The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
(Over the next few days, we will consider the the Apostle Paul's epistle to Philemon, one of my favorite portions of Scripture, and one of its most Christ-exalting and revealing revelations of truth.)
"Philemon"
Part 1 - A Free Man
The Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to Philemon from prison, incarcerated by the Roman government under the authority of Caesar. Paul, however, did not view himself as bound by human sovereignty.
"Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow laborer" (Philemon 1:1; emphasis added).
The Apostle saw himself as imprisoned because and only because the providence of God had allowed such an injustice to occur. He believed - rightly - that his bonds would serve as the means for the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus to be revealed and glorified. Paul viewed himself as the Lord's detainee, bound in body, but not in spirit. Indeed, at least four New Testament epistles have freely soared through the ages unto countless hearts, including in this day when millions will read the questionably termed "prison epistles" (Philemon, Ephesians, Galatians, and Colossians). The Bible would be incomplete without these masterpieces of the Holy Spirit, inspired in the free heart of Paul regardless of how bereft he may have been of earthly liberty.
"I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds, but the Word of God is not bound" (II Timothy 2:9).
Every believer is "a prisoner of Jesus Christ." This present life "incarcerates" us all in various ways as our Heavenly Father providentially works to reveal His glory in challenges that seem to hinder rather than benefit. As we trust and submit to Him, however, the Holy Spirit works in us as He did in Paul. "Prisons" become lighthouses of liberty wherein we are freed to discover our Lord in personal terms, and then communicate our findings to others. We would never well know Him in this present life apart from the limitations He administers and allows that reveal to us and through us the only true freedom that exists (which has little or nothing to do with liberty as defined by the world).
"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall free indeed" (John 8:36).
Presently - and always - the believer who best knows genuine freedom is likely one that would seem to be the most bound. "Prisoners of Jesus Christ" may for all the world seem limited by circumstance or even cruelty. They are, in earthly terms. In terms of true and Heavenly reality, however, their spirits soar and their lives lead to freedom for others. Paul's letter to Philemon confirms such providence twenty centuries after his writing, even as it doubtless liberated Philemon in his day to walk in the love of Christ. A free man wrote the epistle, the freest man of his generation, and one in whom a prison served to reveal the only true liberty that exists for human hearts…
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
(John 8:32)
Weekly Memory Verse
"For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory."
(Hebrews 2:10).
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