Okay, please open your scriptures to Philemon. It's a single chapter book. We're looking at 25 verses from beginning to end. This is a series with one part. Since we have many that are either sick or away, I thought it would be best for us to not begin of the other two series that we were going to begin on vows and on Luke. The Book of Flaman is a book largely on the subject of consent and of freedom and of slavery. There is much in the Bible on slavery and liberty. For one thing, Every week, when we read the Ten Commandments, we recognize that God is the great liberator of his people, having freed them from slavery. We are commended to preserve our liberty that we have in Christ, and that it is for liberty that Christ has set us free. And so the Scriptures have an emphasis on liberty, and there is also an emphasis on slavery. that having been free from slavery to sin, we are free to be slaves of Christ, slaves of righteousness. We escape one master and go to another. The Book of Flaman has been a book that has been largely ignored, and in other cases a book that has been largely twisted. It is a book that is actually quite simple, I believe, to understand, but because of the fact that it is short, it seems, that many think that it cannot be profound. And I would encourage you to eliminate that thought from your mind. This book is impressive in the way in which it is systematic and consistent, it is impressive in its profundity, it is impressive in its clarity, and it is impressive in its brevity. Calvin is famous for having explained that his ideal for the exposition of Scripture would be that people would teach the truth with clarity and brevity. And so we have an example here from the Apostle Paul of truth given to us with clarity and brevity. That being the case, let's read the book and we will discuss it. Flaman, chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother. To Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer. To the beloved Aphia, Archivist, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, Yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing. that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay. not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me. for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. At the time this letter was written, it seems likely that this was Paul's first imprisonment in Rome. This would be the same time period that he likely wrote Ephesians and Colossians. And some of the commentaries I have looked at suggest that this letter was carried by Onesimus and Tychicus together as they went to Colossi carrying the letter to the Colossians simultaneously with the letter of flame. I do not know if that is the case. but it seemed reasonable as a possibility based upon the evidence that was presented. In particular, the person's address and the time frame laid out based upon evidence internally in these letters. In addition to that, this letter has often been called a private letter, which seems silly to me since it is addressed to the church in the house of Philemon as well as to Philemon. So it is clearly not a private letter, but also a public letter. I would like to point out also that there is obviously a primary set of characters in this letter. There are a number of names mentioned, 12 of my memory serves me correctly, but there are four that are the primary names. Paul, Anesimus, Philemon, and Jesus Christ. We will be focusing on those four main characters in this letter, but I also wanted to point out a couple of themes of the letter. One of the themes is obviously slavery. When this letter was written, it was illegal for slaves to run away. Roman law preserved slavery as an institution. A runaway slave could be punished with branding, maiming, or death. In Roman law, slave owners have the right to kill their slaves at any time for any reason. For those who harbored runaway slaves or cooperated with them in being not caught by the authorities, there were civil penalties in the form of restitution for lost wages that the owner of the slave could have obtained, And so Paul and the people that he lists would have been aware of Onesimus' flight from slavery, as has been recorded in his letter. So Paul is handing over a letter to a slave owner that says, I know about this person's slavery. I've been aware of it for some time, and this person has been helping me. There were also criminal penalties associated with harboring slaves. So we have here a case of Paul being in prison in Rome and not telling the authorities that he was around on a daily basis about the runaway slave that was ministering to him. Furthermore, we have a list of other persons who greet in this letter. Therefore, their greeting having been passed along indicates their awareness, and therefore their complicity in not turning in Pernicimus. This suggests that not only did Paul know, but that there was a conspiracy between the people inside of this letter to not inform the guards that they must have been communicating around on a frequent basis, since they would be interacting with Paul in prison near guards and near other prisoners who might try to use turning in a slave to their advantage in some way. So this is an odd letter. It deals with a number of difficult subjects, including slavery and freedom, subjection to civil authorities and disobedience to civil authorities, the relationships between slave and master, employer and employee. So let's go through the text. