Philemon Day 1 Fellow Ones
Philemon 1-2
Acts 16:1-15
Daniel 7:13–17
Isaiah 49:5-7
Acts 13:44-52
My current church meets in an IMAX movie theater. At 2023’s first service, our pastor announced we would be working toward spiritual formation, NOT a building of our own. We’re pursuing being a family that reflects God and walks closer to Jesus. I have never felt more connected to the early church than on that day.
Paul wrote to many churches during his Roman imprisonment. (Acts 28:28-30) While he was writing to the churches in Ephesus, Philippi and Colossae, he also wrote to a friend who was working alongside him to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Gentile (non-Jew) inclusion into God’s plan of salvation from sin and its consequence of eternal death and separation from God was prophesied by Simeon in the Old Testament as he held baby Jesus. Simeon called Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.” Philemon was not Jewish, but a Gentile convert to Christianity.
Let’s dig into Philemon’s conversion to Christianity or, The Way (Acts 24:14) as it was called in the days of the early church. Paul was imprisoned about 30 years after Christ’s resurrection around AD 60-62. Three of his church epistles, Ephesians (AD 60-61), Philippians (AD 60-62), and Colossians (early AD ‘60s) were written during this time. From prison, Paul was spreading the gospel and strengthening the new church known as The Way. Believers who made up The Way were the original “Christians”, people who believed the words Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6, emphasis mine)
The church at Ephesus became the epicenter of evangelistic outreach to the rest of Asia. How do we know? Two verses: “..so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks,” (Acts 19:10) and “You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this man Paul has persuaded and misled a considerable number of people by saying that gods made by hand are not gods.” (Acts 19:26) But it wasn’t just Paul. He had other “co-workers” like Priscilla, Aquila, Apollos, Timothy and Erastus to name a few.
Paul planted the first European church, Philippi, after his second missionary journey. In Philippi, Lydia became the first Gentile convert. (Acts 16:11-15) And guess what? Lydia also became a co-worker of Paul’s in the spread of the gospel. Tuck that fact away because we’ll revisit it in a bit.
And what of Colossians? Well this church, which was mostly Gentiles, but included some Jewish converts, was founded after Paul’s Ephesus ministry by Epaphras. In his letter to the Colossae church, Paul described Epaphras this way, “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus.” (Colossians 4:12) Note Paul calls him a servant, much like Paul describes himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus.” (Philemon 1)
Paul used terms like coworker, servant, prisoner, and soldier because working to spread the gospel was hard work. The Way was heavily persecuted. Sometimes it was through false teachers. (2 Corinthians 11:1-15, Colossians 2:1-23) Sometimes it was arguments between Jew and Gentile, sometimes it was death such as Stephen’s martyrdom. (Acts 19:21-41, Acts 7:54-60) The government even took their turn. (Acts 12:1-4) In fact, in the summer of AD 64, Emperor Nero blamed a fire on Christians, though it was widely believed Nero “set the fire for his own amusement”. (Eyewitness to History) Christians were forced to worship in catacombs for safety. (The Gospel Coalition)
All that persecution, yet Christianity grew, despite The Way not owning large buildings in which to worship. Instead, many met in homes, like Priscilla and Aquila (Romans 16:3-5), Nympha (Colossians 4:15), and our friend we tucked away earlier, Lydia (Acts 16:40). Notable for us is Philemon, who also hosted a church in his home along with Apphia and Archippus. (Philemon 1-2)
All these are “fellow ones”. They were not concerned with a building or a power hierarchy like the Jews with synagogues and the Sanhedrin. Instead, they were concerned with sharing the Good News with their fellow ones, teaching the gospel so they fulfilled the command Jesus gave. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:16-20)
They were fellow soldiers, fighting for souls and against false doctrine. They were co-workers, laboring to make Jesus known to those to the world around them. They were friends, whose relationship was held together by shared faith in God and the ministry they’d all been called into and passionately pursued. They chose to surrender their life goals to do God’s work, and become prisoners of Christ, not by force but by choice.
I wonder, are we more concerned for our fellow ones than ourselves?
Have we considered who our fellow ones are?
Are we coworkers with Paul, Lydia, Aquila and the rest?
Have we become prisoners of Christ to do His kingdom work?
Or are we chasing our own glory?
Let us live by “the one anothers” presented in the New Testament, representing just shy of 60 commands on how believers should act toward “one another”. Our predecessors did not have these all written out, but they lived them anyway, led by the Spirit of God in them.
Let’s strive to love our fellow ones in the same way!
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