Josh King

Work in the Theology You Work out (Philemon 17–25)

A Biblical scholar has written, “Few ideas in New Testament studies produce higher levels of agreement than the notion that Paul’s letter to Philemon has little or no theological substance.” All that statement says is that a lot of smart people are really quite dumb.

This book may not tease out the doctrine of redemption, but I dare you to find another one that works it in so well. Only if your Christianity is all brain and no heart or limb can you say such a thing. Only if you approach the Bible with an academic processor and not an ardent heart, could you be so blind.

Theology here is worked out further than many care to go. It is worked pass the brain, into the heart, and out the hands. This is theology well digested and carried through the body. This is what it looks like when the blood of Jesus gets into our bloodstream. Here you see the doctrines of union with Christ, adoption in Christ, the family of God, redemption, and forgiveness as they take root in the heart of man and produce the fruit of the Spirit. Philemon is applied theology.

Just as the aforementioned doctrines are light in a dark world, so too, the life they produce in man is contrary to this culture. The gospel is foolishness to this world all the way down and all the way out. Thus, Philemon just might have been the most shocking little letter in the ancient world. If we too so ingrain the truth of Christ and his redemption, it is still surely so today.

The Exegetical Systematician: Fragmentation

The topic of Christian education may be approached from the angle of an evil of which I fear too few are aware, but one that is the bane of education at all levels. It is the bane of fragmentation. By fragmentation I mean that the pupil is not provided with what imparts a sense of unity, of wholeness, of correlation. This may most properly be called the need for, and aim of, integration. There is ground for suspicion that this directing principle is frequently absent and, therefore, those responsible for education at all levels need to address themselves to this question for self-assessment.

Perhaps the most germane example of the thesis that integration is a paramount concern of education is the place that education occupies in the fostering and development of character. It is not to be questioned that culture, however highly cultivated, has failed of its chief end if it contributes to the promotion of evil rather than that of good. The more highly educated the boy or girl becomes, the more dangerous the education acquired becomes if it is brought into the service of wrongdoing. It is easy to take the position that the fostering and cultivating of good character is not the concern of the school, that this is the function of the home and of the church. Admittedly, the home and the church are basically responsible, and it is also obvious that when the home and the church neglect this culture or are even remiss in imparting it, then the school is faced with a well-nigh impossible task. But it is apparent how devastating to the best influences exerted by the home and church will be the influence of the school if it pretends to be neutral on moral issues, or if the teaching of the school is alien to the ethical principles inculcated by home or church or both. And as it concerns integration, how chaotic for the pupil if opposing ethical norms are fostered in the same school. We know only too well to what depraved human nature inclines.

Underlying the plea for integration and co-ordination in education is the need for a unified world-view, a common conception of reality. If there is basic divergence in reference to world-view there cannot possibly be integration in education. —John Murray, Christian Education

An Appealing Approach (Philemon 8–16)

In the first half of this little letter, all that we explicitly know is that Paul is appealing. We are not told what Paul is appealing for, only how and for whom he is appealing. Instead of speaking as one with authority, that is, instead of speaking as an apostle of the Lord Jesus, Paul appeals as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

In line with this, though Paul would have liked to have kept Onesimus, he is sending him back to Philemon so that Philemon can act freely. Parents should long for that time when law-like commands transition to Proverbs-like appeals. Obedience is the glory of children, but there is a kind of obedience that exasperates. “Bring me my glass son.” “Ok, which hand should I use? Where should I touch the glass? Do you want me to fill it up? How full?” When a child is older you can say “mow the lawn,” and walk away with confidence. While they’re younger, you have to stick around to direct and answer questions. Likewise, shepherds may speak more gently to mature sheep. They make appeals so that the sheep may act freely. A sheep that can be led with the slightest touch is a joy to the shepherd.

Shepherds shouldn’t coddle the sheep into immaturity. Sheep shouldn’t cultivate a Toys-R-Us attitude wherein they play the day away unless commanded to do something. Maturity in Christ means that not everything needs to be spelled out and that appeals come as powerfully as commands.