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother. I wanted to point out, in America, we think of slavery as being largely a racial institution. The Bible clearly undermines racism, and in Rome, slavery would not have been based upon race. However, there were many racist attitudes in Rome at this time, including the whole Roman Empire. Jews, for example, thought they were better than everybody else because they were Jews. Greeks thought they were better than everybody else because they were Greeks. And Romans thought they were better than everybody else because they were Romans. And so, you have an extensive nationalism, racism, classism. There were legally protected classes under Roman law. All forms of collectivism, where we think of ourselves as having identity with some group and that we should associate our interest with a group that's outside of either the whole of humanity or based upon some ideological group, but rather based upon economics or based upon race. Paul was a Jew. And Timothy, who was writing with him, was half Greek and half Jewish. And so the union between them undermines that. And we see other groups and other people that Paul works with. Paul destroys the distinctions based upon race that existed at the time. And so does Jesus Christ. We are taught by Paul that we have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. We should be concerned about intellectual union, and we should be concerned about judging people based upon what they think and do, not based upon who their father was or based upon some sort of physical attributes. Proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7, teaches that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The purpose of the verse is to demonstrate that we should judge people based upon their character, based upon what they think. Our ideas, what we think, what our motives are, and what we do out of those motives should define who we are. So Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Paul is writing a letter about a slave. He does not call himself a prisoner in any of his other letters. in his greeting. He will call himself an apostle, a slave, or a servant. He will say nothing at all. He has no title for himself. Paul is referring to himself as a prisoner, somebody who is in chains. And I think this is very intentional. He is a prisoner in Rome. He is a prisoner in Rome based not upon any crimes that he's committed, but based upon the tyrannical use of power. Now, we know that there are just uses of power and unjust uses of power. The Bible and the American Constitution both differentiate between slavery because of criminal acts, and slavery because of unjust exercise of power. The 13th Amendment, which is viewed as the amendment that abolished slavery, actually specifically says that no one shall be put into forced labor except by due process of law for crimes committed. The Bible also makes it so that putting people into chains is a capital offense. Kidnapping which is, you know, this napping or stealing away child. And the Bible is normally referred to as man stealing. And the punishment for it is execution. There are cases that allow for that to be justly done, put forward in the Old Testament. For example, if somebody steals, they should be required to repay the value times the multiple. And if they have no money because they've stolen it and consumed it or wasted it away in gambling or whatever else, they should be forced to, by labor, repay. That's very different from capturing somebody for no reason and forcing them to be someone's slave. That is man-stealing. The American institution of slavery and the Roman institution of slavery were both largely built on man-stealing. The other thing about the biblical institution of slavery is it had limits in terms of what a master could command or do to a slave. Roman system did not. American system had some limits, but they were far too little. And furthermore, they lasted for the whole life of a person, which is also a sin and forbidden by the Bible. The Bible sets limits on how long repayment of debt, even for criminal acts, can be put in the form of forced servitude. And additionally, children do not inherit the status of slavery from their parents under the biblical system. Under the Roman system and the American system, both happened. So Paul, a prisoner, not of Rome, not of man, what does it say? Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. The suggestion here, first of all, I want to point out that Christ Jesus is in the opposite order of what we normally say as Americans. Normally, as Americans, we say Jesus Christ as though Jesus were his first name and Christ were his last name. There's more freedom for word ordering in Greek than in English normally. But the change of order here is to demonstrate the authority of Jesus Christ. To say Christ Jesus as in the Anointed One, Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus, the King, Jesus. And so he's a prisoner of Christ Jesus. And Timothy, our brother, those are the ones that are writing. And I want to emphasize the fact that he has mentioned that he's a prisoner of the true authority, because what he's going to be teaching us about is the extent of false authority, because all human authority is delegated. All human authority is delegated and ministerial. So we don't have authority in ourselves, and all the authority that we have is meant for service. He's writing to Flaman, who is a head of house. And being called a fellow laborer, that title was normally used to refer to fellow elders. So what we see here is that Flaman is a head of house and an elder, and he's called Beloved. To the Beloved Aphia. Now, we don't know who Aphia is, but she's being listed here as being one of the people in whose house the church meets. So I would suggest that since she is mentioned before Archippus, that she is probably the lady of the house. She's probably the wife of Philemon. So to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Aphia. Archippus, our fellow soldier. That's also a term that is normally used in reference to elders, although we are all soldiers in Christ and we are all laborers in Christ. Normally when Paul uses those terms, he's talking to people who are participating in the gospel ministry. And to the church in your home. So these three are the ones who have that home. And this means that Laman was probably an extremely prominent member of the church. First of all, he's probably rather wealthy. He has a home that's large enough to have the church meet in, and he also had a slave that had run away. He also has a son, Archippus, or some man that lives in their home that is also an elder. It was more common at the time to have