Thoughts on Philemon

Today’s reading: 2 Kings 1; Philemon

I find the opening of Paul’s letter to Philemon to be really encouraging. 

“I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

It would have been very easy, especially if you knew Paul personally, to look at his life and ministry and conclude that you were just not doing all that much for the Lord. No matter how gifted you might have been or how much fruit you might have borne, to put it bluntly, you weren’t Paul. Paul was God’s chosen instrument to take the gospel to the gentiles, and with that special commission and blessing, the Lord accomplished an unimaginable amount of work for His kingdom through Paul. Comparing yourself to Paul would have been like someone comparing themself to Moses or to David, it’s just not going to go well…

But this is just as easy of a trap to fall into today as well. You look around at the super effective pastors and teachers today, or the missionaries laying everything down on the mission field, or the hyper-gifted evangelists who lead untold numbers of people to faith in Christ, and it’s easy to feel like your contribution just really isn’t worth all that much.

But what we see here from Paul himself is how much of an impact our faithfulness with the area of influence God has given us can have. Paul is not looking at Philemon and saying, “Nice work bro. I mean, I did start three new churches in different cities over the last month, but your thing is cool too. Good job refreshing some people I guess.” No, Paul is genuinely refreshed and encouraged by Philemon’s faithfulness with the work the Lord has before him, and it brings him personal comfort and joy to see it and to know that the work of the Lord is in good and faithful hands! How incredible is that??

And you know what? This has been my experience as well. Yes, I marvel at times at the people God has gifted and chosen for extraordinary works, but the people who are the most consistently encouraging to me and whose example most strengths my own resolve toward faithfulness are the people faithfully pursuing the much more mundane work of Christian ministry. I will very likely never be one of those freakishly gifted people who are used by God in massive ways on the global stage; He could certainly do it if He wanted to, but I really doubt it would happen. So while I am built up and encouraged to see how God is using such people, it is honestly not all that personally inspiring or challenging because I simply cannot relate to it. But when I see the people faithfully showing up to church early to pray for the people coming to hear the gospel that day, I’m encouraged and challenged, because I could be one of those people. When I see a family opening their home to children in need, setting aside their comfort and convenience, and sacrificing in significant ways to foster and care for children and families in need, I am encouraged and challenged, because maybe mine could be one of those families. When I am privileged to see the Christians around me stepping up faithfully in the more “mundane” work of the Kingdom, I am challenged to step up more and more faithfully into the work and roles the Lord has before me.

I struggled for a long time feeling like I needed to accomplish big things for the Lord for my life to really be worth it, but I feel like the Lord has brought me to a place, over the years, where I would much rather be faithful to the “little” things He desires me to steward well, rather than the “big” things that I am going to make work myself, whether they are His desire for me or not.

So I am very grateful to see the apostle Paul, author of half of the New Testament epistles, and initiator of so many churches throughout the world in his day, encouraged and finding comfort and joy, not in someone doing work on the same scale as him quantitatively, but in someone doing faithfully the work the Lord has before them.

Lord, let me be useful in your kingdom, and give me a heart of increasing excitement and gratitude for the work that you have gifted me and placed me in your Church to accomplish.