, well, why would I spend three hours with this individual because I'll never see him again?

I need to be changing the world.

That's how God changed the world, one individual at a time through us.

I saw that in the first part of your lesson.

The second thing was, I thought it was, I already made that point, how he actually did approach the

institution of slavery through this one person.

Right.

Yes.

For those listening online, Dad's main point there is this is a great reminder that we don't need to get wrapped up in the big picture

all the time and think we're too important to dedicate a big amount of time to

an individual person that could, in turn, could

play a part in changing big things later.

So Paul was dedicating his time to a runaway slave, converting him, and

in doing so, and then, as we'll find out, in writing a letter to his slave owner, Philemon,

to send him back to, through that inspired letter that we now have, Paul, even though he

dedicated his time to an individual, set the groundwork for the abolition of slavery

through biblical principles for the whole rest of human history, not just in Rome, but also in America.

Because, by the way, guess what book the abolitionists in America based their morals off

of in order to abolish slavery?

It was these books in the New Testament.

It was the whole Bible.

We'll actually come back to that in a later lesson because that's a tact as well, that idea, but we'll

revisit that later.

But that's a great point, Dad.

It's a great lesson on caring about the little things, quote -unquote.

In hindsight, it doesn't seem little, but Dad's point is, at the time, Paul, if there was anyone that had an

excuse to be like, I have more important things to do, it was the apostle Paul.

But no, he stopped.

He dedicated time to converting this individual.

Actually, because the book implies that he also gave him, like he discipled him.

Like Onesimus, by the time he goes back, he has some framework as a Christian to work with.

So Paul poured himself out to him.

Then he spent the time to write to Philemon, his friend.

The small tasks, of course, eventually lead to big picture change.

And so that's great.

And then the second point you made was just that, yes, he did make an impact on the institution of slavery

through this little letter to a friend, which we'll be covering more in the coming week

or next week.

So great thought.

Yes, Mimi, did you have a thought?

I was sitting here thinking, what an awesome thing to do.

Ledge Christ and disciple Paul.

Oh, can you imagine?

And both of these guys in this context were.

Philemon and Onesimus, both were converted by Paul.

So that is quite the point of reference that they have, that they share in their faith.

It has to be amazing.

Any other thoughts?

All righty, well, we'll dismiss then.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day.

Thank you for bringing us all together once again, allowing us to have this time to talk

about your word and to dive deep into the truths therein and to

just have an opportunity as brothers and sisters to discuss the

various principles that you deliver through your word and how those

principles play into our foundation for the way that we live

and how to defend our faith and how to address objections made

to your word in a faithful way that is consistent with the way you would want us to do it.

And so we're thankful for all of that.

And we ask you to continue to be with us for the rest of today, with the rest of our services.

And we ask all these things in your name.

Amen.