Philemon 1:5 Hearing of your love and faith, which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; A gentleman when visiting in a hospital in London sat beside the cot of a little girl. Wishing to win her confidence, he said, "My child, do you love your mother?" With a very serious look she replied, "Yes, I do indeed." "But why do you answer so gravely; what is that you are thinking about, my dear?" Then she replied with great earnestness, "Because I can never love my mother anything as she loves me." Can any of you say of Jesus as the little girl said of her mother, "Yes, I love Him indeed, but I can never love Him in any way as He loves me?" Toward all saints — Clearly their relation to Jesus Christ puts all Christians into relation with one another. This was an astounding thought in Philemon's days, when such high walls separated race from race, the slave from the free, woman from man; but the new faith leaped all barriers, and put a sense of brotherhood into every heart that learned God's fatherhood in Jesus...The love which is here commended is not a mere feeling, nor does it go off in gushes, however fervid, of eloquent emotion. Clearly Philemon was a benefactor of the brotherhood, and his love did not spend only the paper money of words and promises to pay, but the solid coin of kindly deeds. Practical charity is plainly included in that love of which it had cheered Paul in his imprisonment to hear. Its mention, then, is one step nearer to the object of the letter. Paul conducts his siege of Philemon's heart skilfully, and opens here a fresh parellel, and creeps a yard or two closer up. "Surely you are not going to shut out one of your own household from that wide reaching kindness." So much is most delicately hinted, or rather left to Philemon to infer, by this recognition of his brotherly love. A hint lies in it that there may be a danger of cherishing a cheap and easy charity that reverses the law of gravity, and increases as the square of the distance, having tenderness and smiles for people and churches which are well out of our road, and frowns for some nearer home. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; |
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