BIBLE TALK || PHILEMON 1 vs 16 cont.

in #christian-trail6 years ago

Philemon 1:16: Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?


In the Lord -

As a Christian. He will be enormously charmed to your heart as a reliable and commendable adherent of the Lord Jesus. - On this imperative verse at that point, in connection to the utilization which is so regularly made of this Epistle by the supporters of slavery, to demonstrate that Paul endorsed it, and that it is an obligation to send back the individuals who have gotten away from their lords that they may again be held in slavery, we may comment that:
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(1) there is no sure confirmation that Onesimus was ever a slave by any stretch of the imagination. All the evidence that he was, is to be found in the word δοῦλος doulos-doulos - in this verse. In any case, as we have seen, the negligible utilization of this word in no way, shape or form demonstrates that. All that is fundamentally inferred by it is that he was somehow the servant of Philemon - whether contracted or purchased can't be appeared.

(2) at all occasions, notwithstanding assuming that he had been a slave, Paul did not imply that he should return all things considered, or to be viewed in that capacity. That is to say, whatever may have been his previous connection, and whatever ensuing connection he may have managed, that he ought to be viewed as an adored Christian sibling; that the main origination with respect to him ought to be that he was a co-beneficiary of salvation, an individual from the same redeemed church, and a candidate if the kingdom of God.

(3) Paul did not send him back all together that he may be a slave, or with a view that the shackles of bondage ought to be bolted on him. There isn't the smallest proof that he constrained him to return, or that he exhorted him to do it, or even that he communicated a desire that he would; and when he sent him, it was not as a slave, but rather as a dearest brother in the Lord. It can't be demonstrated that the rationale in sending him back was in the scarcest degree that he ought to be a slave. No such thing is suggested, nor is any such thing important to be gathered with a specific end goal to a reasonable elucidation of the entry.

(4) plainly, regardless of whether Onesimus had been a slave previously, it would have been in opposition to the desires of Paul that Philemon should now hold him thusly. Paul wished him to respect him "not as a worker," but rather as a "cherished brother." If Philemon consented to his desires, Onesimus was never a while later viewed or regarded as a slave. On the off chance that he did as such respect or treat him, it was in opposition to the communicated aim of the apostle, and it is sure that he would never have demonstrated this letter in support of it. It can't neglect to strike any one that if Philemon took after the soul of this Epistle, he would not view Onesimus as a slave, but rather in the event that he maintained the connection of a worker by any stretch of the imagination, it would be as an intentional individual from his family, where, in all regards, he would be respected and treated, not as an "asset," or a "thing," but rather as a Christian nro.

(5) this entry, along these lines, might be viewed as full confirmation that it isn't more right than wrong to send a slave back, without wanting to, to his previous lord, to be a slave. It is more right than wrong to encourage one on the off chance that he wishes to return; to give him a letter to his lord, as Paul did to Onesimus; to outfit him cash to help him on his adventure on the off chance that he wants to return; and to compliment him as a Christian sibling, in the event that he is such; yet past that, the case of the witness Paul does not go. It is consummately certain that he would not have sent him back to be viewed and regarded as a slave, however having the capacity to laud him as a Christian, he was ready to do it, and he expected that he would be dealt with, not as a slave, but rather as a Christian. The case before us doesn't go at all to demonstrate that Paul would have ever sent him back to be an asset or a thing. In the event that, with his own assent, and by his own desire, we can send a slave back to his lord, to be dealt with as a Christian and as a man, the case of Paul may demonstrate that it is on the whole correct to do it, however it doesn't go past that.

(6) in affirmation of this, and as a guide in obligation now, it might be watched, that Paul had been instructed as a Hebrew; that he was altogether instilled with the regulations of the Old Testament, and that one of the rudimentary standards of that arrangement of religion was, that a runaway slave was in no conditions to be returned by power to his previous master. "Thou shalt not convey unto his lord the servant that is gotten away from his lord unto thee;" Deuteronomy 23:15. It can't be gathered that, prepared as he was in the standards of the Hebrew religion - of which this was a positive and unrepealed law, and pervaded with the big-hearted soul of the gospel - a framework so antagonistic to persecution, the messenger Paul would have compelled a slave who had gotten away from subjugation to come back to bondage without wanting to.

(7) it might be included, that if the standards here followed up on by Paul were completed, slavery would quickly stop on the planet. Soon would it reach an end if authority somehow happened to respect those whom they hold, "not as slaves," but rather as darling Christian brothers; not as belongings and things, but rather as the reclaimed offspring of God. Therefore in regards to them, they would never again feel that they may chain them, and undertaking them, and offer them as property. They would feel that as Christians and as men, they were on a level with themselves, and that they who were made in the Image of God, and who had been reclaimed with the blood of his Son, "should be free."


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