Choosing Obedience

July 2, 2008

Philemon 1:21-25

“Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

Have you ever met a really manipulative person? Manipulative and controlling people will use any angle they can find to accomplish whatever it is that they want. It would be easy for us to see Paul in that fashion. The words “confident of your obedience” at first glance suggest that kind of perspective that says, “I know you will do what I tell you to do or else there will be consequences.” This perspective aims at instilling fear in other people.

But that is not at all the perspective that Paul is trying to communicate. Paul is not that way because Paul has a strong relationship with God in which he understands that fear is not from God but love. So we are invited instead to see his words as a simple affirmation that suggests, “I know that you will do this because I know your heart.” Paul does know Philemon’s heart. They are close friends and they cherish each other’s opinions. Paul has been Philemon’s spiritual leader and he knows that a strong bond of trust exists between them. This perspective is rooted in love and his words that Philemon should prepare a guest room for him simply suggest an affirmation of that relationship. There is no doubt here that Philemon will do the loving thing, the right thing and the radical thing of freeing Onesimus one way or another because Philemon, like Paul, is a man of God’s love.

To me this passage is about where we choose to place our obedience. The oppressive, power hungry people of our lives like for us to believe that our obedience belongs with them and to them. Maybe you have people in your life like that. Maybe there are places that you are placing your obedience that don’t feel right to you but you know not where else to place it. This passage is a call to place our obedience with God, to always allow God to be our default and in the face of difficult decisions to trust that in our obedience to God the right paths for our lives will unfold. My prayer for us is that we will have the strength to lend our obedience to God in all things and that God will bring an ease to our lives for our faithfulness. May it be so! Amen.