The Merciful MasterSample

The Grace of the Lord Jesus

In writing the concluding greetings Paul also includes the greetings of Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, his fellow workers in Rome. This is no mere courteous gesture but rather a deep bond of love among Christian brothers united in service to Jesus and His gospel! The apostle ends with a familiar benediction commending both Philemon and his family to the grace of God. The blessing is also a prayer that the grace of Jesus upon Philemon would cause him to extend the same grace to Onesimus. 

The epistle to Philemon ends, leaving us to wonder what happened next. Church tradition helps us reconstruct the rest of the story. It seems that Philemon freed Onesimus and sent him back to the apostle in Rome. Under Paul’s tutelage, Onesimus grew in grace to become a minister of the gospel. A letter from Ignatius of Antioch before his martyrdom mentions Onesimus as the bishop of the church at Ephesus. Onesimus served God’s flock during a time of immense persecution, succeeding Timothy who was the first bishop of Ephesus. Ignatius refers to Onesimus as a “man of inexpressible love” and exhorts the Ephesian church to be like their shepherd. The runaway slave who was shown gracious love by his master now becomes a model of love to emulate. Eventually, Onesimus was martyred for the faith. Such is the power of God’s grace in a person’s life that it takes a slave and a criminal and makes him a brother, bishop, and a martyr for the gospel! 

The epistle to Philemon bears no major doctrinal teaching or discernible code of ethics beyond a simple private word of grace. Yet the letter which the Lutheran Bible scholar, Johann Albrecht Bengel said, “surpasses all the wisdom of the world," is a revelation of the grace of God as a lived reality. Grace is no abstract concept. It is the compassion of God bringing forth life to sinners, by the death and resurrection of Jesus. This tremendous grace of God that is at work in a believer must be manifested in acts of holy love. The Christian loves because God first loved us (I John 4:19). Therefore, may we bear with each other and forgive one another as the Lord Jesus has forgiven us (Colossians 3:13). The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.