a large house that you could have multiple households in. There would be a separation, more like what we think of as a townhome now. But you would build on, fathers at this time would often build on, essentially, a place for another household, their son's household, for example, to move into. You would also have, especially when there were slaves, slaves' quarters, which would be essentially different households inside of this single building. So Philemon, her beloved friend and fellow laborer to the beloved Apphia. Archippus, our fellow soldier, into the church in your house. Let me remind you that it is not wrong for houses to be the place where a church gathers. And a church is not a building. A church is the people. It is the assembly. It is those who are called together, those that are called out of the world, those that are the congregation. And so this is a public letter to that church. So something I want to point out that is not normally pointed out about this letter, this letter is a church discipline letter. This is a public rebuke to Flaming. And it is an example of how church discipline is to work. He says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We've seen this often from Paul, grace and peace. Let me remind you that grace is unmerited favor. More than unmerited favor, more than just being something that's not deserved, it is demerited favor. It is favor that, though we deserve the wrath of God, the disfavor of God, we obtain the favor of God. By Christ, we don't simply move from negative to zero. We move from negative to positive. I want to point out here, as I'm talking about this negative and positive, the debiting and the crediting, that one of the themes in this book is imputation. And that another theme is substitution. And Paul is going to take the ideas of imputation and substitution and apply them in the Christian life to go beyond simply the gospel proper in terms of the good news that we believe in in order to obtain the benefits of redemption and move into how it should affect the way we live. So grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that when we talk about peace, the most important peace is to obtain peace with God. Peace is a word that can mean more than just not being at war. It really refers to prosperity as a whole. But destruction is the opposite of that prosperity. And war and peace are in fact opposites. War destroys, it kills, it tears down. And peace, especially peace with the Omnipotent God, is far more desirable than war with the Omnipotent God. So Paul is saying he wants grace and peace. from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ to the recipients of this letter. And so, this church discipline act that is being done is being done in the hopes of grace and peace. Verse 4, I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints. That should be ironic to us. Who would Paul have heard about Philemon from? Onesimus, having been a slave from the household of Philemon, would have been the one who spoke about Philemon. So, I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, right? So, Paul is approaching this by thanking God for Philemon. He makes mention of Philemon and of Apphia and of Archippus and of that church in their house, in his prayers. And he hears of their love and faith which you have towards the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints. So, Onesimus has not been a slanderer of his master, but rather he has spoken well of him. And this love that has been spoken about by Onesimus And they love that Paul talks about being toward all the saints. And if Onesimus has become a saint since leaving, because Paul says that he is the one who begot Onesimus, in the sense of that under his preaching, the seed of faith that brought about life was that seed of faith planted by the word preached by Paul. And now, Onesimus is one of the saints. and one of those towards whom love should be given. Let me start that sentence over. I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. This is the objective of the letter. We talk about thesis a lot. Here is the goal. The goal of the letter is that the sharing of Philemon's faith may become effective. Paul prays that the sharing of Philemon's faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing. which is in you in Christ Jesus. Calling evil good, calling good evil, are both awful. Something that's a lesser form of that same sin is to not point out evil or to not acknowledge what is good. The desire is that every good thing would be acknowledged, which is in and in the other recipients in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. The one who has given refreshment to the saints is Flaman. He is the chief person being addressed. Let me take a step back for just a minute. In Christianity, under one Lord, one faith, one baptism, we have a common king, we have common ideas, and we have a common covenant. We have different races, different economic status, different family backgrounds. This kingdom covers the whole earth. And we are to acknowledge that all authority that any of us have, all gifts that any of us have, are to be for the purpose of glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. making his name praised, making him known. The prayer here is that the sharing of Flamin's faith may become effective. Isaiah 53 verse 11 makes it clear that the Word of God is always effective when it goes forth. If the faith of Philemon is the faith of the Scriptures, if his subjective faith is the objective faith of the Scriptures, there is no fear that God's intention behind it will be effective. The effect that is desired here is not simply that what God has decreed would happen, but in particular, that through Philemon, the world would be effective at converting sinners. At causing a fruit, a harvest, to be yielded. And doing good works and acknowledging what is good causes that harvest. Not in the sense that God is not sovereign over it, but in the sense that God decrees for people to speak the truth and to have a testimony that is true, but to also live in a way that