Philemon 1:11 –
Onesimus hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us.
This is a short chapter right after Titus, so I figured I would “knock” this one out before moving back to the Old Testament. This is a short letter to Philmon from Paul. It’s written more on a “friendly” basis and is basically asking Philmon to take his slave Onesimus back. Paul had spent time preaching to Onesimus in jail and changed his heart.
Apparently, Paul took the punishment for Onesimus crime and allowed him to be set free. We all know who Paul was modeling in this act! This is a cool story, but what if it came to life in our homes today. What if we got a call from a close friend who said Ryan was out and he would like us to help him out again. We don’t know the whole story with Phimon and Onesimus, but what if the crime that sent Onesimus to prison was against him?
You know many times we read the Bible and have a difficult time applying this to our lives, this chapter is one I could not have really related to until this past year. Right now we have two friends who have wronged us and are now “locked-up”. Both of whom we watched self-destruct and got caught in their vortex. Now as they get closer to being free, where are our hearts in helping them again?
Really that’s a tough call, if we had a close personal friend “vouch” for their condition and heart, we would most likely work with them again. But what if they just came to our door and asked for help? That is a tough call then, knowing what happened in a short time I would be highly unlikely to extend the same hand as before. More for our safety than for anything else … but the big question would be “what would Jesus do?”