Greetings,Can you believe that it is November already? I pray that you had a fun and safe Halloween night, and that you were able to spread Jesus' light.
The next couple of Devotionals we're going to be taking a look at the book of Philemon. There are several lessons that we can pull out of the book of Philemon, but in this set of devotionals we are going to be looking at relationships.
To really understand the Bible well, you need to take a historical look at what was happening at the time when the book was written, and what circumstances surrounded it.
Philemon involves 5 people, plus a group of believers that met in Philemon's house.
- Paul - Wrote this personal letter while in prison.
- Philemon - Gentile believer, slave owner of Omesimus, has a house church in Colossse
- Omesimus (O-nes-i-mus) - Runaway slave of Philemon, who has stole money from Philemon (v18)
- Apphis (Ap-phia) - Philemon's wife
- Archippus (Ar-chip-pus) - Fellow Solider or some think Philemon's son
- Church - A house church assembled in Philemon's house.
From there Omesimus became very useful to Paul, as well as a new believer in Christ. But Paul legally could not keep Omesimus. So Paul wrote a letter to Philemon asking him to take Omesimus back, not as a slave anymore, but as a brother in Christ. This was a tense moment as Philemon has every right to have Omesimus executed for what he has done.
Philemon 1-3
1 Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,To Philemon our beloved fellow worker 2 and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Art of Connecting
In your lives there are three kinds of relationships that you will have. We have an internal relationship with ourselves, we have an external relationship with others, then finally and most important we have an eternal relationship with God.
All three of these relationships need to be in balance with each other. If you are not right with yourself or do not feel good about yourself inside (Internal). It will effect your relationships with others around you (External). One example of this just happened to me. We were at a small group meeting, I felt very strongly about a subject that we were talking about, and I may have become over zealous in expressing my opinions. When I came home, I was not right inside, so until I felt right inside, it effected the relationship with the others in our small group.
The most important relationship is your eternal relationship with GOD. This aspect will affect all your other relationships. If you are not right with GOD, you are not right internally and externally.
A good example of this is Omesimus. Omesimus was not at peace internally. He stole money from his master, then he ran as far away as he could go. Internally he must have been a mess. Then he found Paul, and Paul helped him find Christ. Once Omesimus made his eternal relationship right, he felt at peace with himself, and then made things right with his other relationship to Philemon, his wife, and I would guess the home church.
If you find that you are not at peace with yourself and others around you, may you make peace with your eternal relationship with GOD. May you know that once that relationship is secure, all others will fall into place.
The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. - Jim
Bible Trivia
Who came with Omesimus to Colosse?
Hint: Colossians 4:7-9
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Grand Opening!
The Connection ChurchWe have a grand opening planned for 11/04/07. It has been amazing to see GOD meet our every need. Again, thank you and keep praying! If you would like a copy of our current newsletter, please reply back to this devotional.If you would like to commit to prayer for us, or help us out finically, please visit our Prayer Page.
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