accords with it when he intends to bring about a large harvest. God predestines the means and he predestines the ends. It is my desire, and I would suggest to you that it should be your desire, if you are a rational being seeking your own interest, to be effective in your witness. And so let us take this and recognize that we have sinned, just like Philemon has sinned. In our time, it is very easy to point out how bad slave owners are. But there are many sins that are easy for us to hide. and easy for us to not point out as being such obvious violations of the law of God. So it is my prayer that we will share our faith in a way that is effective in the same way that Paul was praying for Philemon, by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in us because of Christ Jesus. Now Paul said in verse 7, For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother." Look over at verse 20. Verse 20 says, Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. He starts and ends with this. He has joy in it, and he's asking that Philemon would give him more joy by refreshing his heart based upon the request that comes between here. And the request is really stacked in here in verses 8-16. There's more about it going forward from verse 17, but the main bulk of what's being requested in order to obtain that refreshment is in those verses 8-16. Alright, verse 8. Notice the therefore. Remember what you're supposed to say when you see therefore? What's a therefore? Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, the word fitting could just be translated right or proper, though I might command you to do what's right, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you being such a one as Paul, the agent. and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son, Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me." Paul starts with his thesis. He explains that he's hoping that the witness of Flaman would become more effective. His desire is to continue to enjoy the consolation that he has of the love of Flaman and the church that meets in his house. To be refreshed, he's grateful for it. He takes joy in the refreshment. And therefore, because he takes joy in the refreshment, he's going to ask him for something in the hopes of getting refreshment. It's like God and Paul are very logical. When you read these letters, you would think that logic were a virtue. Maybe it is. So therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ Jesus to command you when it's fitting, is there anything wrong with commanding somebody to do what's right? If something is right, that means it's already defined as our duty under the law of God. So Paul has no authority to give commands that are not already commanded in the mind of God. He's an apostle. He's a messenger. He carries the message. He has delegated authority. What he's going to ask for is something that he could have commanded because the law of God already makes it a duty. And so we see here in this letter about church discipline regarding the public sin of slave ownership, of an innocent slave as opposed to somebody who's being punished for crime or being forced to repay debt under a limited sentence. What we see here is the firm putting forward of a duty. But it's with tact. It's with tact. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you. Now it might seem that he's saying, yet because of my love for you, I rather appeal to you. Or you might think maybe it's for the sake of Philemon's love. It is talking about for the sake of Paul's love, but in particular referring back to what have we seen the most about love? We have seen in verse five, it says, hearing of your love and faith which you have towards the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints." The love that he's appealing to is the love of the Lord Jesus and the love for all the saints. The argument that follows is going to talk about being profitable versus being unprofitable. It's going to talk about the reward that Paul hopes Philemon will have. The appeal here is the desire of Paul for Philemon to obtain benefit. by doing his duty out of love for Christ and love for the saints and how that accrues profit. So this is the love of Christ that Philemon should give. The rest of this letter is largely about the fact that voluntary obedience is better than compulsory or forced or pressured obedience. If somebody desires to give obedience, that is better. Forced obedience to do what is right is better than no obedience. But it's not as good as voluntary obedience. Intelligent obedience is superior to obedience without understanding. I can give one of my young children a command to do something and simply require it of them without them understanding why. But if I continue to do that, at a certain point in time, when they are free from the wrath of this household, they will do as they please and not as they have been commanded. But rather, if they understand the reasons why, as they grow, they will instead pursue righteousness on their own. When the women of this household talk about the fact that they think of me as the head of this household, when they give an intelligent answer for why, instead of, well, that's just the way it is, it brings more honor to me. than if they were to just give an unintelligible answer of, well, that's the way it is. Voluntary obedience is better than pressured or forced compulsory obedience. Intelligent obedience is better than obedience without understanding. And cheerful obedience is better than begrudging obedience. The desire here of Paul is that Philemon would give voluntary, intelligent, and cheerful obedience. And this goes against the grain of slavery. What Paul is doing is he is laying it on thick. What Paul is doing here is he's committing a tactful form of overkill. Because we need that. We need to pile up reasons to oppose sin in our own minds. We see here that Archippus is referred to as a fellow soldier. We are all engaged in spiritual warfare. And what we need to do is to pile up the strength of our weaponry, the word of God, against sin in our own minds. We