Forgiveness Matters #2 - "How Should You Forgive?" (Philemon 8-18)

Forgiveness Rooted in Christ and the Setting of Philemon

The letter of Philemon this morning. Letter of Philemon, if you don't know where that is in the Bible, if you've got one of the red Bibles, I can make this real easy. It's on page 1060. Page 1060, if you have your own Bible, but you're not sure where it is, it's in between the letters of Titus and Hebrews in the New Testament.

So go towards the end of your New Testament. You'll see, if you've hit the letter of Titus, you want to go one book ahead. If you've hit Hebrews, great book, but not the one we're in. You want to go a book back.

So the letter of Philemon, letter of Philemon, we've been, well, I say we've been, we've just started. We are in week two of three of a sermon series that we've entitled Forgiveness Matters, the letter of Philemon.

It's our general habit here at Redeemer to work our way through books of the Bible, section by section, allowing the point of the text and the shape of the text to be the point and shape of each message.

And so this morning we come once again to the letter of Philemon. Letter of Philemon, we're going to be in verses eight through 18. But for those of you who were here last week, you remember I said that each week we're going to read the letter in its entirety, because it's not a very long letter.

And so once again, we're going to read the entire letter of Philemon. So that's our Philemon, page 1060 in the Bibles that we give away. If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me as we come to the reading of God's word, the letter of Philemon this morning, reading the entire letter.

Brothers and sisters, these are God's words to us this morning. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our dear friend and coworker, to Aphia, our sister, to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God when I mention you in my prayers, because I hear of your love for all the saints and the faith that you have in the Lord Jesus.

I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ. But I have great joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.

For this reason, although I have great boldness in Christ to command you to do what is right, I appeal to you instead on the basis of love. I, Paul, as an elderly man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my son Onesimus.

I became his father while I was in chains. Once he was useless to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me. I am sending him back to you. I am sending my very own heart. I wanted to keep him with me, so that in my imprisonment for the gospel he might serve me in your place.

But I didn't want to do anything without your consent, so that your good deed might not be out of obligation, but of your own free will. For perhaps this is why he was separated from you for a brief time, so that you might get him back permanently, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a dearly loved brother.

He is especially so to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So, if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. And if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it, not to mention that you owe me even your very self. Yes, brother, may I benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. For since I am confident of your obedience, I am writing to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.

Meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, since I hope that through your prayers I will be restored to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my co-workers.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. The grass withers, the flower fades, but this word of our God will abide forever. Allow me to pray, ask for the Lord's help, and we will get to work in God's word this morning.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for all that you have been doing in this worship gathering up to this point. And we ask that as we come now to the preaching of your word, as we come to hear you speak to us from the sacred page, we ask that your word would do the work that you have designed it to do.

May your spirit grant us help and understanding as we come to the word. Pray for his help, both as the one who speaks and in your people who hear. May we come away from this place encouraged, challenged, convicted if need be, but most of all may the Lord Jesus be exalted in our hearts and in our lives as we leave this place.

Father, it's usually our habit to pray for individual churches in our local area, but this morning I take a moment to pray for all the pastors and church leaders in our valley. Father, this is a difficult season to do ministry.

There's never an easy time to do ministry, and yet it feels as though there are so many challenges and difficulties that we are encountering in Christian ministry. And so, Father, I pray for encouragement for those who serve, whether as primary preaching pastors or staff elders or lay elders in whatever capacity you have called people to serve you vocationally.

I pray for encouragement. I pray for the work of your spirit in drawing near and strengthening fellow brothers who serve in their souls as they seek to honor you by ministering to your precious people.

I pray that in the words of Hebrews 13 17 they would be able to do their work with joy and not with grief so that they could be a prophet to the people they serve. So, Father, we thank you for the work of your gospel throughout this valley and we pray for its success.

Pray for all who are in pulpits right now preaching your word faithfully. Pray for ourselves even now as we come to your word. We ask your help in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated.

The Problem of Emptying Biblical Words of Meaning

Ever had the sense in a conversation that while you and the other person, while you're both using the same language, you're using different dictionaries? I don't know if you've had that experience, but I'm judging by the fact that people laugh that you probably have had that experience at some point.

