Remember when you used to get in trouble with your mom or dad. First choice for what to do was go somewhere and hide. Friends, neighbors, basement, treehouse – just get away somewhere, and hopefully mom or dad would cool down. Then, there was the dreaded Principal who's path you dared not cross.
As we grew older, we found that there were others who's path we dared not cross or world we better not mess with. Yes, there were the neighborhood bully (male or female). And then, there was the old man or lady down the street who seemed to have it in for all the kids in the neighborhood.
Then all of a sudden, you were out on your own and there was the dreaded boss, almost like a slave driver. At least that was the feeling you got every morning as you prepared to head off to that "awful place" called WORK. You trudged in prepared to face not only the boss, but the customers and co-workers who's demands on your life outweighed the rights you may have thought you had.
Got to one of the shortest books in the Bible – Philemon. All twenty-five verses of it. So, the thought occurred to me as I started reading, that this should be a no brainer.
NOT!
Here was Paul, in prison in Rome, along with Mark, Demas and Luke. In comes this slave (yes, there were slaves way back then – still) who had stolen from his master Philemon. Who knows what he took – that was not the important thing. What was important, was that he got to Rome and must have looked up Paul and paid him a visit. He knew Paul, because his master was someone whom Paul knew from Colossae when he was ministering there.
So, here's this guy Onesimus (the slave), who knows he's in trouble and he pays a visit to Paul, and probably tells him what he has done. Paul ministers (works?) with/to him enough that he becomes a Christian – gives his life to Jesus. Scary!
It was scary, because as Christians, we are supposed to "make it right" with those we have harmed. But Onesimus is probably a lot like us. You know…"I can't go back and tell them I'm sorry, or that I did them wrong." Almost as though admitting we did anything wrong will instantly erase our relation with Jesus.
Not true!
What Paul was doing in this little letter to Onesimus was laying it all on the line. Read verse eight through seventeen. Paul takes a shot across the bow when he says "I…could order you to do what is proper, but instead I appeal to you…"
YOu have to ask yourself, "what is proper and right?" Read on, and Paul passionately reminds Philemon that Onesimus should be reconciled to him, even as we Christ followers are reconciled to God – not because of how good we are, but because of how good and loving God is.
Paul kind of puts it all on the line when he says to Philemon, "Okay, you see me as a partner with you, then accemp him (Onesimus) just like you would accept me."
If you had been robbed, mistreated, spat upon (so to speak) like Philemon, what would you say to Paul?
On the other hand, if you were Onesimus, could you say "I'm sorry – please forgive me"?
Hard choices aren't they?
