“15 Perhaps the reason [Onesimus] was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for ever \u2013 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.” Philemon 15-16<\/p>\n\n\n
As he is writing to Philemon about receiving back his slave, Onesimus, the Apostle Paul is engaging in some conjecture about what God was doing behind the scenes in this whole scenario.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Many people assume that Onesimus was a runaway slave, but there’s nothing in the letter to confirm this as the backstory. It’s just as likely that Philemon sent Onesimus to Paul for a short time in order to care for Paul’s needs while he was imprisoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Regardless of how Onesimus came in contact with Paul, he seems to have given his life to Christ during his time away from home and Paul now loves him like a son.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Now, as he sends Onesimus back to his earthly master, Paul speculates that this round trip wasn’t just about bringing aid and comfort to Paul.<\/p>\n\n\n
Perhaps it was because the Lord knew that Paul would persuasively share the gospel with Onesimus, leading to a new birth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And THEN – even better – Onesimus would return to Philemon, not to help with household chores, but to function as a co-worker, a brother, in spreading the gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n
I love the fact that Paul uses that word “perhaps”. Even as Spirit-led as the Apostle is, he still only gets glimpses of what the Lord is up to as He guides His children this way and that.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“15 Perhaps the reason [Onesimus] was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for ever \u2013 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7990,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989\/revisions\/7990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}