Sunday, August 9, 2009

Philemon

A Quick Look: Philemon 4-7

Really Read It: Philemon 1-25

Memorize: Philemon 6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. NIV

Philemon is a small book of the Bible. It is shorter than most chapters and yet it gets to be a whole book. Philemon is so short that it doesn’t even have chapter numbers. To find a verse in Philemon, you don’t need a chapter then a verse. All you need is the verse. But I would like to change that. We are all so used to the chapter number: verse number deal that when a weird book like Philemon leaves it out, it is confusing. Right up there it says to memorize Philemon 6. Unless you are a Philemon expert, that looks like a whole chapter. Memorize Philemon Chapter 6 not just verse 6 of the little book of Philemon. What would it hurt to make the book have a chapter? I know one chapter doesn’t make it a chapter book, but then it could say, “Memorize Philemon 1:6,” and at least that verse could look like all the other verses in the Bible.

Even though it is really short, Philemon is a whole book all by itself because it was a whole letter written all by itself. The letter was from Paul and Timothy to three people. A guy named Philemon was one of the people. He got to turn his name into a book in the Bible, but the letter was also to a woman named Apphia, and another guy named Archippus. If you think those are funny names, it is okay to laugh because Apphia and Archippus have been dead for almost two thousand years. You might want to remember those funny names in case you ever adopt a pair of platypuses. Apphia and Archippus would be great pet platypus names. And if you need a third, you could add the name Onesimus. Onesimus is the man that this letter is about. Paul and Timothy wrote to Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus about Onesimus. (Nice job reading all of those weird names.) And they said that Onesimus is a great man of God. He may have made some mistakes before, but now he is right on track and he will really help their church. That is the main part of the letter, but the main thing that we are studying is in the introduction.

Paul and Timothy write down a prayer that they pray for Philemon and those others. The prayer starts with, “I always thank my God as I remember you.” Paul wrote that in at least three of his letters, but Christian greeting card writers wrote that on at least three million cards. Those words on a pretty greeting card make it seem like someone out there or a lot of someones are praying this for you. Maybe that’s true. I hope it’s true, but today switch it. Don’t hope that someone is thanking God for you. Make this be your prayer for someone or a lot of someones.

The prayer in Philemon is just four verses long, but it can be a great model for how to pray. Pray like this for your friends, your teachers, pastors, parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, mailmen, barbers… This prayer has three main parts that you can pray.

1. Thank you, God for _______________________. That is a pretty easy part, but it is important.

2. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith. Do this yourself. Be this yourself, but pray it for your friends too. “Be active” means your faith is a part of you that comes out wherever you are, whatever you do. Another version of the Bible says, “be generous.” Always give away a lot of faith. Always give away a lot of hope, joy, and peace. Always give away a lot of love.

3. I pray that you will have a full understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ. We have a lot of good things in Christ. So many that you can dive into Him with your whole life for your whole life and never get to the end of the good things that we have in Christ. But we still pray to know more of them, to have more of Him.

In the great name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Nathan’s church is exciting. It is a place that people WANT to go to way more than once a week and stay for way more than 90 minutes. Find out more about it: http://www.worldrevivalchurch.com

You can find more of Nathan’s writing on lulu and helium.

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