As someone who's been teaching the Bible now for almost 15 years, it'll be 15 years this October. As someone who's been teaching the Bible for nearly 15 years, I'd be a very rich man if I invested a couple of dollars every single time that has happened to me.

I encounter that problem a lot. I encounter the problem of people taking biblical words, emptying them of their meaning, and then replacing that shell with something else. Love, grace, truth, fellowship, growth, discipleship, pastor, church, worship, stewardship, faith, hope, shepherding.

You know what all those words have in common? All words I have had the, let's just say the pleasure of seeing pulled, gutted of their meaning, and then stuffed with a totally different meaning. And that's just in the last two years.

If I expanded my search to the last five, I could probably double that list. And as I think about words that we are prone to kind of taking, emptying of meaning, and putting our own meaning in, I think we can all agree that the word forgiveness can end up being one of those words.

I mean, it's kind of a big word to mess up, right? And yet, it happens. If I say the name Dennis Prager to some of you, you know who that is? The conservative social commentator. This is not going to be a political speech.

If you know anything about Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager is a practicing Jew. He's not a Christian, though he has a lot of respect for Christianity. And it's interesting that in my preparation this week, I came across an article that he wrote in 1997.

I was six years old. And in this article, it was called The Sin of Forgiveness. He talks about the modern definition of forgiveness. I forget the particular situation he was addressing. I don't think Columbine was 97.

It might have been that. I think it was 97. But it was a particular event that happened. And you've probably seen this. You know, when events like that nature happen, they will inevitably get the camera in someone's face where they're saying that they forgive the person who's done this.

And Prager, in his usually perceptive and sometimes controversial way, critiques that understanding and says, that's not forgiveness. In fact, he said that the, I quoted this on make sure I got it right.

He said that our culture has abandoned the Judeo-Christian idea of forgiveness and substituted it with, here's the phrase he used, a feel-good doctrine of automatic and cheap forgiveness. Again, he's not a Christian, but it might surprise you that I actually agree with him.

In fact, I'd be so bold as to say that forgiveness is a word that suffers at the hands of its friends sometimes. And of course that raises an important question. Just what is forgiveness? What does it mean for Christians to actually forgive?

Put it another way, and this is the title of my message this morning. How should you forgive? That's the question of the morning. As we jump back into this little postcard called the letter of Philemon once again.

What does the Bible mean by forgiveness and how should we do it? If I can bring you up to speed, you remember that Philemon is a personal letter from Paul to his friend. Philemon is the one he's writing to.

That's why the book has this title. And Paul is writing to his friend appealing for forgiveness on behalf of a former slave who had now become a son in the face to him, a man called Onesimus. Onesimus apparently had run away from his master.

And as we'll see, even in our message today, it seems as though he also stole from him while he was running away. Well, on his travels, he encounters the apostle Paul. He is saved by the Lord Jesus Christ.

But now he returns back to Colossae, which was where Onesimus was based with a couple of letters from Paul. One of them, you know, as a letter to the Colossians and this letter. And so Paul is appealing on behalf of his son Onesimus that Philemon receive him.

Last week, we started this letter thinking about Philemon, the man, and learning some lessons about the kind of person who is able to forgive you. Remember that I said that our series, and if you have one of the study guides in front of you, you see the little series outline that's in front of you.

Our series is asking three questions. What kind of person forgives? How do we forgive and why we should forgive? So lastly, we thought about the who essentially, or the what kind of person forgives. And this week we're moving on from the who of forgiveness, if you will, to the how.

How is it that Christian people forgive? If Mr. Prager is right, and our culture has substituted the biblical idea of forgiveness for, let me make sure I get his phrase right again, a feel-good doctrine of automatic and cheap forgiveness.

If we want to avoid that, well, then we have to ask the question, how do Christian people forgive? Well, as we come to verses 8 through 18, the heart of this letter this morning, we're actually going to learn a lot about how to forgive Christianly, if you will.

And if you're here and you're not a Christian, or you're listening and you're not a Christian, you'll actually still get a lot out of this, because as with most things in the Bible, there's a connection to the good news that all of us need to hear.

Now, before we come to our text, I have to be up front and say that the passage we're going to look at this morning doesn't answer every possible question you could have about forgiveness. In fact, the Bible generally doesn't work that way.

