"slavery" Tagged Sermons
1. The burden of __________ and the blasphemy of __________________ (vv. 18-19).
2. The reversal of true _______________ (v. 20).
3. The folly of godless ‘__________________’ (v. 21).
1. Enduring unjust suffering with patience is commendable in the sight of God (vv. 19-20).
2. We believers were called to imitate Christ in patiently enduring unjust suffering (v. 21).
3. The example of Christ’s endurance of unjust suffering (vv. 21-25).
Left and right readings of church office both get weighed here, including the question of women preaching and teaching, with Paul’s own patience toward two arguing Philippian women as a test case. The letter’s central demand comes into view: Philemon must exalt Onesimus, a runaway slave, the same way masters generally are called to exalt those who serve them. Status, in Paul’s hands, keeps getting inverted rather than confirmed.
The common claim that Paul is straightforwardly against slavery gets called unbiblical here, a real complication this sermon doesn’t try to smooth over. ‘Manstealing,’ condemned explicitly in 1 Timothy 1, is distinguished carefully from the household slavery Ephesians 6 addresses. Believers, in any case, cannot rightly consider themselves apart from Christ as a slave and God as a master, categories the modern reader resists but Paul assumes.