Daddy-daughter date! Richard and Jaycie Downing

Forgiveness 

Philemon 

Open your Bible and without looking at the table of contents, find the book of Philemon. Go ahead, I’ll wait. 🙂 I must admit, it took me a few minutes. Who chooses Philemon for their devotions? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon on Philemon, have you???  Once you find it, read it. It only takes about 5 minutes.  

Why is this book in the Bible? When I first read it, I’m not sure I can answer that question with total confidence. But that’s why I’m compelled to explore it and discover the divine principles that are here.  

Allow me to take a little detour that reveals my geekiness as a Bible student: 

Philemon has survived all the grueling tests of canonicity. This means it has passed divine and scholarly tests of inspiration, as well as the test of preservation (enduring the test of time). So yes, Philemon belongs in the New Testament. No doubt about it. We accept Philemon, and the entire 66 books of the Bible by faith, but it’s not blind faith. It is intelligent faith with substance. Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The Bible has gone through God’s publishing process which is not mystical but scholarly. It has divinely endured the test of time and has been transmitted without error for millenniums.  

(Geek Alert: the science of textual criticism has confirmed transmission of the biblical text with 99.99 accuracy.  The words in doubt are small words that have no effect on the overall meaning.).  

All that to say, Philemon is “in” the Bible and there is a reason. Let’s find it, learn it and apply it to our lives. As with all scripture, these words are life to us and carry with them promises to grow us, renew us and make us more like Jesus! Take five minutes and read it. I bet the Lord whispers in your ear words about forgiveness and restoration. 

The theme of the Philemon is forgiveness. Forgiveness is easy to talk about in principle, but very difficult to do in reality. When God forgives, it’s absolute. For us, it’s relative. God has and will forgive the nicest non-Christian in the world. He will also forgive the most heinous, evil person in the world as well. We are not like that. We will forgive our spouse for an emotional fit after a bad day, if they sincerely ask forgiveness. But we would never forgive the man who raped and murdered our daughter, although some have, I’ve heard. 

To forgive and even reward those who have wronged us (that’s what Jesus has done for us) without conditions and regret? Well, that doesn’t happen much. Why? Many reasons, I suppose, but the stark reality is that we do not like forgiveness. We like to be forgiven, but to forgive is much more difficult.  

Our eternity is based solely on the reality of being forgiven. But in general, and certainly when we are wronged, we consider forgiveness as weakness. We consider that forgiveness messes up the equilibrium of things. In other words, it messes up the way we feel the world should be; the order of things; the rules that we live by and believe others should live by. It’s not right that people get away with doing wrong things to us or toward us or to our loved ones. It’s just not right. 

WWJD 

We aspire to be like Jesus. This is our calling and our joy, to move toward a life that resembles Jesus. But forgiving as Jesus forgives??? That is one of the most difficult and unnatural things in the world that we are called to do. 

The more we meditate on the extent of God’s forgiveness to us and others, the more we realize just how amazing His capacity is to forgive. But one more aspect to consider is that God’s forgiveness is not blind. He doesn’t throw out justice and forgive blindly. We like to say that God’s forgiveness toward us is “unconditional.’ And in a sense, it certainly is. But God’s forgiveness of us is not unconditional to Him. He demanded justice and justice was fulfilled. Just not by us, but by Jesus. We didn’t bear the justice, Jesus did. He bore our sins in His body on the cross. 

My point is, I’m not abdicating that people should be free from the consequences of their wrongs and that we should empty the prisons. Not at all. The issue of forgiveness has to do with our hearts, not the legal system of our society or the disciplinary rules of our homes. I’m speaking of our hearts to forgive those who have wronged us. That’s what we learn about in Philemon. 

In simple terms, if a man did great harm to my loved one, I will have to deal with my heart to forgive. Hopefully, I could be like Jesus. But that doesn’t take away the fact that he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. God ordained government to “carry the sword”. That simply means to carry out justice accordingly. God ordained parents to carry out discipline within their home accordingly. When people sin, there are natural consequences and there are judiciary consequences. Those are consequences ordained by God. But our personal choices to forgive others who have wronged us is the issue that we must deal with as Christian. More to come next time. 

Lord, keep our hearts and minds open to your Word regarding our calling to forgive as You have forgiven. Help us to have wisdom to know how to deal with people who wrong us. It’s simply not easy and we need Your Word and Your guidance. Amen.