The Exegetical Systematician: The Boom of Splitting the Nuclear Family

The family is the primary social ordinance. When sin wreaks its havoc here, when the sanctities that guard and ennoble family life are desecrated, and when family honor is laid in the dust, then all social order is out of joint and degradation reigns supreme in every realm. —John Murray, The Christian World Order

The Most Shocking Letter in the Ancient World? (Philemon 1–7)

When one reads through the Bible each year, while Exodus lasts a matter of weeks, and Ezekiel seems to never end, Philemon is mist soon forgotten. It is read one day a year and with a few other chapters from another book. But what we are so quick to pass over might have been one of the most shocking letters in the ancient world.

The nature of one’s slavery in the Roman Empire depended on the nature of their lord. A slave’s lot might be such that he is envied by many free men, or, it might be horrid beyond our comprehension. The slave/lord relationship would most often be dominated by fear. Lords fearing their slaves and slaves their masters. Slaves comprised upwards of a third of the Roman Empire. Most were owned by few, and no double many of the non-elite would side with the slaves. Though over a century past, Spartacus’ slave rebellion was an indelible cultural memory. Once that rebellion was quelled, some six thousand captives were crucified lining the Appian Way, the major highway to Rome, for over a hundred miles. Roman men were taught to dominate their households and ensure the submission of their slaves by whatever force necessary.

A runaway slave being returned to their master could expect the harshest of treatment and likely death. But, here is Philemon, returning, not by force, but willingly, with a letter from Paul, asking that his lord receive him as a brother.

This kind of thing can only happen in Christ. Paul doesn’t attack slavery head on. He attacks no social evil in this way. Sinners gotta sin. Outside of Christ, all is Babel. In Christ, there is Pentecost. Outside of Christ, man doesn’t understand man, man is fearful of man, and man is against man. Outside of Christ fear rules the relations of men. Outside of Christ, the powerful enslave the weak in a multitude of ways. Outside of Christ, even brothers kill one another. But in Christ, Pentecost has brought the different together. In Christ, Jew and Gentile, slave and free sup around one table as brothers with their Lord serving them. In Christ, we are speaking and hearing one message—Jesus. Only in Jesus do we see reconciliation and forgiveness of this magnitude and we see it in Jesus because it is dwarfed by that which we have received in Him.

The Exegetical Systematician: The Depraved Mind

Nothing is more basic and determinative in shaping our thought than is our conception of God. The thought that does not begin with God and move towards him is essentially godless and therefore ungodly, —John Murray, The Significance of the Doctrine of Creation

Know Names (Colossians 4:7–18)

Paul’s little letter to the Colossians closes with a litany of names so large it is exceeded only by his grand epistle to the Romans. You don’t need to know these names so much as you need to learn that you should know names. Appreciate Paul’s letters, even these personal endings. Love, pray, and take interest in those who minister the word of Christ. Love the saints in other cities. Encourage them when given opportunity. Greet them as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In chapter three it is clear that life in Christ is communal. Life in Christ is life in the body of Christ. In this closing, an added element this communal life in Christ is brought out by the repeated word “fellow,” which we might call friendship or camaraderie.

Friendship, as C.S. Lewis noted in The Four Loves, is about something.

“This is why those pathetic people who simply ‘want friends’ can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be ‘I see nothing and I don’t care about truth; I only want a Friend,’ no Friendship can arise—though affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even it were only an enthusiasm for dominos or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellows travelers.”

Friendship is about something, and here we see the greatest kind of something friendship could be about. Here we see friendship on the deepest level; that born out of a common love, a union with the one who said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

In this letter, Christ is all; Christ is supreme. This remains true in this closing. Jesus’ Name echoes through this litany of names. In union with Christ, we put the old to death and put on the new, and thus we are conformed to Jesus’ image. So it is that our love for the saints proves to be love for the Savior. Lewis later continues,

“We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do.”

