Lectio Divina - Philemon 1-21

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love. (Philemon 8-9)

I cannot count the number of times that I've read a verse, a book or just had one of those "Aha!" moments and wanted to turn right around to someone and beat this discovery into their heads. I've felt such a strong conviction that whatever it was is right, the whole world should be able to read or hear the same thing and realize it.

In those moments, I guess I've felt like Paul with Philemon.

Paul's boldness in Christ should have been enough to "command" Philemon to do what is right - release Onesimus from slavery (for simplicity's sake we're going with that as the reason for the letter). Paul could have just come right out with it and said, "Look, you really can't keep Onesimus as your slave anymore. Remember Moses and Pharaoh? You don't want a river of blood on your hands, do you? Your livestock? Just set him free."

And I guess that's part of the difference with Christ.

On our honeymoon, my wife and I went to Toronto. While we were walking around near the shopping center next to city hall, we heard a street preacher. This guy was going nuts.

"Turn to God or you'll all burn in Hell! God will not have mercy on sinners! If you have not been saved by Christ, you're doomed to an eternity of fiery torture!"

When we were leaving a mall in Seattle for honeymoon 2.0 (yes, honeymoon 2.0 - and we've only been married four months), we passed a group of folks holding signs of Bible verses about how all the sinners of the world were doomed.

And I really think that these people are doing it out of their own boldness in Christ, and even out of love for humanity.

But if we look at Paul as a model, his appeal of love isn't found in street preaching, condemning Onesimus to Hell. His appeal of love is found in a carefully crafted letter that states his case, why a life of Christian discipleship allows only for slavery to Christ and not keeping of our own slaves.

And so I go back to my response when I read something (shoot, even this passage itself) that I think the world needs to hear. If I go around trying to browbeat my latest revelation into people's heads without really stating my own understanding of how I think it's indicative of a life of Christian discipleship, I've missed the point.