Philemon 1:1-7 - A Prisoner’s Joy

Philemon 1:1-7

Greeting

1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, 2 to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philemon’s Love and Faith

4 I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, 5 hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, 6 that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. 7 For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother.

Here is a prisoner’s joy being expressed as a prayer of thankfulness for God’s grace in himself and in others.  Paul considered himself a prisoner of Christ and in Christ, and this seems to be written from Paul’s first Roman Imprisonment as Colossians 4:7-17 indicates.  This means the prisoner in Christ has two meanings; first, that Paul was imprisoned for Christ and His gospel, and second, that Paul felt he was captured by the love and grace of Christ to suffer willingly for His sake and could go nowhere else as a sort of metaphor for imprisonment in a good sense. He and Timothy wrote this letter to Philemon as a much loved friend and co-laborer in the gospel and to the two brothers in whose house was a church.  He prayed peace and peace onto these men in their common Lord Jesus Christ with an outpouring of thanksgiving for their lives displaying their own love and faith for the Lord and others there as they did share their faith in Christ.  The apostle prayed that this testimony would be empowered by their lives to become effective for the kingdom of God to salvation for all who heard and believed (Romans 1:16, Ephesians 4:16) as they loved what they spoke and taught and demonstrated it with their manner of life (2 Timothy 3:10).  Because of the witness of their lives, Paul rejoiced for and with them and wrote to acknowledge them.  He specifically stated that they had refreshed the hearts of many of God’s saints in Christ by the outworking of their sincere love in Jesus Christ their Lord.  May we so love and pray to encourage others in the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord as well to share a prisoner’s joy!