You know what I mean when I say that? That generally speaking, you need to look at the whole of scripture, not just one passage, especially when it comes to things that we're called to do. This text doesn't tell us everything we need to know about forgiveness.

It's going to tell us a lot, but not everything we need to know. So for a moment, allow me to sketch out an outline of the Bible's teaching on forgiveness. If you have the study guide on that front page there, you see a number of principles of forgiveness.

Real quick, I want to walk through these. And as I walk through these, I want to kind of give us some broad outlines, and then we're going to let this passage give us some of the color and detail. Does that work?

All right. So principles of forgiveness, I've got a few of them. The first one is this. Christian forgiveness is rooted in God's forgiveness shown in Christ. So Christian forgiveness is rooted in God's forgiveness shown in Christ.

If there's one text I think makes this point, it's Ephesians chapter four. In fact, keep something here in Philemon, turn there with me. Ephesians chapter four, if you grab one of the Bibles that we give away, page 1038.

Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four is, read the chapter where Paul transitions from the great and lofty themes of all the blessings we have in Christ to the ramifications of those blessings.

And in Ephesians 432, Paul says this, Ephesians 432, page 1038. Paul says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another. How are we supposed to do this? Just as God also forgave you in Christ.

So according to Paul, how are Christians supposed to forgive? They're supposed to forgive as God in Christ forgave you. That already makes Christian forgiveness very different to any other kind of forgiveness in quotes that exists in the world.

Because for the Christian, forgiveness is rooted, catch this, in an objective standard. Forgiveness is not something that is subjective. I'll say more about this in just a moment. So forgiveness is not subjective for the Christian.

Forgiveness is objective. It looks like something concrete. It looks like how God in Christ has forgiven us. Paul says it elsewhere. If you're taking notes, Colossians 3 .13, he says, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.

Christian forgiveness is rooted in God's forgiveness shown in Christ. And I'll have more to say about that later on. So Paul does actually address that and we'll get to fill that detail out a little bit more.

But Christian forgiveness is rooted in God's forgiveness shown in Christ. Number two, all Christians should desire to forgive. All Christians should desire to forgive. Another way to put this is that every Christian should have the heart, or to use the fancy term, the disposition to forgive.

We should have the willingness to forgive when the opportunity arises. There's no room, according to the scripture, for somebody to harbor in their heart a desire to not forgive, or what we often call unforgiveness.

By far one of the best resources on the subject of forgiveness, I've recommended it in this week's study guide, Unpacking Forgiveness by Dr. Chris Brauns. In that book he says this, Christians should always have a disposition of grace towards those who offend them.

This is what Jesus modeled on the cross when he prayed, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Even while he was dying and excruciating death, and before there was any repentance on the part of those who crucified him, he offered grace and we are to follow his example.

So as Christians we should always have a heart that desires to forgive. But allow me to counterbalance that with my next point which is this, Christians cannot forgive where there is no repentance. Let me again, let me show you the difference here.

So I just said all Christians should desire to forgive, but Christians cannot forgive where there is no repentance. In other words there's a difference between the heart desire to forgive, that's one thing, and the actual act or to use the fancy term the transaction of forgiveness.

That can't happen where there is no repentance. Normally when I say this, this gets a little bit gnarly with some folks. So allow me to show it to you from the Bible itself. Turn with me to Luke 17. Keep something in Philemon.

Luke 17. Luke chapter 17. Once again we are just sketching out the basic biblical teaching about forgiveness. Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17 page 929. If you've got one of the Bibles be given away. Luke chapter 17.

Paul, not Paul, Jesus says this. He said to his disciples, offenses will certainly come. Well it makes sense. Okay so offenses, things that cause stumbling. Offenses will certainly come. In fact in the original language it's literally translated, it is impossible for offenses not to come.

That if you live in this life long enough, somebody will offend you. Not a great endorsement of humanity as a whole, but it's just the truth. It is impossible for offenses not to come, but woe to the one through whom they come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Verse 3. Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And note what Jesus says next. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you, verse 4, seven times in a day and comes back to you seven times saying, I repent. You must forgive him. Two real quick questions.

Does Jesus include a condition on forgiveness in this text? Yes or no? What's the condition? If he repents. So yes, every Christian should have the disposition, the heart desire to forgive, but that actual act of forgiveness can't take place where there has been no repentance.

