Some people refresh us. After another great week of Vacation Bible School, I am both exhilarated and exhausted. Mostly I am exhilarated. I walked past the worship center and heard our children singing a song I last sang years ago: “Come into his presence singing, ‘Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.’” So I did. The voice of the leader captured the beauty of the simple song and I was refreshed.
Philemon refreshed God’s people. He had a wonderful way of encouraging people. Philemon left people better than he found them. So Paul gave thanks for his love for God’s people. If someone said Philemon’s name, Paul smiled. One of Philemon’s enslaved persons, Onesimus, escaped and ended up with Paul. Paul led him to the Lord. Now he was sending him back. It could have gone so badly for an escaped slave. So Paul dared to ask: “As you have refreshed God’s people, refresh me by receiving Onesimus back, no longer a slave but a brother.”
Contrary to popular thought, Paul did not possess the power to unilaterally end the practice of slavery. Nobody cared what Paul or the Christians thought about slavery. But Philemon could welcome his escaped slave as a brother in Christ. To encourage obedience in this matter, Paul promised to come and see Philemon soon. This letter effectively subverted the system of slavery. Hundreds of years later when slavery was abolished in England, Christians like William Wilberforce and John Newton led the way.
We don’t get to choose the systems into which we are born. But we do decide what we do. We can exhaust people or refresh them. Today is a new day. What will we do? Refresh.
