Journeying with Paul...part fourteen

Journeying with Paul continued...

When I last left Paul he had been in Rome for two years, working and teaching all that came to him. From my research it appears that the next letter that Paul wrote was Philemon and so it is to that book that I will turn.

I do find it kind of...odd...strange...confusing...that my Bible, and the majority of Bibles out there, have a layout that has nothing to do with how the Scriptures were actually written. Instead of being able to read the letters that Paul wrote in what is believed to be the order he wrote them, although that is disputed, I must read them in some disjointed order based on which letter is longest.

And so I flipped through my Bible, passing notes that I have taken, dates of when I read what, to find Philemon, Paul's next letter.

Paul begins his letter, the book we call Philemon, with, 'Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus', telling us that he was a prisoner when he wrote this letter. He follows that enlightening statement by adding, 'and Timothy', which lets us know that Timothy is still with him.

What must it have meant to Paul to have Timothy with him during his imprisonment? How much help and comfort must Timothy have brought to Paul? How much companionship must he have given him?

We see in this letter, as Paul begins to give instructions to Philemon and those with him, that Paul refers to himself as an old man. I have no idea what Paul considers to be an old man. We must remember that Paul lived in a different time, a time when a person's life expectancy probably wasn't what ours is today. But we must also remember that age is just a number and what some people consider to be old may very well be young to someone else.

I must also wonder...basing my thoughts only on what I know of Paul through this study...how likely it was that Paul would have even kept track of his age. From what Scripture says, Paul looks at life through Christ. In other words, he judges life on earth based on what he knows of Christ, Christ is his measuring stick for everything. Paul chose to know nothing but Christ among men. Unless Paul knew what year he was born in, and I have no idea if he did or not, than how likely was it that Paul kept track of birthdays and his age? Paul's whole life, after his conversion, appears to have been lived for the simple, single minded purpose, of furthering the Gospel...for Christ. He had a burning desire for Christ and He spread that desire everywhere he went whether or not the people around him wanted to hear it.

I just can't picture Paul keeping track of his own birthday. He seemed to have no regard for himself beyond what he could do for the Lord.

Whether or not Paul knew his actual age, he considered himself an old man as evidenced by how he referred to himself in his letter to Philemon. Paul also refers to himself as the father of Onesimus. I'm not entirely sure what he means here. If I were to guess, I would say he became a mentor to Onesimus, adopting him as his own, teaching and instructing him. But we are simply told that he became the father of Onesimus during his imprisonment and that Onesimus is now useful to the recipients of the letter and also to Paul. We also see that Onesimus was with Paul for a while during his imprisonment, that he came from those with Philemon and that he is returning to them, that he left them as a bondservant and is returning to them as a brother.

We see in this letter that Paul hopes to join those that he is writing to for he tells them to prepare a room for him, that he hopes to join them through their prayers.So he has hopes of being freed from his imprisonment. He follows that statement by speaking of Epaphras, who is also a prisoner, and of Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, 'my fellow workers' so we know that Paul is far from alone. With this bit of information it would appear that there are at least seven believers with Paul, one of them imprisoned also.

And that brings us to the end of Paul's letter to Philemon. We gained very little insight into Paul's life with this letter and no longer have the guidance of the book of Acts, or any other book, to flesh out, so to speak, Paul's story for us. This bit of insight is all we have. And so, basically, we have learned only that Paul is still in prison, that he isn't alone, and that he is sending a 'brother' to a group of people that he hopes to join soon.

To be continued...