Kofi, I don't know if I like that. Okay, I refer you back to point number one. That Christian forgiveness is rooted in God's forgiveness to us in Christ. When God forgives you in Christ, does he call you to repent?

Over and over and over again in the Bible, God calls sinners to repent, to change their mind about sin, which issues forth in the change of life. If a person doesn't repent, can they be forgiven? If that principle applies in our relationship to God, I'm going to argue based on this text, the same principle applies in our relationships with one another.

That while we have the heart to forgive, because think about this, does God desire to forgive? Yes, all the time. That's who God is. God is all of his attributes all the time, which means that God is always merciful.

And yet the act of forgiveness can't take place until the sinner repents. And it's the same thing in relationships that while we have the desire to forgive, the actual act of forgiveness can't take place until a person repents.

Kind of leads to a fourth principle. Forgiveness is an act of the mind and the will first, not the emotions. On Wednesday night, if you want to join us, Wednesday night at seven, we get together and we enjoy some fellowship and we discuss the message.

I'm going to take some time on Wednesday night to kind of map out the two versions of forgiveness that exist in way more detail. So I'm not going to do too much on this, but part of, I think the problem we have in our modern culture when it comes to forgiveness is that we have a very therapeutic model of that.

All that means in layman's terms is we forgive because it makes us feel good. It's primarily an emotional decision. So if it doesn't make me feel good, I won't forgive the person. But if it makes me feel good, then I'll forgive them.

But that's not Christian forgiveness. We don't forgive because we feel like it or because it makes us feel good. Christian forgiveness doesn't find its root in our feelings. It finds its root first and foremost in the truth.

We receive that truth in the mind, and then it's acted on by our will. Well, Kofi, are you saying that I should do this with no heart engagement, with no emotional engagement? Not at all. Not at all. Actually, as we do that, we are trusting our emotions to respond rightly as the Holy Spirit guides.

So it's not that emotions are not involved, it's that emotions are not in the driving seat where forgiveness is concerned. One final principle, and we'll get to our text. Forgiveness doesn't mean that natural consequences don't happen.

So even after we forgive a person, their relationship might look different. If there are legal ramifications, for instance, those still exist. Things might not get back to normal. But as we're going to see this morning, I don't think God's desire for us is for things necessarily to always get back to normal anyway.

The goal isn't always get back to normal. The goal is repentance, letting go of the offense and working towards a new relationship when possible. So I go through those principles of forgiveness this morning as we get started because Paul doesn't say all of that, come back to Philemon, he doesn't say all of that in the text that we're going to consider.

We need the rest of the Bible and the rest of Christian doctrine to help fill in those details. What Paul focuses on in this passage this morning is on the practice of forgiveness as applied to Philemon and Onesimus.

Paul's not dealing with principles of forgiveness, he's dealing with the practice of it. How was Philemon supposed to forgive Onesimus? But let me make it more personal. How should you, if you're a Christian, how should you forgive those who offend you?

Again, I ask that question, what does Christian forgiveness look like? Well, that leads to my big idea for this morning. It's very simple. Christian forgiveness is purposeful, personal, and gospel-shaped.

Christian forgiveness is purposeful, personal, and gospel-shaped. Real simple. How should we forgive? Well, we should forgive in ways that are purposeful, they are personal, and they are gospel-shaped.

Christian forgiveness is purposeful, personal, and gospel-shaped. To kind of show you this from this passage, I want to consider four practices of Christian forgiveness from this passage. Four practices that I think should shed light on how Christians forgive.

So, four practices. I'll just give you a little bit of warning. The first one's going to be a little long. I'll move through the last three a lot quicker. What does Christian forgiveness look like? Well, if we're going to forgive in the kind of ways that believers forgive, then we have to forgive, firstly, out of love, not law.

We have to forgive out of love, not law. So, look at verse 8 with me. Let's just start working through our text. Verse 8. Paul says, For this reason, although I have great boldness in Christ to command you to do what is right, I appeal to you instead on the basis of love.

Paul starts this in a very interesting way. Again, you have to think about who is writing here. This is Paul. He's an apostle. An apostle has a little more authority than most people. Paul actually has no problem in saying he has that authority in a number of places.

