06/09/2025
Daily devotional.📖❤️🙏
Philemon 1:1-21
1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker— 2 also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier—and to the church that meets in your home:
3 Grace and peace to you[a] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. 7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Paul’s Plea for Onesimus
8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— 10 that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus,[b] who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
12 I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.
17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. 20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.
Reflection:
the power of the word of the Lord is that it speaks to us with enough room to speak beyond us into the world we live in. This passage, a short letter attributed to the apostle Paul, is a message that is, all at once, about Paul, Philemon, Onesimus, and also you, me, and all of us together. In many ways, this letter is Paul's attempt to call Philemon to deepen his commitment to be a disciple of Christ. And in this moment, that looks like receiving Onesimus as a brother whose sins have been forgiven. In delivering this call, Paul is not only the messenger: His life embodies the message. Paul is himself a prisoner, yet called to shepherd the flock of God by delivering the words of God, even to individuals. Paul invites Philemon to consider a similar vocation, though from a different place in the world. The word to welcome Onesimus as he would welcome Paul may come as a blunt and sharp word. But Paul knows Philemon, believes in him, and anticipates seeing first hand that this disciple will receive a hard word and do a hard thing. This letter is specific to Paul's ministry in his world and Philemon's ministry with Onesimus as a sibling in Christ, but it is also a word for us today. It points to much larger societal and systemic realities of the Roman world, but it also invites us to consider the systems of oppression that limit the work of the gospel in our day. It's a word from the Lord by disciples, for disciples, and to disciples. May we be willing to receive it.
-The upper room Disciplines a book of daily devotion.
Reflecting questions:
1. How is God calling me to see others not as their past mistakes but as beloved brothers and sisters in Christ?
2. What difficult act of love or forgiveness might the Lord be asking me to do right now?
3. In what ways can my life, like Paul’s, embody the message of the gospel even in hard circumstances?
AIG David, James
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