Philemon's Love and Faith - continued from yesterday:
Verses 4-7
"I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love, and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother."
The first thing that Paul affirms is that he is continually thanking God for fellow Christians like his brother Philemon. He is always lifting the brotherhood up to God as he knows that the strength of the church lay in the power of God. He has obviously been receiving reports from time to time on the progress of the church and he affirms the love and the faith shown by the leadership of the church and toward all the saints as well. Just a line or two in his letter to express his appreciation for the care that they are taking with the church body.
Paul lets Philemon know that the focus of his prayers are that the fellowship may become "effective" and not stale through the knowledge they are receiving as they learn from God and others. He reminds Philemon that it is for "Christ's sake" that this work is done. We see in Philippians 1:9 "...that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment..." and again in Colossians 1:9 he say, "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." So Paul really has some pretty powerful things that he is praying for the church under the leadership of Philemon. Paul wants the church to become "effective" in all "spiritual wisdom and understanding". I wonder how often it is that we pray that way for our churches today!
And Paul expresses the fullness of joy that he has as he is comforted in the work done by the saints within the church. In fact, Paul's joy is like that of having a "newborn child" and you could easily change the word "hearts" in verse 7 to "inward parts" because that is the depth with which Paul concerns himself with his communion with God over the church.
Do we today realize this depth of love and compassion for the church, the body of believers within our midst? Do we feel the joy of each expression of salvation that we see or is it becoming somewhat "routine" in our churches today? Paul refers to them as "saints" or "holy ones" in his letter. I see that as very emotionally involved in the everyday "goings on" within the church.
We can learn a valuable lesson from these few verses concerning our passion, not only toward the Lord, but our love and desire for the church and its body.
TO BE CONTINUED
Dave
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