So, Romans 1 .1, he says that he is called as an apostle. Let's set apart for the gospel of God. First Corinthians 9 .1, he's trying to talk to the Philippians about the fact that those who serve in gospel ministry have a right to be paid.

They can waive that right for the gospel's sake, but they have a right to be paid. When he makes that point, he says, First Corinthians 9 .1, one of the reasons he can ask this, he says, Am I not an apostle?

When he writes to the Galatians to kind of straighten them out after they've gotten the gospel wrong, he reminds them, Galatians 1 .1, that he is an apostle, not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.

Paul had real authority and in a number of places, he has no problem using that authority. So, do you remember in First Corinthians 5, you have that man who was sleeping with his mother-in-law and Paul is very disgusted by that, as most of us, if not all of us should be.

Remember what Paul says in First Corinthians 5? If you're not familiar, I'll read it to you. First Corinthians 5 .3, he says, as one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has done such a thing.

Paul says, in my capacity as an apostle, I have looked at this situation, I already know what needs to happen here. Paul had authority and he had no problem using that authority. Now, we live in a culture that says authority is inherently subject to distrust, that's not God's understanding or authority is not inherently a bad thing.

It's how you use authority. That's a whole other conversation for another time, but Paul had authority. But it's interesting, Paul says, for this reason, although I have great boldness in Christ to command you to do what is right, Paul says, I could use, let's put it this way, I could use the letter of the law to command you to do what is right, but that's not the motivation he goes for.

Paul doesn't lean on the letter of the law. He could have, and guess what? It would have been fine if he did that. He could have told Philemon, I, as an apostle, I'm telling you, forgive him, I don't want to hear anything about this again.

Would you have been wrong to do that? No. But that's not where Paul goes. Paul appeals on the basis of love. Now, in the context of the love that Paul is referring to is Philemon's love for God's people.

So look back at verse five. Remember what he says that he thanks God whenever he mentions him in prayer, because I hear of your love for all the saints. And then verse seven, he says, I have great joy and encouragement from your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.

Paul knows the man he's speaking to has no problem understanding what genuine love for believers is. And so what does Paul do? Paul appeals to him on the basis of that love for other believers. Essentially, he says, Philemon, I know you to be somebody who loves God's people.

So apply that to this situation. Where did that love come from? Love isn't, like I said, it's one of those words that can get very easily taken up, emptied of its meaning and filled with what we want.

Is love just a warm feeling? I mean, was Philemon just such a chilled out guy? You know, you wouldn't have met people like that. You know, everything just rolls off them. Nothing really bothers them. Well, was Philemon one, just a guy like that?

He just let this slide. Is that why Paul can say, I know you love people and things don't bother you. It's all good. I'm not so convinced because when I read the Bible, the Bible makes me to understand where genuine Christian love, where that comes from.

So Paul can say in Romans chapter five, verse five, that the hope that we have in Christ won't disappoint us. Why? Because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

The Apostle John can say that love consists in this. First John 410, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Christian love is rooted and grounded in the love that God has shown us in Christ.

The fact that God, the son added a human nature to his divine nature. And then that son entered into creation, that he obeyed the law of God perfectly for us, that he went to the cross and died for us, that when he died, he was buried, signifying that he actually died.

Yet he rose from the grave for us, that he returned to heaven after he rose where he represents us. That's the picture of love that God gives us in his son. And it's those who have experienced that kind of love who know why and how to love others.

I alluded to first John earlier, first John 419, the Apostle says it so simply, we love because he first loved us. Can I put it to you that forgiveness cannot grow out of the cold concrete of mere command or obligation, that genuine Christian forgiveness only thrives in the fertile soil of the grace of God in the gospel.

I don't know about you, but I'm just going to be transparent for a moment. There have been moments where I have really struggled with the idea of forgiveness. I imagine that if I went around the room, and we're all being honest, we can all say we have experienced moments where forgiving people seems really, really, really tough.

For a moment, think about those moments, just as I think about the moments that I experience. If you're honest, if you're thinking with your heart of hearts, if you are honest, how much of that struggle flows from the fact that we have lost sight of God's lavish love for us?

How much of that struggle flows from forgetting, I believe it was Luke chapter 7 where Jesus said that, I believe it was Mary Magdalene who came and poured oil on his feet, and he says that her many sins have been forgiven.