need to lay it up in our hearts as a treasure. We need a storehouse full of the supplies and material used for warfare. And so Paul lays it on thick. So rather than using coercive power or compulsion to require obedience to Flaman, he appeals to him for love's sake. He then says, being such a one as Paul, he doesn't say, being such a one as Paul the Apostle, who has authority to tell you what to do, he says, being such a one as Paul, the aged. That word aged can refer to Elder, we've talked about that before, but that's not what's being set up here, because the comparison is between Paul, the aged, and Onesimus, who's his son. The context helps us to understand that this is not an appeal to office. It also wouldn't work because an elder has no authority to tell another elder what to do. He would have to appeal to his apostleship. So being such a one as Paul, the agent, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, referring to his own prisonership doesn't really establish his authority either. He says, I appeal to you. for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me." Why does anybody keep slaves? They keep slaves because they believe that they will be profitable. But the interesting thing is that people hate being slaves. when they have wisdom. And so as a result, Onesimus was unprofitable. He probably stole from his master. He was probably lazy, waste, fraud, abuse, all of the things that you see bad employees doing, but then he also ran away. And so I don't know how Flamin obtained Onesimus. If it was because he purchased him in the slave market and then he ran away, it was probably a bad investment. If he didn't work hard, probably a bad investment. If he stole stuff from him, probably a bad investment. As a reference to if there's anything that's owed, Paul's probably aware of something that's owed and mentioned that because of the fact that he's aware of it. And in SMS and Paul, I mean, you're a runaway slave in Rome. It takes a lot of convincing to get you to go back to your master, who has the power to kill you, who has the power to maim you, who has the power to brand you. The appeal here to Philemon is to his true self-interest. Onesimus was unprofitable, but now he's profitable. I doubt that Onesimus is sending back wads of cash to Philemon. There are no bags full of denarii, so I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains. Nepal was not always a prison. Paul was a citizen of Rome. Paul probably came from a family of means if he was a rabbi in his youth and then became zealous and important in the Sanhedrin. He'd been commissioned by the Sanhedrin for a particular mission, a theological mission, to go and destroy the Christians. He was a man of prestige and power amongst his people. And if he can go from prestige and power and freedom and citizenship to prison, then why should Onesimus not go from slavery to freedom? We should not believe the superstition of nobility or royalty, that our blood can make us better or worse. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains. Flaman preached the word. Onesimus heard the word. He even spoke of the positive Christian life that occurred in Flaman's home to Paul. But he was converted under the preaching ministry of Paul. As a side note, this should give hope to parents if they see their children leave their home unconverted It is possible that they too will run into a Paul who causes that faith to grow. But Onesimus came to believe. He was converted under the ministry of Paul. And so Paul talks about himself as a father. Now, we probably cringe a little about this as Protestants, since we're not supposed to call ourselves father or teacher. We see here Paul not taking it as a title for himself. He's not saying, I am the father. He's not like the Pope claiming, I am the Holy Father. He is rather using an analogy and saying that he is his father. While still acknowledging in other letters, for example, that Apollo's plants, Paul Waters, I might be forgetting the order there, someone else helps to care for the crop. Ultimately, it is God who yields the harvest, who yields the fruit. So we know that Paul is not thinking that the authority resides in him or the power resides in him. It is not by the ex opere operato that he causes people to come to faith or to be regenerated. So Paul is not saying that it is different than the claims of Rome. They will often appeal to this text to justify the use of that title. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. Verse 12 I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. Here we have the idea of substitution beginning to come into the text. Paul is saying that he desires that Flamin would receive Onesimus, not as though he's receiving Onesimus, his slave, to return to work as a slave, but rather to receive him as though he is receiving Paul's own heart, Paul's own person. The heart is the soul, is the mind. There's no difference in the scripture. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. You are what you think. You are your mind, you are your soul, you are your heart, and so Paul is asking that he would receive Onesimus as though he were receiving Paul. Paul desired to keep Onesimus with him so that on Philemon's behalf, Onesimus might minister to Paul in his chains. He has been profitable to you because he's been providing this service to me, and the result is that this service that Onesimus has been providing to me is really your service, and it is gathering for you a treasure in heaven. However, it would be more profitable if it were by Philemon's consent. There is a difference between theft and sharing. Do you know what it is? Consent. The difference between theft and sharing is consent. It is common for us to teach our children to share by forcibly extracting the toys from their hands. This does not teach them to share, it teaches them to submit to socialism and the forced redistribution of toy wealth. What we should do is teach our children to respect the property rights of other children. And we should teach them to come to voluntary exchange by mutual consent. We