HE three epistles to Philemon, Kurida, the elect Lady, and the well beloved Gaius, may be called the personal epistles. They teach us some very precious lessons.
Personal correspondence is a very useful way of witnessing for Christ. The friendly letter is often the best evidence of personal character and the most effectual channel of influence. Are our letters to these we love given to the Holy Spirit and really consecrated channels of service.
This epistle is the highest example of Christian tact to be found in the Bible.
Back of it was the story of a runaway slave named Onesimus, who had left his master Philemon at Colosse and turned up at Rome. His name Onesimus “profitable,” had been strangely contradicted by his life. He had stolen money from his master and given him little cause to remember him as a source of either profit or pleasure. But in the drift of the great city, he was thrown into the company of Paul and the power of Christ’s love and grace in that great heart soon won the recreant slave for Christ. There Paul found that he was the property of his old friend Philemon. The question of duty was soon decided. He must return to his master and make matters right and then Philemon himself must direct the rest. Paul would gladly keep him as a helper in the work, but he will not even think of this without Philemon’s own choice. And so he sends him back with this letter to his master, and out of this little episode we have the finest example of Christian delicacy and courtesy in the annals of religious life. After the first loving salutation to himself and family, he approaches the delicate master of Onesimus by a gentle reference to his apostolic right and authority and then withdraws it and rests his plea on the tenderer ground of love, adding with a touch of deep pathos a hint of his old age and his great sufferings for Jesus Christ. With a bold stroke of his pen he then at once introduces Onesimus as his own son, whom he has begotten in the Lord, and softens at once the severity of the shock which this must bring to Philemon at first by a witty play upon the word Onesimus, a little dash of humor provoking a smile and giving time to the reader to recover from the shock of the previous sentence. Then he proceeds to tell in fuller detail why he was thus sent him, not because he had wanted to get rid of him, for he would have highly valued him as a helper in the Gospel, and still should, if Philemon chooses to grant him with his own mind but from the most delicate regard to Philemon’s rights and with the thought that perhaps he was to be Philemon himself a greater boon than to Paul as he now received him not as a slave but as a brother for ever.
Then follows that majestic stroke of Gospel liberty which struck the death blow to ancient and modern slavery.
“Not now as a slave but as a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more to thee both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore a partner receive him as myself.” That was a telling blow at human slavery. That was the greatest plea for human equality ever made. We can only understand it fully when we realize what ancient slavery was. The Roman bond slave was the absolute property of his master. On one occasion four hundred Roman slaves were ordered to be executed because one of them, unknown had committed a crime and the guilty one could not be detected. With no hope in their life they had nothing to hold them back from the most terrible vices. To suggest to a master to receive a slave as a brother, nay even as Paul himself was a bridging over a gulf which even in our most exclusive ideas of caste today we can hardly understand. But this the gospel did. It made the bondman free in God and the Church of God, without interfering with civil questions or touching the delicate matter of Roman law and constitution. It did not attempt with iron hand to break the fetters, but it put such a fire under them as soon melted them away.
This is the true way to remove difficulties. The wind and sun once laid a wager who could first take the coat off a pilgrim. The wind began. It blew and stormed and made his garments shake and tremble in its violence, and again and again it had almost blown the old coat away. But the shivering pilgrim drew it the more tightly round him and held on his way with a firmer hold upon its covering folds. Then the sun began. There was not one wild blast of fury or seeming power, but his gentle warmth fell upon the traveler, with cheering radiance and then with hotter breath, until the old pilgrim began to unfasten his garment, and ere noon had thrown it across his arm and was walking up the hill with the sweat streaming down his face, in his lightest possible garb, while the sun seemed laughing in every ray at his easy victory.
So the Gospel of Jesus Christ melts away the troubles, which violence, rashness, resolution, socialism and human policy try in vain to correct. It has been truly said, that while bleeding at every pore Christianity has gone forth to staunch all the wounds of humanity, while herself bound and imprisoned like the aged Paul, she has gone through the ages to open the prison doors and set the captives free, and while ever more giving up her own life unto the death, she has brought life and hope eternal to dying perishing men.
But in all this beneficence there is an exact sense of justice. First the noble apostle had already said “Whom I would have retained but without thy mind would I do nothing.” And now here he adds, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught put that on mine account. I Paul have written it with mine own hand, (a regular promissory note) I will repay it.” The highest generosity must ever recognize the principles of justice and the rights of every human being; and the truest Christian will ever be most sensitive to the rights of others, and the strictest integrity and honesty in all the questions of business and money.
Then he closes his exquisite letter with four personal touches of rare grace and power. First he reminds Philemon of how much more he owes to him as his spiritual father than all the favors he could claim.
Next he appeals for this act of courtesy and generosity as a personal favor, comfort and refreshing him in his lone prison.
Next with fine tact he stops all his pleading and almost apologizes for having said so much, assuring his friend of his generous confidence that he will do all this and more than he asks.
And, finally, he crowns it all by intimating that he is himself coming soon to visit him, and asking him to prepare him a lodging, not saying in so many words, but letting us read between the lines, and it is scarcely likely that Philemon failed to read it too, that he would expect to find things all right when he arrived.
Surely we have had a divine example of the true way to rule human hearts, the glorious equality in Christ of all God’s children, the regard we owe to the rights and feelings of others, the forgiveness of injuries, the restitution of wrongs, the value of tact and gentleness, good humour, and even consecrated wit in the service of Christ, and the infinite delicacy and fitness of the grace of Christ for the adjustment of every difficulty in life and the right discharge of every duty and trust.
This letter was written to a Christian matron named Kuria, residing probably at Ephesus, and perhaps one of the friends and hostesses of the Church of Christ there during the Apostle’s ministry. After giving us a fine example of the purity and simplicity of Christian friendship and fellowship, he adds a few general sentences about the practical side of Christian life as manifested in holy obedience, and warns her and her family against the seductions of evil already in the Church and bids her watch against any failure that might lessen aught of her full service and reward. He then comes to what we might call the specific teaching of the Epistle. This is contained in the tenth verse - “If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him Good speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” Here we have the important fact that we must avoid complicity with or responsibility for false teaching. We cannot work with unscriptural principles or build God’s temple with untempered mortar. We cannot judge men’s hearts, but we can judge their teachings, and we must stand strictly and only on God’s holy word. Whatsoever is not according to this is wrong, and incompatible with our freedom in service, or the permanence of aught we try to do. One hour of work in harmony with God’s word, is worth a lifetime of compromise.
The Third Epistle of John was addressed to Gaius, the name of several esteemed and honored saints in the New Testament.
Two special distinctive lessons come to us from his life. The first is the converse of the last lesson in the Second Epistle, viz the duty and the glory of a true Christian hospitality. What higher commendation can be given to a Christian business man than this. “Beloved thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers, which have borne witness of thy charity before the Church. Whom, if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort thou shalt do well. Because for His name’s sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
The second special teaching of this letter is the prayer of the Apostle for his friend, for his physical health and temporal prosperity, recognizing both as among God’s blessings for his children and connecting both in a very practical and instructive way with His spiritual condition and welfare. Here we touch a great theme and one that is elsewhere more fully discussed. Meanwhile it is very sweet in the last of the letters of the latest of the Apostles to find this inspired prayer pointing surely to the gracious will of our dear Lord for every one of his faithful children. “Beloved, I pray above all things, that thou mayest be in health and prosper even as thy soul prospereth.”