That is why she loved much, but the one who is forgiven little loves little. And people kind of say that to me, well it's, you know, people who've had a really big, like they were really bad sinners, they really understand forgiveness.

That's not Jesus's point. No, Jesus's point is, there is nobody who's been forgiven little. So nobody has an excuse to love little. We have all been forgiven much, and if we have all been forgiven much, we should all be more forgiving.

And it's on that basis, come back to Philemon, Philemon 10, Paul says, I, Paul, as an elderly man, we're not entirely sure of Paul's ages in the New Testament, but generally it's assumed that Paul was about 30 when he was converted.

It's been about 30 years, so he's in his 60s at this point. So when he says he's an elderly man, he's old. He says as an elderly man, but not just as an elderly man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, remember he's on this house arrest in Rome.

Paul says, I, Paul, as an elderly man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my son Onesimus. And note what he says, I became his father while I was in chains. That somewhere along the line of his imprisonment, this two-year period where he's in Rome, met Onesimus, preached the gospel to him, and he was converted.

Onesimus was a believer. And so Paul could appeal not on the basis of law, but on the basis of Christian love for Philemon to forgive Onesimus. And that is so helpful for us to think about as we think about forgiveness, that if we are going to be people who forgive, forgiveness has to flow out of the motivation of love, not law.

If we're going to forgive in a way that is purposeful, personal, and gospel-shaped, we have to forgive out of love, not law. But that's not all. That's foundational. We have to start there, but that's not all that there is when we deal with this matter of forgiveness.

So again, I point out a second marker of Christian forgiveness from this passage. We forgive out of love, not law. But secondly, we forgive seeing grace in the other person. We forgive seeing grace in the other person.

So Paul doesn't just appeal to Christian love, which is the best motivation there is. I mean, he really could just wrap it up there. But he also appeals to something else. Look at verse 11. Paul says, once he was useless to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me.

I am sending him back to you. I am sending my very own heart. I wanted to keep him with me so that in my imprisonment for the gospel, he might serve me in your place. How much use is a runaway slave? Not a whole lot.

By the way, I promised I would do this last week. When we read about slavery in the New Testament, especially in this country where we have such a sordid history of slavery in our past, the temptation can be to read the New Testament accounts about slavery and basically think it's exactly the same thing as it happened here.

Now let's be clear. Could slavery get as equally barbaric as it did in this country in the past? Yes. Depending on who the master was, it could get really bad. But slavery in the Roman world was a little more complex than it was in our history.

In the Roman world, slavery was kind of a stratified system. It had these layers to it. You could have everything from a guy who was an indentured servant to somebody who was a fully skilled laborer who had a measure of semi-independence, married, had family.

Yes, it could get barbaric and inhumane, but that wasn't always the case. We're not told how long Onesimus, excuse me, how long Philemon had been a Christian. Perhaps he wasn't a Christian before when Onesimus ran away.

We don't know for certain, but he is when this letter comes to him. Onesimus had failed as a slave. He had become useless. But now, this is kind of interesting, Onesimus' name comes from the Greek word, one of the Greek words for being useful or profitable.

So when Paul says that once he was useless, but now he's useful, it's a play on his name. Now he's living up to what he's called. In fact, he had proved so useful to Paul. Do you get the sense that Paul wants to keep him?

It's always nice when you work. I've worked in places on a temporary basis. The time that you're supposed to be there temporary ends up and they're like, we like you so much, we want you to stay on. That's always a good feeling.

Well, I don't think Onesimus was such a faithful worker. Paul wanted to keep him, but Paul recognizes that actually there's something a little more important than me keeping him. This relationship needs to be restored.

So now here he is, with Paul writing to send him back in to commend him. Why does Paul feel the need to commend Onesimus at this point? Is this a case of, Philemon, I'm telling you, he's not the guy who he once was, I promise you.

That might be part of it to be sure. But I think there's a deeper meaning to this. Whoever Onesimus was when he left, that was not the man standing in front of Philemon right now. Can I put it to you that what Paul is doing here is that Paul is pointing to the evidences of more than just moral cleanup.

It's not that he had just become this reformed character in the character sense, that he's become this cleaned up character. No, he's pointing to more than just moral cleanup. He's pointing to the evidences of gospel transformation in Onesimus's life.