Philemon 1:21 Having confidence in your obedience I wrote to you, knowing that you will also do more than I say. There are labourers whose hammers or spades move more or less briskly according as the foreman is near at hand or away. They need both an overseer and a stint of work. There are also those whose work is turned off changeably as to quantity, according to the terms of agreement signifying "by the day" or "by the job." Selfishness is not easily laid aside always when, hired to perform work for another, one lays off the coat to set about it. That under garment still remains, fitting more closely than tailor ever cut; Nessus-like, cleaving to the very skin. But an unselfish workman, even though but hired, is more like a partner in the firm. What interest he manifests in the successful issue! With hearty love for the end to be accomplished, making the work his own apparently, see how the better motive keeps every muscle up to its full tension! Not easily does he tire. Stint him, and, if possible, he will overdo the stint. No danger but that in a full day he will accomplish a full day's work — without any overseer. There are such Christian workmen. Paul regarded Philemon as one of this sort. Some one has suggested that that accounts for Philemon's Epistle having but one chapter. Writing to him, Paul needed not to spin out directions and exhortations page after page. Twenty-five verses were sufficient. No more than that to Philemon — whose heart was in the work! Possibly certain congregations, clamorous for short sermons, in these days might take a hint from the brevity of Philemon's Epistle. At least shorter sermons might find more appropriate place if Philemon's spirit was more generally diffused throughout the Churches. As it is, may they not already be disproportionately brief, especially as we consider the half heartedness for the Christian task with which so many of us go to our work? We deserve watching. We deserve stinting. We deserve long epistles, like overseer's lash, laid over us. It is the boy who hates work to whom his father must address himself with ever-wearying particulars of direction each morning. "Before you go off to play today, you must saw twenty-five sticks at the woodpile, or help mother about the house two hours and a half. That's your stint." Such a boy one must be particular with, or, likely as not, he'll do nothing. You know very well he will do no more than he has been directed to do. But the boy Philemon — when his father is leaving home, and must give directions to the hired servant for the management of affairs about the place during his absence, will he need directing also? Is his father anxious about him? "What will he be about while I am away so long?" Oh, no! Philemon has a son's interest in the work to be carried forward. "I've told him a few things to be remembered; but he is as much interested in affairs as I am, and he will do much more than I have said. I can trust Philemon!" Philemon-Christians, too, require but short sermons. To the Corinthians, however, chapter after chapter! Specific information how to conduct themselves: Not to vex their brethren, going to law with them; not to defile themselves shamelessly; not to eat meats offered to idols, nor cover their heads in prayer, nor profane the Lord's Supper by over drinking. Finally, Paul had even to add that, notwithstanding all his instructions, he feared, when he should come again to them, lest there should be "debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, swellings, and tumults" —enough to require some more very long sermons, just such as Paul could preach on occasions, as at Troas, where one poor man got asleep under it and fell out of the window. But Philemon — a whole church full of such Corinthians as he would have required very simple directions by epistles or sermons — in fact, would have constituted a model Church, no less than one easy to preach to in these hot days of summer. Somehow, a minister rather longs for Philemons in the pews, with hearts so much in the work they need little but leading; never pushing, never stinting, never overseeing, never long sermons. (G. G. Phipps.) Parallel Verses KJV: Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say. |
    |