The Exegetical Systematician: The Gospel Does Require Adaptation…

Oftentimes it is pleaded that the Christian message must be adapted to the modern man. It is true that the message must be proclaimed to modern man, and to modern man in the context in which he lives and in language he can understand. But it is much more true and important to plead that modern man must be adapted to the gospel. —John Murray, The Importance and Relevance of the Westminster Confession

Poorly Hung Church Doors (Colossians 4:2–6)

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison.” —Colossians 4:3 (ESV)

Paul’s “open door” has been installed in many churches incorrectly. This phrase has been hijacked in an attempt to sanctify a horrid way to seek God’s will. In his excellent little book, Just Do Something, Kevin DeYoung quotes a Lark New satire piece,

TUPELO — Walter Houston, described by family members as a devoted Christian, died Monday after waiting 70 years for God to give him clear direction about what to do with his life.

‘He hung around the house and prayed a lot, but just never got that confirmation,’ his wife Ruby said. ‘Sometimes he thought he heard God’s voice, but then he wouldn’t be sure, and he’d start the process all over again.’

Houston, she says, never really figured out what his life was about, but felt content to pray continuously about what he might do for the Lord. Whenever he was about to take action, he would pull back ‘because he didn’t want to disappoint God or go against him in any way,’ Ruby says. ‘He was very sensitive to always remain in God’s will. That was primary to him.’

Friends say they liked Walter though he seemed not to capitalize on his talents.

‘Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using,’ says longtime friend Timothy Burns. ‘He worked very well with wood and had a storyteller side to him, too. I always told him, ‘“Take a risk. Try something new if you’re not happy,” but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down.’

To his credit, they say, Houston, who worked mostly as a handyman, was able to pay off the mortgage on the couple’s modest home.

Do you know how Paul found open doors? He prayerfully tried a bunch of handles. When one opened, he went through.

What are the open doors Paul asks for? Opportunity for the gospel, to declare the mystery of Christ. Upon returning to Antioch following his first missionary journey, we read that, “when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27).” The open door for the word then isn’t just the opportunity to declare the gospel, but receptivity to believe the gospel. Listen to the same truth in different garb. In Acts 11 Peter reports of this same open door of faith for the Gentiles. When the church “heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’ ” (Acts 11:18)

Paul desires prayer because He knows the work is the Lord’s. All opportunity and all receptivity for the gospel are gifts from God’s hand. Paul isn’t asking for prayer so that he might know who to marry, where to go to school, or what job to take. Paul’s personal request isn’t that personal at all. Paul doesn’t ask for an open door for himself, but for the gospel.

Why is Paul’s door installed incorrectly in so many churches? Because we are idolatrously bent in on ourselves. The crooked can’t hang straight doors.

The Exegetical Systematician: Church and State

To the church is committed the task of proclaiming the whole counsel of God and, therefore, the counsel of God as it bears upon the responsibility of all persons and institutions. While the church is not to discharge the functions of other institutions such as the state and the family, nevertheless it is charged to define what the functions of these institutions are, and the lines of demarcation by which they are distinguished. It is also charged to declare and inculcate the duties which devolve upon them. Consequently when the civil magistrate trespasses the limits of his authority, it is incumbent upon the church to expose and condemn such a violation of his authority. When laws are proposed or enacted which are contrary to the law of God, it is the duty of the church to oppose them and expose their iniquity. When the civil magistrate fails to exercise his God-given authority in the protection and promotion of the obligations, rights, and liberties of the citizens, the church has the right and duty to condemn such inaction, and by its proclamation of the counsel of God to confront the civil magistrate with his responsibility and promote the correction of such neglect. The functions of the civil magistrate, therefore, come within the scope of the church’s proclamation in every respect in which the Word of God bears upon the proper or improper discharge of these functions, and it is only misconception of what is involved in the proclamation of the whole counsel of God that leads to the notion that the church has no concern with the political sphere.” —John Murray, The Relation of Church and State