do not want them to think, if I take good care of my toy, it will do me no good because another can take it by the force of parents and take poor care of it. The difference between theft and sharing is consent. the Good Samaritan gave to help the wounded person on the side of the road out of his own choice. Obamacare takes money from people at gunpoint and makes them care for other people impersonally at a distance with the extracted cash. Verse 12, I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me. that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent, I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. Here's Paul laying it on thick. Does it seem like Flaman should continue to seek to get compulsory service out of Onesimus? when Paul is so careful to preserve the consent of Philemon, when Paul wants the service to be voluntary and not compulsory. You see, the Christian religion is a religion that preserves individual liberty because it takes highly the value of individual consent. Voluntary contract, capitalism, constitution, individual liberty, are the outworkings of the Protestant Reformation. They are the outworkings of the Bible. And we see them in co-ed form in the Hebrew Republic when we study the Old Testament. And so we see here that Paul is not inventing anything new. Why does Paul not send back Onesimus under Roman guard? Let's turn to Deuteronomy, chapter 23. While you're turning there, if you've ever heard of the Dred Scott decision, the Dred Scott decision was an opinion of the American Supreme Court written by a Roman Catholic stating that in states where slavery was forbidden, the federal government still had the power and individual citizens had the obligation under threat of law to send slaves back to their masters. This would be very, very similar to the system of law that Paul was doing it with their own. Deuteronomy 23 verses 15 and 16. You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you. He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your gates, where it seems best to him you shall not oppress him. While we're looking at it a little bit from the Old Testament to understand this, let's also turn to Exodus 21. Exodus 21, verse 16. He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death. Let me remind you that Paul was a rabbi before he was an apostle. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He knew this law, and he was emphasizing the importance of individual liberty, and he had persuaded Onesimus to go back of his own will, not under guard of Roman soldier or magistrate. Verse 12, I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me. that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps you departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave. a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord?" It is clear that Paul is telling him that his departure might have been for the purpose of receiving him as a brother, as Paul himself. no longer as a slave. People will try to take this. Defenders of slavery would try to take this and defend it. The Roman Church today, and some of the Southern Presbyterians, for example, even would try to argue that this text, when it says, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, that what it's saying is, you can receive him back as a slave, but also more. It's a contrast. No longer as a slave means he's not a slave. The text is teaching that what Paul hopes, the desire that he thinks he could command, is that he no longer be a slave, but that he be more than a slave, that instead of being a slave, that he now be a beloved brother, that he be received as a beloved brother. We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself, and we are also commanded to seek our own liberty, to not put ourselves under chains, to not make ourselves go back to being chained either figuratively or literally. That it is a good thing that God took the Hebrews and brought them out of slavery. If it is good for us, would it not be good for our brother? For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord. This in the flesh word, I don't know what that's a reference to. I don't know if it's a statement that he's of the same nationality or some sort of relation. Ultimately, we know that we all have relationship to each other going back to Adam. Also, you can go to Noah. So we all have the common ancestor of Adam. We all have the common ancestor of Noah. Those of us who believe the gospel are one in Christ. And so he appeals to the flesh and to Christian union, saying that he should receive him as a brother, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then, you count me as a partner. I could say, if you impute to me the status of partnership. receive him as you would me. Here's that idea of substitution again. The connectedness of counting the benefit of Paul to Onesimus. If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would receive me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. We see here a very similar arrangement to Christ, for example, who our sins are imputed to Christ, they're accounted to Christ. The benefit of Christ is imputed to us. Paul is saying here, see him as me and see me as owing what he owes. Substitute him for me and let me substitute for him. