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Paul's Most Intimate, Risky Letter |
Philemon |
This is one of the sermons that I have preached in several different forms over the years, largely because I have been so taken for a long time with the "back-story," which we can only guess at, of Philemon. While it is a story lost to us, it is one that is well worth our trying, as best we can, to piece together. How did this remarkable little letter come to be written? If Paul and Onesimus met while both were at Philemon's house, and Onesimus subsequently ran away, how in the world did he and Paul ever cross paths again? This letter that Paul wrote to Philemon, though, was not about religion as such. It was about slavery, and human relationships in a slaveowner's household. How many analogies are there today to those kinds of relationships? When we preach today about Philemon, what are we really preaching about? I work hard in this sermon to find answers to such questions; and most likely I do not come out where a lot of other preachers do. Listen and see what you think? |