Philemon "Receive Him Forever"
Each book in the Bible gently guides God's people into a more intimate relationship with their Creator, as He knows must occur, for His people to receive Him in the depth of the relationship that He purchased for them. Each day we are covering, in sequential order, one of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament and explaining how each of them is revealing God in a more intimate way than has been given to this point in the scriptures.
Today is the eighteenth day of the series, “The Progressive Revelation of Jesus Christ” and the book is, Philemon, the eighteenth book in the New Testament as it appears in our Bible. Philemon is a letter written to an owner of a runaway servant that Paul had, “begotten in his bonds.”
The first thing I’ll point out today is, “I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:” Paul is telling Philemon that Onesimus has been transformed into something different than he was in his past. This transformation is what every person of God must go through to become “profitable” to the kingdom of God. Notice the name “One” and “simus” joined together. This is One a unity and “simus” a Greek transliteration of Simon a rock; so, we are reading about a man who is united as a rock with God.
Paul then speaks of how, “For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; 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?” Every one of God’s people has “departed for a season” to be received with their Creator. This book is a transitioning into the next book just like the rest of the books of the Bible, and the next book is Hebrews and is written to a group of people who probably thought they had understood the gospel completely because of their Jewish heritage. This is what Paul is describing and helping us to become ready to receive. Nobody has gone through their journey on earth perfectly, and perhaps it is for the eternal cause that it has happened.
Paul continues with, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;” which is the same thing that Jesus Christ has told our Father. Jesus came to Earth for this cause and has accomplished His purpose. There is nothing anyone of His people could do to owe more than He has paid, and it is all prepared for His people’s acceptance.
The examples in this blog are only a limited sample of the deepening relational revelation described through the letter of “Philemon” which includes a plea for a runaway servant’s master to accept him back
The intent of the blog is to demonstrate the difference in the revelation that God gives to His people as they intently follow Him and focus on what He has told them through their individual lives and the revelation they’ve received through the Holy Spirit and His Holy Bible.
Tomorrow I will share how the letter to the “Hebrews” brings an even more intimate portrait of the relationship through its recording of how Jesus came, is the Messiah, and how the Scriptures are lived in people’s daily lives by the leading of the Spirit to a group of people who were humanly intune with the Mosaic Law.