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. He's saying if there is some sort of cash that needs to be repaid, if there's property that needs to be restored, if there is some wrong, which I remind you, Roman law required that if you harbored a slave, you were required to, under civil law, restore the lost value of the wages of that slave for the time that you harbored. There were also other criminal penalties. And he's saying, any loss because of the wrong done to you, I will repay if you require it, if you receive onesimus in my place. And then he's also at the same time saying, but you really shouldn't require that from me because you owe yourself to me. The good that Paul has done to Philemon is such that Philemon should be ready quickly to forgive This reminds us of the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. It reminds us of that parable about that servant who owed much was forgiven much, and then there was another servant who owed him little in comparison. He didn't forgive, but instead demanded the full repayment. And then the master heard about it and punished the ungrateful servant. There are other laws in the Old Testament about economics regarding lending. The Bible commends lending as a mechanism for business, as a mechanism for improving the economic situation of everybody. But when somebody is in a situation where they have to borrow out of desperation, we as brothers should lend to them freely, not requiring repayment, not going after them in the courts and not extracting interest from them. When we lend to someone for their immediate consumption, that lending is charitable. And you cannot mix charity with profit in the sense of seeking to give somebody something to help them and expecting a reward in heaven and then also expecting a reward in the form of interest. Many systems of philosophy condemn all interest taking. The Bible only condemns charity loans having interest paid on them. The Bible says that taking interest is fine, and in fact committed that when you have an investment, you should invest it and obtain interest. Christ, in his parable about the talents, condemns the servant who buried the money in the ground rather than lending it out at interest. But the Bible also condemns those who lend to their desperate brothers as a way of extracting from them very high interest terms. In the book of Nehemiah, we are told about the wealthy when they're building the wall, that most of their neighbors became enslaved and ended up having to sell off their daughters and the like in order to pay for things. Basic needs like food. And Nehemiah condemns it and says, we spent everything we could to gather Jews together out of slavery to come back and restore Jerusalem. And now, by extracting usury, what you are doing is forcing people back into slavery. Which is contrary to the entire mission of restoring Jerusalem. Let me remind you that what is written in the Old Testament is written for our education. And Jerusalem is the city of God. we should not seek to build the heavenly Jerusalem, to build the kingdom of God by extracting usury from our fellow citizens of Jerusalem. So if then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, in writing with my own hand, I will repay not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. How will this joy be obtained? The forgiving of the debt of Onesimus, making him free, counting him no longer as a slave, but rather as a brother, which are mutually exclusive categories. Verse 21. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I said, but meanwhile also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you." Paul speaks to Flaman as though he is going to do what he has been told is right. Obedience to this advice has been shown to be obedience to the law of God. He writes to him, knowing, expecting that Flaman will do even more than has been asked. Rather than simply writing off his debt and accepting him as a guest and not counting him a slave anymore, but giving him freedom, that perhaps he will equip him to go on and do his duty. But as Paul says in other letters, nobody goes to fight a war paying for their own equipment. And so why should Onesimus be expected to go off not being supplied by others? Furthermore, he has asked that he, Paul, be supported. Because when you are persecuted for the faith, you become a public person. You represent the faith in public. You are being persecuted in the public, and you should be supported by the church, rather than simply taking the whole burden on yourself. We should all view anybody who is persecuted for the name of Christ as being persecuted on our behalf because of the union that we have with them. So having confidence in your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say, but meanwhile also prepare a guest room for me. He's saying not only should you accept Onesimus as though he were me, but furthermore, I expect you to not even hold this debt against me because it's your duty anyways. And I expect you to receive me as me as well. He's expecting that the substitution won't be necessary. But this is a pulling on the conscience. It's gentle but firm. It's gentle but firm. This is public. It's not just a private request. You don't write a private request to the church. This is public. And it's been stated as something he's expecting obedience from. Meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers, I shall be granted to you. He's saying, I've told you about my condition, and I'm sure that you will do all that I've asked for and also pray for me. In many ways, this is both complimentary as well as giving an order. And this is an example to us of how church discipline should be performed with firmness and with tact. I expect you to do what is right. I expect you to repent. I expect you to do your duty. I'm not even going to come and give you an order. I'm going to ask you to do this. I appeal to you, brother. Do this thing that the scriptures teach is good. Do what is fitting. Do what is proper. Do what is right. There is an appeal before there is an exertion of authority. And then there is this farewell. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you. As do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers. I look forward to studying the letters of Luke and see how he has been with Paul, both in good times and bad times. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. We want the demerited favor of God, and we want the gifts of grace. We want to be sanctified. Paul says amen. I'm going to say amen with this. Let us look to this teaching about the importance of consent, about doing things voluntarily as opposed to with compulsion. Let us look to our political liberty our liberty in the church, liberty in the household, individual liberty, and hold on to it tightly and dearly. Let us trust God to give us liberty. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.